The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction Paperback – February 18, 2020

I adore this book. I can't stop sharing it with parents and the professionals I speak to. As a mom to 2 teens, a child psychotherapist and parenting author, I find this book essential reading for anyone who is investing in the life of a teenager. Dr. Carter identifies the problems that contribute to the high numbers of anxiety and depression in teens, and then gives DOABLE, practical strategies that are protective, are building skills, and are nurturing our relationships with our teens. Based in science, with a voice of a mom who has teens now, it truly is a must-have.

This is the third book I have read about adolescence and it is funny, useful, and works. I really enjoyed the audible while driving.

Christine Carter does not shirk from the challenges of raising teens in a world that's changing faster than any of us can easily manage. She lays it out for parents who must learn to pay attention, show compassion and really SEE how their teens are dealing with the precariousness of these times. The great thing is that Carter always remains optimistic and full of love for our amazing generation of NEW ADOLESCENTS.

I recomend this book to every parent of tweens out there our kids are growing so fast in this very high tech environment and us parents need to prepare more in order to help them tribe in this world

Love this book. Has so many practical tips--that are actually feasible. She has done all the research. I'm employing a cell phone contract ASAP. This book would be great for any parent with probably a 4th grader and up...

This book will be referenced plenty on the years to come in my work as a mental health provider in the schools, as well as heavily utilized as a parent to my own three children. It spoke deeply to my growing concerns of the overwhelming challenges of these technologically obsessed times we live in and it's impact on our children's (and our own) well being. Christine Carter delivers with humor, like a friend in a coffee shop, only instead of getting opinions you are actually receiving a wealth of information based on years of science and research. I am so grateful to have learned about it and all of her work many years ago and will continue to follow her in the future. I bought the audiobook, but now must have the written version to reference regularly! Get it.

It is odd how well she reviews existing data regarding screen time, sleep and other important areas, because this ability to invoke data driven recommendations is shockingly missing in one important area of this book. The sex chapter. Ch 6 I think? At first I assumed this was due the ideological capture of the publishing industry. But then she admits "one of my daughters is queer." This is actually the perfect snapshot of one of many of the subtypes of the new LGBTQ+ kids. Wealthy white kids who are straight but feel guilty about, well, everything since they have those original sins, on paper this kid is "an oppressor." What's a kid to do? The only option available is to run to the open arms of the queer tent and throw off the cloak of "cis-heteronormativity" by adopting a new identity. Safe from self-recrimination in the realm of "oppressed," she can continue to live exactly how she did before (straight girl dating boys, the author says as much), and even feel very powerful as she re-educates her parents on the vast nonbinary spectrum of gender and sex.The problem is that while some of these girls are LARPing at oppression, all too many of the more vulnerable kids will enter on the gateway drug of simply "questioning" but become captured by the algorithms that take them further down the rabbit hole. Google Jeffrey Marsh if you need an example of creepy faux-love from an internet stranger they will find, telling them their parents are toxic and the way forward includes affirmation, blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery.If you want an actual data driven, compassionate, non-judgmental deep dive into the gender industrial medical complex, the renowned British investigative journalist Hannah Barnes " Time to Think" will provide it. If you want to know what to DO about it if your child is flirting with gender issues, Abigail Shrier's "irreversible Damage" is a place to start.Carter, I'm embarrassed how easily you caved to whatever bullies at your publisher (or under your own roof?) who allowed you to ignore your better judgment and ignore the tremendous amount of data that is signaling a tsunami on the horizon as we as a society begin to see what we have wrought on our most mentally fragile children.You talk about the scourge of ubiquitous internet porn on kids as young as NINE but missed the well-documented influence this exposure has on kids. The weird, unnatural porn sex has the documented effect of putting them more at risk of sexual exploitation or of attempting to escape what they mistakenly think their gender requires of them. Read a few detransitioner stories like Chloe Cole's and you'll notice several trends. These kids, almost universally, had WAY too much screen time with unfettered access to social media and porn. Seeing what "womanhood" looks like via trashy porn, their little brains went looking for an escape hatch and found one.You emphasize how the adolescent brain is undeveloped until age 25. You laud the importance of consent in all things. Yet you think they are capable of giving informed consent to a blocker at age 9? (Yes, this is documented, as young as NINE). Almost no one goes off blockers without progressing the irreversible and sterilizing cross sex hormones, so a child who isn't big enough for most rollercoaster can agree to a shortened life-expectancy full of documented dangers to their bones, heart, brain, metabolic health, not to mention increased (yes increased) risk of depression and suicide? And since you speak about telling your kids the joys of sex, it should matter to you that kids who opt out of their natural puberty via blockers and opposite sex hormones, the current evidence suggests it's not possible for them to have an orgasm. Like ever. How can they consent to losing something they've never experienced? You can't experience full adult orgasm until you go through puberty. So a child could never understand what it means to throw away not only a lifetime of sexual health and experience.On the subject of consent, your inclusion of such personal details about your own kids is exploitative, no matter what they agreed to. Their 35 year old self will be mortified that mom documented their "gender queer" phase for all the world to see.

I’m not sure why this book is getting such rave reviews. I personally felt that it comes from a privileged, sheltered point of view. Perhaps helpful if you (and your children) don’t have any significant or real challenges? Or if you’ve never read or heard anything about parenting a human?What I got through was obvious. Nothing bad, but also nothing new or especially insightful. Once I got to the chapter about attention, I gave up. The author reminisces about how much easier it was to focus on schoolwork back when she attended boarding school and had a set time to do homework in a library with her classmates every night, all the while watched over by an adult who could help them if they needed anything. Yes, I imagine all our kids would be doing better if they had those advantages, and to the tune of 65k a year for tuition! It was at this point that I realized who this book is for, and it’s not me.And don’t get me started on the complete glossing over of what ADHD is, either — that alone was shockingly incomplete, dismissive and used only to buttress a tired, uninspired argument about modern distractions. This sort of oversimplification by someone who holds herself up as an “expert” only serves to continue the stigma and judgement surrounding what is actually a very real and debilitating condition.