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The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies that Work for Your Teenager
Written in a smart, funny, and friendly tone, The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager helps you translate what your teen thinks, feels, and does to give you practical ways of supporting your teen, from adolescence into adulthood. Learn to strategize wisely, taking into account both the current American culture of adolescents and your particular teen's biology, temperament, and developmental challenges.
This highly accessible book is informed by the latest research on adolescent development, effects of digital media on youth and identity formation, relationships, sexuality and trends in drug and alcohol use, drawing on work in such diverse fields as clinical psychology, cognitive neuroscience, epigenetics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and religious studies. Michael Simon uses his 25 years of work with teens as a psychotherapist, school counselor, and parent to help make your job easier as a parent, educator or health professional.
The Approximate Parent is a must-have if you have a teen in your house...or want to support the teens in your life.
This title is also available for the Kindle in serialized form, allowing you to buy one chapter at a time, or the entire book.
This highly accessible book is informed by the latest research on adolescent development, effects of digital media on youth and identity formation, relationships, sexuality and trends in drug and alcohol use, drawing on work in such diverse fields as clinical psychology, cognitive neuroscience, epigenetics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and religious studies. Michael Simon uses his 25 years of work with teens as a psychotherapist, school counselor, and parent to help make your job easier as a parent, educator or health professional.
The Approximate Parent is a must-have if you have a teen in your house...or want to support the teens in your life.
This title is also available for the Kindle in serialized form, allowing you to buy one chapter at a time, or the entire book.
- GenresParenting
510 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 14, 2012
3 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
About the author
Michael Y. Simon
12 books3 followersMichael Y. Simon, LMFT is the author of
The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Oakland, California. Michael is a sought-after local and national speaker on the subjects of teens and families and has worked with thousands of children, youth and families since 1990. He served for many years as a high school counselor, ran or developed programs that directly served children from birth to 18 and taught psychology, philosophy and religious studies at several American universities.
Michael is also the founder of Practical Help for Parents —a support organization for parents, educators and mental health professionals who work daily in support of adolescents. Most importantly, he’s the proud parent of a sweet, kind, 26 year-old man who, as a teenager, couldn’t be bribed to write a paragraph, and as an adult, would like nothing more than to write for a living. How’s that for neural plasticity?
The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Oakland, California. Michael is a sought-after local and national speaker on the subjects of teens and families and has worked with thousands of children, youth and families since 1990. He served for many years as a high school counselor, ran or developed programs that directly served children from birth to 18 and taught psychology, philosophy and religious studies at several American universities.
Michael is also the founder of Practical Help for Parents —a support organization for parents, educators and mental health professionals who work daily in support of adolescents. Most importantly, he’s the proud parent of a sweet, kind, 26 year-old man who, as a teenager, couldn’t be bribed to write a paragraph, and as an adult, would like nothing more than to write for a living. How’s that for neural plasticity?
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 25, 2013
Editorial Reviews
“The Approximate Parent is a must read for all parents...It is an insightful guide, a tool that can make a difference in your parenting style to get results. A definite 5 star read in my book.” Reader Views (January 2013)
If you are the parent of a teenager and you are paying any attention at all, you know that, besides dealing with the classic adolescent issues, your child is negotiating an environment that has been radically redefined by the new media the Internet, iPhone, Facebook world. If you are at all self-aware, you probably realize that you don t understand that environment very well. There are plenty of media experts out there and plenty of parenting experts too maybe too many - but, in Michael Simon, you have someone whose life's work has been in media theory and adolescent development. He has mastered the literature in both fields and has been putting it all to work as a high school counselor and therapist for almost 20 years. That is an extraordinary qualification and, with every innovation in technological connectivity, it becomes more and more essential. The Approximate Parent is a brilliant synthesis of theory and practice, of research and application that aims directly at how teenagers actually live in this mediated world. --Thomas de Zengotita, Ph.D., anthropologist, teacher at New York University and the Dalton School and award-winning author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It
Michael Simon knows more about teenagers than anyone I know. For years, he has been helping parents all over the United States in his popular speaking series on parenting adolescents. Now, in The Approximate Parent, parents can benefit from Michael's unique perspective by reading his book. This is not a simple 7 Steps to a Happy Teen type of book, because Simon knows his subject matter too well, and has too much respect for parents to oversimplify something as constantly evolving as adolescence and as humbling as parenting. Combining ethics, philosophy, science, psychology and sociology, Michael has written a book that may forever change how you look at your teen, and at the same time, provide you with all of the tools you need to get them where they need to go. The Approximate Parent is a meticulously researched and psychologically solid book. I learned a lot and know that you will too. Highly recommended!! --Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., psychologist, national parenting expert, television and radio personality, and author When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don t Get Along and The Marriage Makeover
Parenting teenagers is a risky business that requires the development of healthy risk-taking skills for parents as well as adolescents. Michael Simon's book, The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager , offers an important blueprint for parents who want to learn these skills. Michael also recognizes that parenting teenagers is neither black or white nor good or bad. Instead, it is a process of growing closer closer to your adolescent, yourself as a parent, and most important, closer to what works best for your relationship. Michael's non dogmatic approach is truly heartening. ----Lynn Ponton, M.D., Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UCSF, is an international expert on adolescents and risk taking and the author of The Romance of Risk and The Sex Lives of Teenagers
"Parenting isn't a science, and finding the exact answer is pretty hopeless. "The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager" is a parenting guide that affirms for parents that no parent is perfect, and working with your teen is the key to being the best parent one can be, facing the realities of biology, development, and culture. Michael Simon presents his two and one-half decades of experience to help readers better meet their job as a parent. "The Approximate Parent" is worth considering for any parent who has the weight of perfection on their shoulders, driving then down into insanity."
Midwest Book Review, August 2012
“The Approximate Parent is a must read for all parents...It is an insightful guide, a tool that can make a difference in your parenting style to get results. A definite 5 star read in my book.” Reader Views (January 2013)
If you are the parent of a teenager and you are paying any attention at all, you know that, besides dealing with the classic adolescent issues, your child is negotiating an environment that has been radically redefined by the new media the Internet, iPhone, Facebook world. If you are at all self-aware, you probably realize that you don t understand that environment very well. There are plenty of media experts out there and plenty of parenting experts too maybe too many - but, in Michael Simon, you have someone whose life's work has been in media theory and adolescent development. He has mastered the literature in both fields and has been putting it all to work as a high school counselor and therapist for almost 20 years. That is an extraordinary qualification and, with every innovation in technological connectivity, it becomes more and more essential. The Approximate Parent is a brilliant synthesis of theory and practice, of research and application that aims directly at how teenagers actually live in this mediated world. --Thomas de Zengotita, Ph.D., anthropologist, teacher at New York University and the Dalton School and award-winning author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It
Michael Simon knows more about teenagers than anyone I know. For years, he has been helping parents all over the United States in his popular speaking series on parenting adolescents. Now, in The Approximate Parent, parents can benefit from Michael's unique perspective by reading his book. This is not a simple 7 Steps to a Happy Teen type of book, because Simon knows his subject matter too well, and has too much respect for parents to oversimplify something as constantly evolving as adolescence and as humbling as parenting. Combining ethics, philosophy, science, psychology and sociology, Michael has written a book that may forever change how you look at your teen, and at the same time, provide you with all of the tools you need to get them where they need to go. The Approximate Parent is a meticulously researched and psychologically solid book. I learned a lot and know that you will too. Highly recommended!! --Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., psychologist, national parenting expert, television and radio personality, and author When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don t Get Along and The Marriage Makeover
Parenting teenagers is a risky business that requires the development of healthy risk-taking skills for parents as well as adolescents. Michael Simon's book, The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager , offers an important blueprint for parents who want to learn these skills. Michael also recognizes that parenting teenagers is neither black or white nor good or bad. Instead, it is a process of growing closer closer to your adolescent, yourself as a parent, and most important, closer to what works best for your relationship. Michael's non dogmatic approach is truly heartening. ----Lynn Ponton, M.D., Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UCSF, is an international expert on adolescents and risk taking and the author of The Romance of Risk and The Sex Lives of Teenagers
"Parenting isn't a science, and finding the exact answer is pretty hopeless. "The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager" is a parenting guide that affirms for parents that no parent is perfect, and working with your teen is the key to being the best parent one can be, facing the realities of biology, development, and culture. Michael Simon presents his two and one-half decades of experience to help readers better meet their job as a parent. "The Approximate Parent" is worth considering for any parent who has the weight of perfection on their shoulders, driving then down into insanity."
Midwest Book Review, August 2012
August 27, 2022
I recieved this book in Goodreads first reads and it has amazing information. A very good book to help understand teens better and strategies that are amazing and helpful. A must read to those with teens and those who need helpful infomation on how to deal with them and guide them.
dearly-departed
March 10, 2014Won as part of the Goodreads first reads program. Review to come.
September 25, 2012
I received this as a first reads and think has really good info! this will come in handy once my little girl gets to those teen years *yikes*
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews