Get Outta My Face!: How to Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens with Biblical Counsel

by Rick Horne

Get Outta My Face!, written for Christian parents, teachers, and youth workers, is about reaching angry, unmotivated, disinterested teens with biblical counsel. Such teens confused and insecure - are selfish; they want what they want, right now. They are corrupted by sin and this corruption is the cause of their problem. Despite all their sin problems, they are still made in the image of God, and this is the key to helping them. This book will help with addressing the teen's sin and bringing them to their God-given desires and godly actions. Far from dismissing or sugarcoating sin, this approach opens wide the door to evangelizing the unsaved teen and to helping the Christian teen grow in holiness and wisdom.

Genres: Parenting, Christian, Counselling, Family, Nonfiction, Christianity, Religion

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2009

About the author

M. Div. (Reformed Episcopal Seminary), M. Ed. (West Chester University), D. Min. (Westminster Theological Seminary). With over 30 years in Christian school guidance and counseling, Rick is currently the Director of Guidance, Delaware County Christian School. He is the coordinator of the Graduate Concentration in School Guidance Counseling in the M.Ed. Curriculum and Instruction major at Columbia International University.

Rick is a frequent presenter for school counseling related CEU and graduate credit courses and continuing education Enablers in U.S. and international conventions sponsored by the Association of Christian Schools International. ACSI has published three of his books about school guidance and counseling and one title dealing with scornful attitudes in the Christian school. Rick and his wife Betty have been married 39 years and have five married children, nine grandchildren, and one high school senior.

Reviews

[Butch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Practical Help to build a bridge to a teen and the gospel

This book provides a good structure for helping to bridge communication that has broken down and would be helpful for almost any parent with preteen/teens. But don't stop with the method - use it to engage your child's heart desires and bring them to the gospel.

[Mikejencostanzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a parent and counselor, author Rick Horne has developed a time-tested method to work through with your angry teen.

While everything about Horne’s method of teaching is intended to be helpful, some readers may find the precision of his style to be too demanding. There are several numbered lists of instructions to apply. Personally, I found myself wondering how I would possibly remember which one to use in any given situation.

Also, some readers may find Horne’s heavily scripted approach to be overwhelming if they believe they have to “get it perfect” and “remember their lines.”

The main takeaway I personally hope to use from “Get Outta My Face” is Horne’s most fundamental acrostic: LCLP (Listen Big, Clarify Narrow, Look Wide, Plan Small). This insightful concept is definitely worth the price of the book, I just might have preferred a different teaching style. I hope to apply LCLP in a non-scripted, more intuitive way in my own conversations with my boys as they grow into the teenage years.

~Jen

[Lyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was recommended to me. I can’t speak to its usefulness - as anger and a lack of motivation are not really problems I have with my teens. Not saying I don’t have any, just these aren’t it.

The books is heavy on Bible verses, context, examples etc to drive a point home and light on workable examples, solutions, suggestions etc.

Some of the example conversations come off really patronizing or repetitive, too.

I’m sure this book can be helpful to understand a teens pov and may help reframe the way you see things or the way you communicate with them. It just wasn’t very applicable or helpful to me.

[Hunter Guiton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many parents and youth workers often struggle to relate or connect with troubled teens. While the reasons for this are endless, it seems that they can ultimately boil down to a few key things. Either the adult is not listening, the teenager does not feel heard, or neither party is willing to give enough ground for the other to speak. This can often lead to highly frustrating conflicts that at best cause tension and at worst end in completely severed and unrepairable relationships. Get Outta My Face is an insightful book by Rick Horne that counsels parents and leaders to counsel teens from a Biblical perspective.
Get Outta My Face is written in three parts. Part I, “What you must understand to connect with your teen,” explores both a Biblical perspective on who the teen is and who the counselor is. Horne begins the book’s conversation by exploring the ideas of wise wants, common grace, our identities as God’s image bearers, and the necessary stances of humility and the sole determination to glorify God for the presented methods to work. For this section of the book, a good pairing might be Hurt 2.0, an Ethnographic study on teens done by Chap Clark. In his study, Clark observed that “The loss of meaningful relationships with adults has been the most devastating to developing adolescents.” This, alongside many other observations, could help a counselor paint a picture of the teenager’s world alongside Horne’s already-painted picture of who they are Biblically.
Part II, “What you must do to help your teen,” explains what Horne calls the LCLP method. This method is comprised of listening big, clarifying narrow, looking wide, and planning small. When we listen big, we are making “quatements”, which Horne describes as “statements that are spoken somewhat like questions.” These in themselves, however, are not the end goal for listening big. Rather, the end goal is that the teenager feels heard and the counselor better understands where he is coming from.
The second portion of LCLP is to clarify narrow. When we clarify narrow, we are asking questions to “Expose the realities of your teen’s experience.” Horne makes it clear throughout this chapter that the idea is now to present the teen with real opportunities for change through their preexisting wise wants, held by common grace.
Once this is done, the counselor may move to the step of looking wide, when he will find times in the teen’s life in which he has succeeded in overcoming his present negative situation. Horne essentially suggests that the counselor reverse-engineer the positive situation with the teen and produce from it a possible real-life step to remedy his situation. This will aid in beginning the stage of short term solutions.
Finally, the counselor can plan small. By planning small, the counselor seeks the goal of allowing the teen to lay out practical things he or she can do in a short time period to remedy his or her situation. One clarification of this stage is that the steps must be both measurable and attainable. The author gives an example of a kid who presented the solution of taking notes in class. At first, the student proposed that he do so all five days of the school week. Knowing that this goal was measurable but not necessarily immediately attainable, the counselor was able to rein the teenager’s proposal in to a more attainable goal of taking notes in class three days. This allowed for him to hit his goal and potentially have the positive reward of going above and beyond it.
After the LCLP method, the author presented a brief part III in which he clarified the importance of centering our hope on Jesus Christ. He expressed, “Before we finish this book, however, you need to be aware that the strengths of the LCLP approach can also become its weaknesses. The ultimate goal of everything we have discussed is to lead the young person either to an initial understanding of the cross or to a deeper understanding of the cross. If you are genuinely interested in the welfare of your young adult, the cross must be your final goal. This reminder, alongside some warnings about using the method as an end in itself rather than a means to an end, clarified the place all of these methods need to be in relative to the cross.
Positive Elements
Rick Horne is a talented writer who clearly has experience in the field of Biblical Counseling. His words were smooth, his writing easy to follow, and he did not sacrifice depth to make this possible. He also employed multiple stories stemming from real experiences that should instill confidence in the reader that exceeds one merely provided by some well-written theory. Finally, Horne heavily references in-context scripture throughout the corpus of his writing. It is incredibly encouraging to read a work on Biblical counseling that makes the Bible its sole foundation.
If I had one complaint about this book, it would be the pitfall of moralism Horne warns against. Throughout the book, Horne writes of several solutions already within the teen by means of common grace. At the end of the book, he does clarify that “If you are not clear with your angry teen that this hope is based in Christ, it will become a hope that is false and ultimately self-reliant.” This is a great warning, and many akin to it can be found throughout the book and in the final two chapters. But someone who advocates so strongly for positive reinforcement should have contained a bit more positive reinforcement for dependence on God concerning true life change. Knowing his writing style and deep understanding of scripture, I would have gladly read an additional chapter or two in the section written on lasting change.
Biblical Analysis
Recently, I taught a Sunday school lesson on Genesis 35. In the story, Jacob is called by God to return to Bethel, the place where he had encountered God through the dream we often call “Jacob’s ladder.” Upon God’s request, Jacob instructs his household to “put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: And let. Us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the way which I went.” (Genesis 35:2b-3)
Many principles stand out in the Genesis 35 account. First, Jacob is removing from his household a negative action that has plagued them for a long time. Their sin, just like Jacob’s lies, was likely an attempt at manifesting the positive desire for blessing. In fact, all sin could be explained as a negative way of addressing a positive desire. Jacob, then, takes every measure to eradicate this action within his household. He tells them to “put away the strange gods…and change your garments.” David Brown explains that they were to change their garments “as if some defilement, from contact with idolatry, should still remain about them.”
The commitment to eradicating sin here is quite astonishing, but it is not by any means the end of the story. Jacob says in verse four, “And I will make there an altar unto God.” His eradication of a negative action with a positive aim is immediately replaced by a positive action with a positive aim. He also attributes the ability to commit such an action to God rather than to himself, stating that God “answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.” Later, Jacob reaps the benefits as his name is finally changed by God from Jacob to Israel.
The reason I referenced this passage is because its foundational principle is essentially the same as the book. True change only comes from God, and it is only made possible by eradicating negative action and replacing it with positive action that ultimately guides the participant into a reality where God is glorified, and wise wants are satisfied. The role of the counselor is merely to use the Biblically proven methods of listening big, clarifying narrow, looking wide, and planning small to facilitate and encourage those changes. It is imperative to note, finally, that just as Jacob’s name was, in the end, changed to Israel. The end goal for the teen is that he would, only by God’s grace, be included in the new name given “to him that overcometh.” (Revelation 2:17) This restoration can only occur when the counselor points the teen to Jesus alone.
Get Outta My Face is an insightful book by Rick Horne that counsels parents and leaders to counsel teens from a Biblical perspective. For this reason, I would endorse this book for any Christian counselor, parent, or youth leader looking to better connect with teens and influence them for positive change. While I did have a couple of minor qualms in the book, it mostly had to do with the absence of more writing to prove the points the author was making. In the future, I will be looking out for more of this author’s writing and seeking to implement his advice in much of my own ministry.

[Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was going to give this book four stars until I read the last chapter. Until then, I felt like the Gospel had been missing from this book and it felt like a bunch of Biblically principled tips on talking to angry teenagers. This seemed out of balance, although I thought the counsel throughout was helpful and Biblical. But the last chapter held out the hope and "destination" of the gospel after you have built a bridge with an angry teen through the communication approached he outlines. In fact, he argues that without the Gospel the approach he spent 165 pages on could be seen as Biblically informed moralism. I would recommend this book for parents, school administrators, teachers, and youth pastors as a tool for working with angry and unmotivated teens. There is some helpful guidelines and case studies that I'm sure many will relate to.

[Brandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of great points in this book, but it seems to be less about biblical “counsel” (as the title states) and more about communication techniques and behavior management (with some Bible verses sprinkled in). In my opinion, Lou Priolo’s books for children, teens, and parents are much better.

[Lindstromsteph Lindstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read book for parents, teachers, aunts, uncles with young adults at home , ages 10 and up. Get Out of My Face teaches Biblical communication skills based mostly out of Proverbs. The points that are taught are Listen Big, Clarify Narrow, Look Wide, Plan Small.

[Cristina Solorzano · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read book, especially if you have teenagers. I loved the fact that has many examples on how to apply the method. This is a manual, I need to have it handy and read it more than once. Highly recommended.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for reaching teens that seem unreachable. Would be helpful to show more extended examples that mimic a full conversation with the twists and turns that parents and teens will take; much if not all of the conversations provided were examples of the technique desired.

[Brian Derksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book from a Biblical Christian counsellor. He has a great understanding of the dynamics with teens. And all of it in perspective understanding the sinfulness of the parent and teen. Highly recommend this one.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a few quibbles early on, but, overall, this is a pretty solid read. Now if I can just remember to put the principles I've learned into practice!

[Henry Seenivasagam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to build bridge in communication with an angry teenager. Very practical. The ending of the book is great challenging parents to look for the ultimate solution in Christ Jesus.

[Doug Rumbold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful resource for parents of teens and for any biblical counselor/mentor.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers excellent advice for parents, teachers, and counselors of teens, especially those who are angry.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise is to help adults (parents, counselors) see teenagers and spend time seeing things from their perspective. He begins in the introduction presenting eight ways to see teenagers with a biblical lense. This includes treating them with respect and recognizing that they are sinners, as are we all. Also that there are wise wants within each of us, including angry teenagers. He uses this fact to bring hope to the situation. We can help them identify their wise wants, encourage those good things, and then help them find their own solutions to help take actions that will achieve those good things.

The author does a good job of reminding us that teenagers are old enough to take responsibility for their own actions and to be trusted with this growing maturity, but also points out that many things we see as obvious are not obvious to them. The section on helping them see that actions and consequences do connect was helpful for me. For example, not recognizing how actions can have results can lead to hopelessness, and feeling there is no control over anything.[return:][return:]He also stresses that the teenager does have choices, even though one of those choices is to continue the same behavior that has resulted in the bad results they have gotten so far. This is brought out well in a page talking about how change is hard (don't we all know that) and it can seem easier to them at times to just stay the way they are and pay the price. So you have to keep before these teens their own words about how the unpleasantness they are getting has been messing everything up.

The main section talks about listening to identify the things they don't want, then helping them clarify where they do have control and why they would want to make the effort to change. After that you help them find times they have taken good actions and had good consequences and using those experiences to craft solutions to current issues and then planning small steps to begin to make those changes.

He ends with a reminder that all of this is good and useful and biblical, but the main goal should be to point the teenager to Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The author uses the book of Proverbs to show the biblical wisdom in the approach and actions to help guide a young person to their own self-evaluation and actions.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horne does a commendable job here outlining a very specific strategy for dealing with and counseling angry teens. I tend to be skeptical of books that list xx steps to success, but the steps Horne proposes are simple and seem to be effective. The book has challenged me to be more deliberate when I counsel teens, specifically in the areas of asking better, more positive questions and in helping them identify and obtain what will make them happy.

2 minor gripes.
I do wish the author would have had a section more toward the beginning about pointing teens to the cross. It seems to have been tacked on to the very end; Christ's redemptive work is not really integrated into the rest of his strategy. He does reference The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict which, in my opinion, is a much more fleshed out, and Biblical approach. His whole premise centers around getting teens to identify and obtain what they want--that which will make them happy (and not angry). It is only at the end of the books where he mentions, in one short chapter, that changes will not stick without true heart change only found in the Gospel.

Second, I do wish there was less redundancy within the book. For such a short book, the author spent a great deal paraphrasing what was to come and also reviewing what had already been stated. In my opinion, this was not necessary, but I'm sure some may find it helpful.

Overall, a helpful, and seemingly effective approach to talking with teens about issues they may be facing.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for help in ministering to teens who are struggling to live in the world their parents have created for them. The really sad thing is that there is nothing in the book about parents taking responsibility for the way their kids turned out. I'm not talking about beating up a parent, I'm talking about beginning the restoration discussion by having the parents confess their sins to the kids and then changing how they live with them. The how they live with them part is what the book is about and, though it is pretty schmaltzy in the way Horne wants you to talk to a kid, it is very good. It just loses something when the parents don't take responsibility for their parenting when the kids were being formed in the first place.

If you child is out of control, angry, thinks you're an idiot, then this book is for you. Don't let my comments deter you from reading it and applying it.

You could begin by doing a study on how to raise godly kids and then, because it is too late for you and your child, confess those sins, and apply this book as you try to restore your fellowship.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this book a second time as I was having issues regarding with one of my teenagers. This book is excellent, not because I followed the recommendations and things improved, but because it caused me to honestly evaluate myself. I was guilty of treating my teenagers harshly and unloving, and this book convicted me of my offenses. It is based on the book of Proverbs and the advice is based on biblical principles. I would recommend this book even to those who are not followers of Christ as the advice makes common sense. The book did not just give vague information that one would have to figure out how to apply to their situation. Rather, it was detailed and laid out in a logical order of application.

Thank you so much Mr. Horne for this great work. Soli deo Gloria!

[Tonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sound, biblical and worth reading again. This book makes
so many good points, I am going to go back, read it again,
highlight everything that I can call on -- Proverbs is such
a help to parents and youth alike, telling us what the Father
expects.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile read for anyone who deals with teens (parents, youthworkers, etc.), regardless of how angry they are. Gives you some good tools and ways to help defuse situations and work towards the positive.

[Micah Lugg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really helped by this book. Horne provides a great paradigm for connecting with students who are stuck in their own selfish perspective on life. I would recommend this book to all youth workers and parents.

[Joe Molinari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though there are a variety of issues that this book does not address, there was plenty of good counsel and perspective to ponder. This is probably a good book to read alongside Priolo's Heart of Anger.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gook book that got me thinking about how I am treating my son as he begins his teen years. Using some of the techniques to work with him on issues... so far going well.

[Eric Durso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. Read it on kindle and I think I'm gonna go back and get the print edition. Has a lot of wisdom.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid but easily digestible counseling practices common to biblical and secular counseling, with good biblical foundations. Good layperson's introduction.