How to hug a porcupine : negotiating the prickly points of the tween years

**"You never listen to anything I say!"** Yesterday, your child was a sweet, well-adjusted eight-year-old. Today, a moody, disrespectful twelve-year-old. What happened? And more important, how do you handle it? How you respond to these whirlwind changes will not only affect your child's behavior now but will determine how he or she turns out later. Julie A. Ross, executive director of Parenting Horizons, shows you exactly what's going on with your child and provides all the tools you need to correctly handle even the prickliest tween porcupine. - Find out how other parents survived nightmarish tween behavior—and still raised great kids - Break the "nagging cycle," give your kids responsibilities, and get results - Talk about sex, drugs, and alcohol so your kid will listen - Discover the secret that will help your child to disregard peer pressure and make smart choices—for life "This excellent book lets parents peek into the underlying, confusing thoughts and perplexing decisions that young tweens are constantly facing." —Ralph I. López, M.D., Clinical Professor or Pediatrics, Cornell University, and author of __The Teen Health Book__

“You never listen to anything I say!”

Yesterday, your child was a sweet, well-adjusted eight-year-old. Today, a moody, disrespectful twelve-year-old. What happened? And more important, how do you handle it? How you respond to these whirlwind changes will not only affect your child's behavior now but will determine how he or she turns out later. Julie A. Ross, executive director of Parenting Horizons, shows you exactly what's going on with your child and provides all the tools you need to correctly handle even the prickliest tween porcupine.

• Find out how other parents survived nightmarish tween behavior—and still raised great kids
• Break the “nagging cycle,” give your kids responsibilities, and get results
• Talk about sex, drugs, and alcohol so your kid will listen
• Discover the secret that will help your child to disregard peer pressure and make smart choices—for life

"This excellent book lets parents peek into the underlying, confusing thoughts and perplexing decisions that young tweens are constantly facing."
—Ralph I. López, M.D., Clinical Professor or Pediatrics, Cornell University, and author of The Teen Health Book

Publishers Weekly

With a boatload of information, tools, techniques and other options, author and parenting expert Ross (Joint Custody with a Jerk) helps moms and dads achieve the seemingly contradictory goals of successful preadolescent management: protection from the real world and preparation for it. Drawing on her work with parents in individual and group settings (she's currently director of a parent and teacher education company), Ross presents readers with a series of issues likely to crop up during the middle school years. Topics range from dealing with defiance to encouraging self-esteem, defusing sibling rivalry and, of course, talking about sex and drugs. Ross focuses on effort rather than results, elucidating the benefits of "listening with heart," how to run effective family meetings and what communications styles are best for clearing up negative dynamics. Emphasizing relationships over rules, Ross shows readers how to establish a rapport on which the family can rely in the middle school years and beyond. Ross's central metaphor, "tweens" as prickly-but-loveable porcupines, is funny and effective, and her writing style is easy-going, making this an accessible and practical primer.
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One of the most recognized parenting experts in the country offers specific strategies for parents of fifth to eighth graders to help them shift from a controlling to a relationship approach as youngsters move from childhood to adolescence, covering such topics as peer pressure, body image, sibling rivalry, puberty, and more. Original. 20,000 first printing. Shows parents how to talk to their kids about peer pressure, raging hormones, mood swings, body image, computer "addiction," sibling rivalry, and other prickly issues. This book offers techniques, which help you shift from a "controlling" to a "relationship" approach - proving that it is possible to hug a porcupine, once you know how.