The Grown-Up's Guide to Teenage Humans: How to Decode Their Behavior, Develop Unshakable Trust, and Raise a Respectable Adult

Harvard's Center on the Developing Child found that every kid who succeeds in the face of adversity has had at least one committed relationship with a supportive adult. But Josh Shipp didn't need Harvard to understand that. Once an at-risk foster kid, he was facing down a bleak future that was likely to include prison or homelessness--until he met the grown-up who changed his life. Enter Rodney, the foster parent who refused to quit on Shipp and finally got him to believe in himself.

Now, in The Grown-Up's Guide to Teenage Humans, Shipp shows us how to be that sort of caring adult in a teenager's life. Stressing the need for mutual respect, trust, and encouragement, he identifies three key mindsets crucial to understanding teens. He breaks down the distinct phases of teenage life, examining the challenges at each phase, and offers revelatory stories that take us deep inside the teen brain.

Shipp also shares field-tested, game-changing strategies from top professionals and provides word-for-word scripts that troubleshoot over twenty common teen issues, including:

• OWNERSHIP: When my teen messes up, how can I help them take ownership?
• COMMUNICATION: How do I get a teen to talk to me? They just grunt.
• TRUST: My teen blew it and lost my trust. Where do we go from here?
• BULLYING: Help! A teen is being harassed--online or face-to-face.
• DIFFICULT & AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS: Drugs. Death. Sex. Oh my.

Written in Shipp's playful but authoritative voice, The Grown-Up's Guide to Teenage Humans lays out unflinchingly practical ways to make a difference in a teen's life. As Shipp reminds us, raising a respectable adult comes down to investing in teens and giving them the boundaries, time, and support they need to thrive. 

And that means every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story.