Parents, mentors and teachers – this one’s for you! x

One of the benefits of being in lockdown is that I have been able to read more *swoon*. I’ve just finished a superamazing book and I’d like to tell you all about it in the hopes that you’ll go and read it for yourselves! That book is The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans by legendary global youth empowerment expert, Josh Shipp. 

Josh is something of a superstar in the parenting world. His ability to work with and speak to teens has seen him be promoted by the likes of Oprah and Tony Robbins, and to top this off, the way he writes is engaging, humorous, anti-fluff, down to earth and super, super practical (I realise I am using the word ‘super’ a lot in this post… but I think that’s appropriate given the calibre of this guy’s work). 

Following a moving and deeply inspiring introduction, where we get to know teenage Josh and the challenges he faced growing up, the book is divided into 3 parts: Mindsets (yours and theirs); Phases (classified by both age and thinking); and Troubleshooting (everything from drug use to unfair teachers, and from bullying to effective communication). Choc full of fascinating research and peppered with statistics, the first two parts both reaffirmed and taught me so much – from a teaching/mentoring perspective, and in terms of just how much more challenging it must be as a parent (I’ve tucked away this info for my own future reference!) My main takeaways were (as significant adults in our teens’ lives): looking beyond the behaviour; knowing that actually more than anything, teens want you as part of their lives (in spite of what it seems!); and to remember that we are the adults in the situation – remaining as mentor-y and objective as possible as the key people they can learn from… because, in the end, that’s what parenting, teaching and mentoring is all about!

One thing that many parenting books lack is the practical how-to of their advice. Not so for this epic tome! Part 3’s troubleshooting guide is actually amazing. It has scenarios, examples for you to use (eg screen use agreements, house rules, ways to connect with your teen…), dialogues to prepare you for conversations (with very realistic teen responses!) and it actually goes there with many of those taboo topics we may feel totally unprepared to discuss or want to deal with (think drugs, pornography, sexting, death, eating disorders…. And on and on). Josh has harnessed the advice and research of experts in each field to ensure you are getting the best advice possible in relation to these issues, something which is so very important given the gravity of many of them.

I’d give this book a 10/10. I literally cannot think of how it could be any better (unless it came with a pocket version of Josh Shipp for advice on the go). You can find it on Amazon here and Josh’s website is here. Enjoy!

Lots of love and sparkles x

Bec