The Back Door to Your Teen's Heart: Learning What They Need and Helping Them Find It

by Trevathan, Melissa; Goff, Sissy

• ISBN13: 9780736908375
• ISBN10: 0736908374
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Harvest House Pub

Summary

For parents and educators who struggle with monosyllabic, emotional, and sometimes sullen teens, there is hope. Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff have been on the adolescent front-line for 15 years, running a counseling ministry for teens. In their thoughtful, practical book, they share a concept that has worked for them time and again: the "back door."

Just as Christ continually offers us a relationship with Him without forcing our response, parents, too, need to invite their children to participate in relationship. In The Back Door to Your Teen's Heart, Melissa and Sissy use examples from their counseling practice and time-proven principles to show how true and lasting connections with adolescents are forged.

Some steps to the "back door" include...
-- Unpredictability: giving kids choices, not announcements
-- Softening: creating a place where teens feel safe and free to be honest
-- Shaping: the role of mutual respect in molding a teen's life
-- Strengthening: making the most of what God is doing in a teen's life

The authors' intelligent, h

Table of Contents

Introduction	15	(14)
Part One: Through the Back Door
Maybe You Will Know	29	(18)
House of Mirrors	47	(20)
Sound Tracks	67	(18)
Part Two: Soften
In Here and Out There	85	(14)
Stargazing	99	(12)
Love and Laughter	111	(20)
Part Three: Shape
A Great Big Bundle of Potentiality	131	(12)
Holding Their Hands, Pointing Our Fingers	143	(18)
A Thankful Heart	161	(18)
Part Four: Strengthen
Bridge of Hope	179	(14)
But	193	(16)
Part Five: Going Out the Back Door
See You Later	209	(6)
A Parting Thought	215	(4)
Notes	219