Gift for parents:
10 Best
Gifts for Your Teen : Raising Teens With Love and Understanding
by Pat Saso, Steve Saso,
Patricia Slovik Saso, Steven Paul Saso, Patt Saso, Patt and Steve Saso
Book Description
Patt and Steve Saso navigated all
the parenting perils from infancy to preteen insecurity, but nothing could
prepare them for the unpredictability of adolescence. One day their teenager
might say, "I love you," after the morning ride to school, and the next
he might sit in the back seat, sulking in silence. In their new book, 10
Best Gifts For Your Teen, the Sasos offer valuable advice to help families
maintain strong relationships through the often turbulent teenage years.
Combining Patt's expertise as a marriage
and family therapist with Steve's experience as a high school educator,
the Sasos share personal and professional anecdotes in this dispatch from
the parenting trenches, detailing what adolescents want and need from their
parents for emotional support. Teenagers will test the limits. Parents
will make mistakes. But no matter how distant and resentful they appear
to be, or how disrespectful of parental authority, teenagers internalize
their parents' words and actions.
10
Best Gifts For Your Teen -- which include respect, room, role-modeling,
responsibility and reconciliation -- teaches parents how to relate when
needed, and to relent when necessary, offering support without infringing
on their teenagers' burgeoning sense of freedom.
Patt and Steve Saso have shared their
wisdom through their Saso Seminars, providing inspiration and information
to help parents raise respectful and successful children. And now, with
10
Best Gifts For Your Teen, they have given a gift to parents across
the country who want their teenager's transition from childhood to adulthood
to be a smooth and rewarding one.
From the Back Cover
Raising teens with love and understanding
is perhaps more challenging today than ever. While adolescence can sometimes
be as frightening and challenging for parents as it is for their children,
a strong parent-teen relationship can be both influential and rewarding.
Patt and Steve Saso combine their
expertise as a counselor and high school teacher with hard-knocks wisdom
from the parenting trenches to offer practical and engaging guidance. They
stress that parents are the only ones who can offer ten gifts that make
all the difference for their teens.
- Respect
- Receptivity
- Responsibility
- Room
- Reconciliation
- Role-Modeling
- Revelation of Self
- Resolve
- Release
Here are both the encouragement and
skills parents need to build strong relationships with their teens.
Customer
Comments
A reader from from South
Bend, Indiana , October 19, 1999
Compassionate and compelling
insights on raising teens
Steve and Patt Saso have focused
on the work that parents need to do, both within themselves and with their
teens, to approach parenting of teens with effectiveness and compassion.
Drawing on widespread experience with teens and family life, the Sasos
identify the lessons and gifts that parents can uniquely offer their children.
Their suggestions are both practical and profound. As a father of four,
ages 7-14, this book helped me remember how much I want the best for my
kids and what I need to do to make that happen. This book's primary value
is that it does not depend on changing the teenager, nor does it collapse
into putting all of the responsibility (and guilt!) on the parent; rather,
it's about changing the relationship. Parents of children of all ages will
be encouraged by the Sasos' insights. This book makes for a greatly appreciated
gift.
A reader from from San Jose, California
, October 1, 1999
Therapists - Get this book for
your clients!
This book is a great resource for
therapists, parents, and for anyone who wants good relationships. It has
wonderful depth and is easy to read, and treats family dynamics with compassion
and a little well-needed humor. Will it guarantee that your teen will behave
perfectly all the time? No. Will it help you model the behavior and values
you most want your children to learn? Absolutely. As both a clinician and
a mother, I can't recommend this book highly enough. (And if you have the
opportunity to attend one of their seminars, don't miss it!)
A reader from from Bonn, Germany
, September 27, 1999
TEACHERS need to read this book!
I educate teenagers and find this
book exceptional! It has inspired me in the classroom--a "must read" for
understanding the life of a teenager and building healthy, productive teacher/student
relationships.
A reader from San Francisco Bay
Area , September 1, 1999
To build a strong relationship
with your teen, get this book
I am the mother of 3 teenage boys,
and this book has been of TREMENDOUS help.
The most important element in raising
children, I believe, is Connection. If our children feel connected to us,
they will care about our opinions, our feelings, our thoughts. The 10 Keys
outlined in this book give very practical ideas on how to nurture and maintain
such a connection with our teens. In fact, I'm learning to use these tools
with my younger child and my husband as well, and as a result, our family
life is much improved!
My favorite pieces of advice from
this book include: "Don't ask so many questions"(hard for me, as a mom,
not to!), "Separate what they do from who they are," "Listen without immediately
jumping in with advice"....actually, every page has a number of great suggestions!
If you have teens or preteens, get this book! If you know of others who
have teens, recommend it or buy it as a gift. And if you ever have the
opportunity to go to a workshop given by this dynamic duo, run, don't walk!
They are terrific presenters!
A reader from Irvine, CA , August
27, 1999
What your teen wants: to learn
how to live like an adult.
The first time I came across Steve
and Patt Saso was at a seminar they were giving on parenting. The clearest
thing I remember from that seminar was that these two parents, with all
their experience dealing with their own children and others' children and
others who have children, was that their kids could still catch them off
guard and cause them to not make the perfect response to a situation. Patt
also taught us her favorite mantra (It's not my fault. It's not my fault)
for dealing with teens reluctant to tell their parents what the parents
wanted to hear as a response to a question, like "How was school today?"
This same honesty comes through with
the teaching in this book. It is one of the things that gives me hope as
a parent, namely that I'm never going to be a perfect parent, and that
I don't have to be a perfect parent.
The 10 gifts are not quick cures.
They require work and change on our part as parents. Just like developing
any relationship. This book is not a cure for what ails you and your family.
It is a process, a way of living with others.
The 10 gifts that the Sasos describe
in their book are good gifts to give anyone. And as they point out, teens
especially need these gifts because they are transitioning from very dependent
to very independent. Not only do they need good role models, they also
need to work out their own paradigms for dealing with life. Along with
this, they need to know what works for other people, so that they can adapt
some of it to their own unique selves.
Growing up, my parents didn't know
any more about parenting than I used to know while raising my kids. Not
only do I wish I had read a book like this years ago, I know that I would
have liked for my own parents to have read and applied a book like this.
A reader from from Mount Hermon,
CA , August 21, 1999
A Very Helpful and Practical
Guide for Parents
We found the Saso's book to be extremely
practical as a tool for helping parents of teenagers. In our work as Marriage
& Family Therapist, educators and seminar leaders, we are always looking
for helpful books on family relationships to suggest to people. The Saso's
book is the latest and one of the very best on parent-teen relationships
that we have read. They are not only practical, but also very personal
as they share real-life stories from their own family. Their 10 best gifts
for teens are foundational qualities important in all healthy relationships.
We highly value the work Steve and Patt Saso have done in this fine book.
The 10
Greatest Gifts I Give My Children : Parenting from the Heart
by Steven
W. Vannoy
Synopsis
Expanding on the ideas presented
in his enormously popular Denver-area seminars, Steven Vannoy shows how
parents can bestow the enduring gifts of internal commitment, responsibility,
self-esteem, compassion, and integrity on their children.
Synopsis
The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My
Children is a collection of real-life stories that offers important lessons
about sharing, courage, kindness, listening, trust, and integrity, illustrating
what life, family, and community are all about.
Synopsis
An inspirational guide offers a
program to put the joy back into parenting and create a harmonious family
atmosphere with self-esteem, compassion, balance, humor, communication,
integrity, responsibility, conscious choice, and full expression of emotions.
Reprint. 60,000 first printing.
Customer
Comments
AWESOME!!! It's a wonderful lesson
in communiction!
This book helps you to help your
child learn to think - by asking them ?s and letting them think. It also
takes you out of the "No." and "Don't" syndrome. It's a book for everyone!!!
jtasmith from Texas
Skills that work on kids and
improves parenting confidence
"All parents should read this book!
An author who speaks from experience and shares his aquired knowledge.
An easy to read and apply the skills book building the foundation of the
most important qualitys in our children. This book had me laughing and
cry all the way through. Don't miss this one!"
pkvalo from Wisconsin
A
reader from Raleigh, NC, USA , June 21, 1999
great parenting book!
This is one of the best parenting
books I've read. It gives you solid tools for parenting from the heart.
This author is a management expert, not a psychologist, and many of the
tools are appropriate for working with people, no matter what their age.
I especially like the "gift of forward focus" which helps kids to see that
all of life is about learning lessons, and that the only reason to look
backward is to understand the lesson in order to be able to avoid the same
mistake again. Otherwise it just wastes your energy. I also like the "gift
of feeling fully" which helps kids to be in touch with their emotions.
I have already given several copies as gifts and will continue to do so.
To the author: Have you considered an audiotape?
A reader from San Diego, California
, April 26, 1999
Very inspirational & enlightening.
it definitely change my perspective
in my style of parenting. i thought i am already doing okay but this book
taught me how i can still improve a lot - i mean a lot. i like it so much
that i'm ordering 5 -10 books to give friends & relatives for mother's
day.
A reader from Denver, CO , February
3, 1999
The best family leadership book
I've ever read!
The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My
Children gives us parents, and anyone who loves and works with children
some of the best common sense and "from the heart" tools to use in the
family. I've found the concepts in this book to be useful not only at home
but in the workplace, where everyday we are faced with the intracacies
of human relationships--truly a book that teaches us to live and lead from
our heart - in all aspects of our lives.
Elizabeth Pantley, Author of Perfect
Parenting and Kid Cooperation from Seattle, Washington , January
24, 1999
A must-read book for all parents.
This is a very pleasant book that
helps put the joy back in parenting. It contains stories and thoughts that
will encourage you to focus on what's most important in your life. It will
help you enjoy your children on a day-to-day basis. It's a book that I've
read more than once.
A reader from Kansas City, USA
, January 20, 1999
Pretty lousy. Not worth your
time or money.
Nice cover, but poorly written and
tedious. I found that although the chapter headings were promising, once
I actually read through the pages, the information was terribly vague and
unhelpful.
A reader from Wichita, Kansas
, November 30, 1998
A must-read for anyone having
anything to do with children!
This book is not just for parents.
It should also be read by teachers, principals, school administrators,
counselors, Sunday school teachers , and grandparents - anyone who spends
time with our children. They are our future and it is important to the
future of our children that we use and teach the "Forward Focus" and "Positive
Messaging" techniques prescribed in this book. Our children, ourselves,
and our society can only benefit from it and becuase of it we may someday
live in a world full of positivity and possibility.
