Parenting is a gift that no one should take lightly. However, as a parent, it’s often challenging to tell whether you’re doing a great job at it. The inability to truly measure what a good parent is can lend itself to a lot of self-doubt and fear. We parents tend to be caught between a rock and a hard place by constantly questioning whether we are doing the best we can at raising our children—especially when it comes to raising hormonal teenagers who show affection to you one day and yell for you to get out of their room the next. It can be scary and confusing to find your way in this world as a parent, and the easy access to social media and peer pressure environments can make the journey even more difficult. Between spending quality time with your teen, monitoring their lifestyle, and doing your best not to impose your opinions on them—parenting becomes tricky.

In this modern day, parents are no longer just dealing with normal teenage behaviors and mannerisms—we are also mediating and protecting our children from outside influences which have now become prominent. Nowadays, our children are raised by the internet from a young age; such that, by the time they are teenagers, they have fully convinced themselves (and each other) that they know it all and mom or dad (or both) just aren’t cool enough to be on their level. This desire for independence, distance, and autonomy can often create an unpleasant wedge in parent-teen relationships. Unfortunately, every teen has a different experience, so no parent has a perfect blueprint on how to raise one. Yet there are some practical parenting tips and techniques that can help you to become revered by your teen while setting healthy parental boundaries and rules within your household. Times may be different now, with technology and all, but teenagers are still teens and they need love, support, space, and encouragement from their parents.

The first step to connecting to modern-day teens is listening to this book. In it, you will find some insightful perspectives and teachings on parenting teens in a way that makes them reliable and delightful future adults. So keep listening. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to share some valuable parenting secrets with you.