Parenting Jewish Teens: A Guide for the Perplexed

by Joanne Doades

Overview

This comprehensive, first-of-its-kind guidebook explores the questions and issues that shape the world in which today’s Jewish teenagers live and offers constructive advice that can help Jewish parents maintain their sanity, dignity, and loving family relationships as their children grow.

In a friendly, supportive tone, with humor and insight, this book will help you face the challenges of raising your Jewish teenager. It offers ancient and contemporary Jewish parenting wisdom and shows you through real life examples how ties to your Jewish community can sustain you in difficult times. You will come away with advice on how to survive your children’s teen years in an environment that fosters love and maturity—and an understanding on how you can change, grow, and reach toward holiness and wholeness in your own life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940000212578
Publisher:	Jewish Lights Publishing
Publication date:	09/21/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Joanne Doades, mother of three, is an award-winning Jewish educator who is a featured speaker at conferences, workshops and training programs on Jewish parenting and Jewish identity development topics. She is director for curriculum development for the Union for Reform Judaism's Department of Lifelong Jewish Learning.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface

1. Introduction
2. Separation
3. Our Teenagers:American and Jewish
4. Dealing with Conflict
5. Family Relationships
6. Jewish Observance:Yours, Mine, and Ours
7. From Control to Consultation
8. Interdating and Intermarriage
9. Conclusion:The Blessing of Teens

Appendices
A: Special Situations
B: Situations That Require Intervention
C: Parenting Jewish Teens Program
Notes
Selected Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

A good word for the disorientation many parents feel during their children's teenage years is "perplexed." In a twist on the title of Maimonides's 12th-century philosophical tome The Guide for the Perplexed, Doades offers a compassionate parenting manual that aims Judaism's messages at the "tumultuous, challenging and chaotic" teen years. "Parenting Jewish teens today is about finding something to hang onto (Judaism works) as you try to hang onto your kids (don't give up, no matter what they look, smell or act like)," she writes. Contemporary society, plagued by a decline in communal connectedness, compounds the hormonal upheaval by providing few consequences for behavior and popularizing a culture that denigrates authority, she says. Judaism's enduring values will not only serve them in good stead, providing tools to evaluate their choices, but will comfort and direct parents in maintaining dignity, sanity and family relationships. In a sympathetic parent-to-parent tone, Doades explores issues of separation, culture, conflict, family relationships, changing parental roles, interfaith dilemmas and special-needs situations, with examples from the Bible and Jewish literature. She urges parents to start Jewish teen parenting groups, and concludes that despite the normal teenage need for separation, parents must echo the Bible's message, Hineini, "Here I am." (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

"Eventually, we'll get past their daily tantrums, their exotic grooming, their messy bedrooms and the boy/girlfriends from hell, and watch our teens grow into responsible adulthood. But with Joanne Doades' wisdom, we'll do it with deeper understanding, deeper love and stronger connections. If you have a teen, you need this book."
— Rabbi Edward Feinstein, author, Tough Questions Jews Ask: A Young Adult’s Guide to Building a Jewish Life

"Very impressive ... well-written, informative, relevant to the issues faced by today’s parents, practical, and humorous. Will be … read and re-read by parents as they seek to understand not only the world of their teenagers, but their own feelings and thoughts. Highly recommended."
— Dr. Robert Brooks, Harvard Medical School; coauthor, Raising Resilient Children

"Excellent.... There is not another like it."
— Dr. Sol Gordon, professor emeritus, Syracuse University; author, Raising a Child Responsibly in a Sexually Permissive World

“Doades is the generous friend we parents all need. She’s been there, she’s survived and she knows how to share her hard-earned wisdom with gentle humor and respect—for us and for our teens.”
— Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, author, Parenting as a Spiritual Journey: Deepening Ordinary & Extraordinary Events into Sacred Occasions

“Gentle and persuasive guidance for all those who are raising teens.”
— Dr. Kerry M. Olitzky, coeditor, The Rituals & Practices of a Jewish Life: A Handbook for Personal Spiritual Renewal

“Combines [personal experience] plus a deep love for Judaism. Ultimately, if we want to raise a new generation of Jewish people, we have to help them get through their teenage years and come out whole at the other end. This book will help!”
— Shulamit Reinharz, coauthor, The JGirl’s Guide: The Young Jewish Woman’s Handbook for Coming of Age

From the Publisher