Dear Mom

Title: DEAR MOM
Author: Melody Carlson
Publisher: WaterBrook Press
2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7491-4
Genre: Inspirational/parenting

Sometimes it seems like raising a teenager is like trying to chart a course underwater. And girls are ten times harder than boys (or so I’ve been told.) Whichever, you are in for one-word answers, defensive conversations, unpredictable outbursts, and sometimes it seems like you’ll never get anywhere.

Now, popular novelist Melody Carlson has written the book to help you get through the turbulent teen years so you can hopefully have a better relationship with your daughter. Ms. Carlson takes you beyond the outward behavior to focus on what your daughter is really thinking, what she really wants (but will never tell you) and you can be privy to her hopes, fears, doubts and dreams. Even if she doesn’t say a word.

Inside the cover of DEAR MOM is first of all a warning from “your teenage girl” telling you to just put the book down and walk away because you will not like what you are about to read. But if you insist on disregarding “her” advice, then you will face chapter such as:

1. Things I Don’t Like About Me
2. Things I Don’t Like about You (ouch!)
3. Relationships Confuse Me Sometimes
4. You Say You Listen, But Sometimes I Need to be Heard
5. Your Lectures Don’t Work
6. I’m Not as Confident as Maybe I Appear to be
7. I Need Rules but They Need to Make Sense
8. What I Need More Than Anything

And much more.

Written in a friendly conversational matter, it still helps to remember that this book is not actually written by your teenage daughter, but by an author who happens to be a mom. Because sometimes the things you read in the book hurts, even if you know they are true. Having teen sons and a teen daughter I’ve already traveled down a good portion of the rough road of parenting teens. I tried to parent them by remembering what I would have felt about an issue when I was a teen. And apparently, that is a good approach. I try to know my daughter’s friends, but I don’t insist on hanging out with them. I try to remember the giddy feeling when that hottie glanced my way in school, when I see my daughter almost melting under some guy’s attention. Even though she’s too young to date (by our rules) and she knows it.

DEAR MOM is a book to help you to hear your daughter’s heart without all the angst, arguments, or arm wrestling (from the back cover) and is a book that I highly recommend to all mothers of teenage girls. $13.99. 202 pages.