Thursday, February 18, 2010

This Week in Study Hall: Get Out

This week's study hall book is entitled: Get Out of My Life.
Great title.  Sadly, it is actually a parent's guide to dealing with teenagers....and I think the suggestion is that teenagers tell their parents Leave Me Alone but secretly they want their parents to remain involved.  Its presence in a school library devoted to the needs of students begs the obvious question: are we expecting teenagers to read the parent's guide to teenagers?  Are they supposed to check it out and bring it home for the folks to read?  As in, "Mama, here's some advice for dealing with me.  Read it and report back next week."

I'm understandably confused.
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1 comment:

  1. Molly7:51 PM

    I can actually answer this! (Although maybe not with the answer anyone else would have.) But in fact, my parents owned that book when I was in high school, and I had the occasion to read part of it. I sought it out, in fact, so I totally get that a school library might have it, and not just for the teachers and parents. Unfortunately, I can also tell you that I found it extremely unhelpful. One of my friends was suicidal for an extended period when I was in high school, and as one of the few people he was talking to, I felt an enormous, unbearable amount of stress because I didn't know what to do. I tried to get adults involved, etc, but in general I felt very very alone in the situation. I didn't feel like I could talk to my parents because they would have to take action, but I desperately felt the need for an authority's advice on teen depression. So tried to read the parenting book my parents kept in their bedroom (says something about living with 3 teenagers, doesn't it?). Unfortunately, it was completely useless (some on the subject of "if your kid might be suicidal" but nothing on the subject of "if your kid is dealing with a suicidal person"). But I had to share, because you asked what teenager reads about how to deal with themselves, and apparently I can tell you : )

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