RESOURCES
Recommended Reading
Helpful Resources
Recommended Reading
Books
Culture
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – and What That Means for the Rest of Us
Jean M. Twenge, PhD
iGen is crucial reading to understand how the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation. With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults.
Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World
Madeline Levine, PhD
The New York Times bestselling author of The Price of Privilege and Teach Your Children Well explores how today’s parenting techniques and our myopic educational system are failing to prepare children for their certain-to-be-uncertain future—and how we can reverse course to ensure their lasting adaptability, resilience, health and happiness. Using the latest developments in neuroscience and epigenetics (the intersection of genetics and environment), as well as extensive research gleaned from captains of industry, entrepreneurs, military leaders, scientists, academics, and futurists, Levine identifies the skills that children need to succeed in a tumultuous future: adaptability, mental agility, curiosity, collaboration, tolerance for failure, resilience, and optimism. Most important, Levine offers day-to-day solutions parents can use to raise kids who are prepared, enthusiastic, and ready to face an unknown future with confidence and optimism.
Parenting
Raising Great Kids
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend help you provide both the care and acceptance that make grace real to your child, and the firmness and discipline that give direction. Avoiding the twin extremes of permissiveness and over-control, Drs. Cloud and Townsend show how you can help your child cultivate six necessary character traits: attachment, responsibility, reality, competence, morality, and worship/spiritual life. At last, here is an effective middle ground for raising up children who will handle life with maturity and wisdom. Raising Great Kids will help you equip your son or daughter to accept life's responsibilities, grow from its challenges, and freely and fully explore all that it has to offer.
Raising Worry Free Girls
Sissy Goff
If you have a daughter, it would be surprising if she doesn't struggle with anxiety and worry--either in short episodes or for longer periods. For a variety of reasons, childhood anxiety rates are soaring, especially among girls. Today's parents need to know what contributes to anxiety and worry and how they can empower their daughters to overcome troubling emotions. https://www.christianbook.com/raising-helping-daughter-stronger-smarter-anxious/sissy-goff/9780764233401/pd/233409?event=ERRCER1
The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults
Frances E. Jensen, M.D.
Renowned neurologist Dr. Frances E. Jensen, a mother, teacher, researcher, clinician, and frequent lecturer to parents and teens, is in a unique position to explain to readers the workings of the teen brain. In The Teenage Brain, Dr. Jensen brings to readers the astonishing findings that previously remained buried in academic journals. Dr. Jensen gathers what we’ve discovered about adolescent brain function, wiring, and capacity and explains the science in the contexts of everyday learning and multitasking, stress and memory, sleep, addiction, and decision-making. In this groundbreaking yet accessible book, these findings also yield practical suggestions that will help adults and teenagers negotiate the mysterious world of adolescent development.
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood
Lisa Damour, PhD.
Guide for parents of daughters, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely normal—developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25614847-untangled
Mental Health
ADD-Friendly Ways To Organize Your Life, Second Edition
Judith Kohlberg and Kathleen Nadeau, PhD.
Professional organizer Judith Kolberg and Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, renowned ADHD clinical psychologist, offer an updated edition of their classic text for adults with ADD. Their collaboration offers the best understanding and solutions for adults who want to get and stay organized. There is content on organizing digital information, managing distractions, organizing finances, and coping with the "black hole" of the Internet. This resource offers three levels of strategies and support: self-help, non-professional assistance from family and friends, and professional support; allowing the reader to determine the appropriate level of support. The leadership at CCM highly recommends this book if you are struggling with organizational issues due to ADD!
Finding Quiet
J.P Moreland
In Finding Quiet, esteemed philosopher and Christian apologist J. P. Moreland reveals his struggle with mental illness, how he discovered hope in the midst of it, and the tools that helped him to overcome anxiety and depression. https://www.zondervan.com/9780310597209/finding-quiet
It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
Lysa Terkeurst
The author unveils her heart amid shattering circumstances and shows readers how to live assured when life doesn't turn out like they expected. What do you do when God's timing seems questionable, His lack of intervention hurtful, and His promises doubtful? https://lysaterkeurst.com/
Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls
Lisa Damour, PhD.
Though anxiety has risen among teens and young adults overall, studies confirm that it has skyrocketed in girls. Research finds that the number of girls who said that they often felt nervous, worried, or fearful jumped 55 percent from 2009 to 2014 while the comparable number for adolescent boys has remained unchanged. As a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with girls, Lisa Damour, Ph.D., has witnessed this rising tide of stress and anxiety in her own research, in private practice, and in the all-girls’ school where she consults. She knew this had to be the topic of her new book. Damour offers solutions to the tensions that take hold in the many facets of girls’ lives: their interactions at home, pressures at school, social anxiety when among other girls and among boys, and social media.
Websites
Child Mind Institute
The Child Mind Institute is an independent, national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. Our teams work every day to deliver the highest standards of care, advance the science of the developing brain and empower parents, professionals and policymakers to support children when and where they need it most.
https://childmind.org/
ADDitude
This website provides a wealth of resources on ADHD, including articles, webinars, and forums. Information is included for both children and adults regarding symptoms, tests, and treatments. Their quarterly magazine is also very helpful and information about subscribing can be found here.
https://www.additudemag.com/
Understood
Helpful resources and a supportive community for the 1 in 5 people in the U.S. with learning or thinking differences like dyslexia and ADHD. Many of these people feel like the world is built for a normal that doesn’t include them; Understood seeks to provide these people with resources, expertise, and communities that bolster their confidence
https://www.understood.org/
Axis
Axis seeks to build lifelong faith in teens by helping parents and caring adults talk with their kids about what they otherwise wouldn’t one conversation at a time. Their site includes parent guides, conversation kits, as well as family experiences. Some of the resources have a fee, but there are basics you can access for free, such as a blog and a weekly newsletter, the Culture Translator.
https://axis.org/
Center for Humane Technology
This group of tech industry and social impact leaders are dedicated to creating conditions to radically reimagine 21st century digital infrastructure, believing that social media companies are currently profiting from outrage, confusion, addiction, and depression. Their founders are featured in the Netflix film The Social Dilemma. The website provides helpful resources for parents, students, educators, and policymakers; one of their best resources is their digital well-being guidelines for parents at:
https://www.humanetech.com/digital-wellbeing-covid.
Restoration Project
They believe that today's world of busyness and distraction leave men unprepared and isolated, but the intentional man restores those around him. Restoration Project dares men to be fathers and brothers who change the world by leaving legacies for generations to come. This website provides resources for intentional fatherhood and brotherhood.
https://www.restorationproject.net/
Candy Gibbs
Candy has a podcast, blog and has written several books. I especially like her work in teaching parents about their teenagers through their current lenses.
https://candygibbs.com
Focus on the Family
https://www.focusonthefamily.com
Empowering Parents
https://www.empoweringparents.com
Lysa Terkeurst
Books, articles and blog to encourage women
https://lysaterkeurst.com