Closing the Gap: A Strategy for Bringing Parents and Teens Together (Jay McGraw Is Hot!)

"We found this book to be great for parents with teens who are still talking to them, still want to have a better life at home, and still have their frontal lobes operating.

Unfortunately, if you are buying this book because you are having difficulty with a teenager who won't talk to you at all, doesn't care if things get better at home and has lost all ability to reason, then you will be very disappointed. The advice and strategies all make sense when you have all parties willing to look for a way forward, but when it's only the parents who are making all the effort, the book doesn't help at all.

The advice to make sure you seek professional help if necessary doesn't help either - we have been to several psychologists and counsellors to no avail, and now he won't see any more of them. The rest of the family is seeking therapy to cope with this horrible way of living with our angel who turned into an abusive, manipulative, bullying, obnoxious and rude teenager."
~ Written on 2006-01-30

"This book will be helpful to both teens and parents. You do not need to have your parents or your teen read the book to get benefit from Closing the Gap. You can simply begin closing the gap from your side.

Mr. Jay McGraw (older son of Dr. Phil McGraw of Life Strategies, Relationship Rescue, and Self Matters fame), aged 22 at the time this book was published, has done it again! This book is another fine effort in improving communications within families.

At age 22, Mr. McGraw is close enough to being a teenager to know what it's like and close enough to being removed from the teenage years that he can see the parental perspective. Favoring neither perspective, he is like a matchmaker bringing together two shy people who are in love with one another . . . but unwilling to declare their love.

The book opens with a heart rending story of Jennine at age 25. At a Life Strategies seminar she is attending as a guest of her parents, she turns to her parents and savagely asks, "Why did you let me throw my life away when you knew better and I was being a complete moron? "Why didn't you make me do right?" Teens: Do you want to become Jennine? Parents: Do you want your children to ask you these questions someday?

To assess how well you are communicating, the book offers a brief quiz for parents about teens for teens about parents. If you are like me, you will find you have some room for improvement!

The book is built around the philosophy of win-win negotiating.

The book explores teen myths, parent myths, teen land mines, dos and don'ts for parents, and dos and don'ts for teens.

There's also a fine section on anger management that teens and parents both need.

The book then proceeds to explain how parents and teens can reconnect by deciding what they each want out of the relationship, explaining their own needs, finding out what the other's needs are, and working out a plan for reconnecting. The book has some forms that you can use for this purpose. If your parent or teen won't fill one out, you can try filling it out for them and showing them the result for comments.

The book has lots of good suggestions for activities to do together that will encourage conversation (all of those hours together watching "E.R." don't count!).

I was impressed by the advice for helping teens keep the conversation going. Rather than sulking away after being told "no" teens are encourage to ask an automatic "why not?"

Although this is a serious subject, I thought that the humor was helpful leavening.

As a parent of three former teens and one current teen, I found the advice fit my sense from experience that explaining why is very important to help younger people develop understanding and judgment. On the other hand, you do not want to frighten young people with the worst case scenario, so you need to preplan gentle ways to get the point across. Practice helps!

Go talk to your teen! Go talk to your parents!"
~ Written on 2004-06-28