Book Review - Get Out of My Life

     In the book Get Out of My Life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall, Anthony E. Wolf discusses some of the challenges that teenagers go through and how to handle them.  Wolf originally wrote the book in 1991, but then revised it in 2002 since much has changed in the way teenagers are now raised. Wolf has his Ph.D. and works with children and adolescents. He is a practicing clinical psychologist and does many lectures on parenting topics. Wolf has also experience raising teenagers of his own. Unlike some parenting books, it does not list a set of rules for raising teenagers. Instead, Wolf provides concrete suggestions on how to deal with a wide range of teenage issues.  Wolf describes issues that teens go through such as why they do what they do,  friends,  dealing with daily life, communication, controlling a teenager, conflicts, divorce, school, sex, drugs, suicide, and the electronic world. In each section it gives examples of conversations and situations that may come up between a teenager and their parent. The book also discusses the different ways in which girls and boys act.

     I think this is a great book for parents who are getting ready to raise a teenager or who is raising a teen.  Because there are so many situations played out, it helps parents to relate their situations with their teens so they can get ideas on how to react and what to do.  The situations that Wolf discusses are definitely ones that happen between many teenagers and their parents. There were several times that I would laugh because I would remember how I was as a teenager and some of the things that I would say to my parents. In one section that discussed how teenagers take parents for granted the mom said, “What am I, a robot parent” and the daughter simply replied, “You’re my parent.” There were many times that I felt like my mom should do everything that I wanted her to just because she was my mom and that was her job.

                

     This book is very well written and has a nice flow to it. The book begins describing how the teenager has changed in the past couple of decades. It then goes into the various sections giving scenarios, how to handle them, and what a teenager is thinking.  Overall this is a great book to read. Teenagers have changed over years between the situations that now come up, such as the digital world, and how teens have become entitled.  This is a great book for parents to relate to their teen and know how to handle the various situations they are given.

-Tiffany