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Parents of Grown Children
Featured
Books in this Category / Main
Booklist

Featured
Books
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Beautiful Boy: a Father’s Journey through
His Son’s Addiction. David Sheff, $22.99
At its heart Beautiful Boy is an amazingly
honest and exquisitely written account of a family’s torturous journey
through addiction. It raises questions that reflect the fears of
every parent: Where does one’s responsibility to a loved one end?
How — and when — should a parent know whether his or her child is substance
abusing? And how does a family recover from the wounds afflicted
by addiction and get on with their lives? David Sheff has written
a powerful and moving family portrait that will resonate soundly
with all readers and is sure to become a classic. |
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Beyond the Mommy Years: How to Live Happily Ever After...After
the Kids Leave Home. Carin Rubenstein, $39.00
Beyond the Mommy Years offers
fascinating research, helpful advice, and amusing anecdotes
to the millions facing this uncertain but potentially enriching
stage of life. |
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The Empty Nest: 31 Parents Tell the Truth
about Relationships, Love and Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop.
Karen Stabiner, editor, $25.99
Reassuring, warm, compassionate, funny
and poignant, The Empty Nest is written by parents
who have made the adjustment to an empty house. It’s
the perfect book for any parent who is wondering what comes
next. |
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Emptying the Nest: Launching Your
Young Adult Toward Success and Self-Reliance. Brad
Sachs, $27.25
In today’s rapidly changing world and
challenging economy, young adults increasingly find themselves at a crossroads
between financial and emotional dependence and autonomy. Drawing on Dr. Sachs'
extensive clinical experience and his illuminating discussion of the latest
psychological research, EMPTYING THE NEST will support parents in their
efforts to cultivate their young adult’s success and self-reliance while
simultaneously maintaining healthy family relationships. Parents will:
- Understand the family dynamics that either
impede or nurture self-sufficiency
- Foster a higher degree of academic, professional,
and fiscal responsibility
- Effectively encourage young adults to establish
realistic goals and create a meaningful vision for their future
- Learn how to gradually let go, so that young
adults discover how to resolve their own problems.
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Getting to 30: a Parent's Guide to the 20-Something
Years. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, $22.95
The book that addresses the new reality for parents of
kids in their 20s and the issues that everyone in the media is talking about:
When will this new generation of 20-somethings leave home, find love, start a
career, settle down — grow up? And it's the book that will soothe your nerves.
It’s loaded with information about what to expect and guidance on what to do
when problems arise (as they probably will). In other words, this is the book
parents need. Getting to 30 shows readers:
- Why the road to adulthood is longer than we think — and, for
parents, bumpier
- The phenomenon of the boomerang child — and why it’s actually a
good thing, for parents and their children
- The new landscape of 20-something romance
And it gives all the tools parents need to deal with the
challenges, from six ways to listen more than you talk, to knowing when to open
(and close) the Bank of Mom and Dad while saving for retirement, to figuring
out the protocol for social media. Getting to 30 includes the latest
research on the optimistic and supportive attitude most parents have regarding
their 20-something children. |
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Home Free: the Myth of the Empty Nest. Marni Jackson, $22.95 
From the author of the best-selling The Mother Zone, comes a comic narrative about the last secret lap of parenting. Home Free is an intimate, candid, reflective and funny memoir that focuses on this new and undefined stage of family life: the challenges of helping our kids navigate their twenties — while learning how to let go of them at the same time.
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How Not to Move Back in With Your
Parents: the Young Person's Guide to Financial Empowerment. Rob Carrick, $22.95 
Rob Carrick
of The Globe and Mail is one of Canada's most trusted and
widely read financial experts. His latest book targets
financial advice specifically at young adults graduating from university or
college and moving into the workforce, into the housing market and into family
life. Financial beginners, in other words.
Carrick offers what can only be described as a wealth of information, on the full
life cycle of financial challenges and opportunities young people face,
including saving for a post-secondary education and paying off student debts,
establishing a credit rating, basic banking and budgeting, car and home buying,
marriage and raising children of their own, and insurance.
The book is mindful throughout that parents have a big role to play in all
this. It addresses young readers throughout but regularly asks them to see
things from their parents' perspective. In that way, Rob Carrick is able to
offer advice to both generations. He even recognizes that in these difficult
times, moving back in with the folks is sometimes a short-term
necessity. This is a book that every parent needs to buy for each of their
kids, plus one for themselves. |
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How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting
Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. Julie Lythcott-Haims, $23.50
A provocative manifesto that exposes the harms of
helicopter parenting and sets forth an alternate philosophy for raising
preteens and teens to self-sufficient young adulthood.
In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research,
on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers, and on her
own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which
overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.
While empathizing with the parental hopes and, especially, fears that lead to
overhelping, Lythcott-Haims offers practical alternative strategies that
underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop
the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success.
Relevant to parents of toddlers as well as of twenty-somethings, and of special
value to parents of teens, this book is a rallying cry for those who wish to
ensure that the next generation can take charge of their own lives with
competence and confidence. |
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The iConnected Parent:
Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting
Them Grow Up. Barbara Hofer & Abigail Sullivan Moore, $18.99
In our speed-dial culture, parents and kids are now more than ever in constant contact. Communicating an average of thirteen times a week, parents and their college-age kids are having a hard time letting go.
Until recently, students handled college on their own, learning life's lessons and growing up in the process. Now, many students turn to their parents for instant answers to everyday questions. And Mom and Dad are not just the Google and Wikipedia for overcoming daily pitfalls; Hofer and Moore have discovered that some parents get involved in unprecedented ways, phoning professors and classmates, choosing their child's courses, and even crossing the lines set by university honor codes with the academic help they provide. Hofer and Moore offer practical advice, from the years before college through the years after graduation, on how parents can stay connected to their kids while giving them the space they need to become independent adults. |
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Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone. Richard Settersten & Barbara Ray, $23.00
The media has been flooded with negative headlines about 20-somethings, from their sense of entitlement to their immaturity to their dependence on their parents’ purse strings. The message is that these young people need to shape up and grow up — that they should take a fast track to adulthood just like their parents did. Now, drawing on almost a decade of cutting-edge scientific research, including analyses of over two dozen national data sets and 500 interviews with young people, Richard Settersten, Ph.D., and Barbara Ray shatter these widespread stereotypes. Settersten and Ray bring us a more nuanced understanding of this generation, and of the unique challenges they are facing as they come of age.
Not Quite Adults gets to the heart of how and why the course to adulthood has become so complicated, what these changes mean for families, and what we should do about it. The authors show how cultural and economic forces have radically transformed the “traditional” path to adulthood, creating a very different set of challenges as well as opportunities for today’s young adults. Filled with timely information and illuminating case histories, Not Quite Adults is a fascinating and enlightening look at an often misunderstood generation. |
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Parenting Your Emerging Adult:
Launching Kids from 18 to 29. Varda Konstam,
$22.50
Faced with a higher cost of living,
higher college debt loads and a sense of material entitlement, many young adults
are clinging to the parental nest. Some 56 percent of men and 48 percent of
women 18 to 24 years old are living with their already strapped parents.
Needless to say, parents of emerging adults are clearly “stressed out” and in
need of practical, credible advice. PARENTING YOUR EMERGING ADULT is
designed to be empowering and uplifting by offering the tools parents need to
get their emerging adults living successfully out on their own. |
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The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling
in Life. William Damon, $21.00
The Path to Purpose looks at youth who are thriving —
highly engaged in activities they love and developing a clear sense of what
they want to do with their lives — and youth who are still rudderless, at
serious risk of never fulfilling their potential. What makes the difference?
Based on in-depth interviews, Damon offers compelling portraits of the young
people who are thriving. He identifies the nine key factors that have made the
difference for them, presenting simple but powerful methods that parents can
employ in order to cultivate that energized sense of purpose in young people
that will launch them on the path to a deeply satisfying and productive life. |
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Smart But Scattered — and Stalled: 10 Steps to
Help Young Adults Use Their Executive Skills to Set Goals, Make a Plan, and
Successfully Leave the Nest. Richard Guare, Colin Guare & Peg Dawson,
$24.50
Whether you're a young adult who is stalled on the
journey to independence — or a concerned parent still sharing the family nest — this
compassionate book is for you. Providing a fresh perspective on the causes of
failure to launch, the expert authors present a 10-step plan that helps grown
kids and parents work together to achieve liftoff. Learn why brain-based
executive skills such as planning, organization, and time management are so
important to success, and what you can do to strengthen them. You get
downloadable practical tools for figuring out what areas to target, building skills,
identifying a desired career path, and making a customized action plan. Vivid
stories of other families navigating the same challenges (including father and
son Richard and Colin Guare) reveal what kind of parental support is productive — and
when to let go. |
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The Teenage Brain: a Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to
Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. Frances Jensen, with Amy Ellis Nutt,
$18.99
Driven by the assumption that brain growth was pretty
much complete by the time a child began kindergarten, scientists believed for
years that the adolescent brain was essentially an adult one — only with fewer
miles on it. Over the last decade, however, the scientific community has
learned that the teen years encompass vitally important stages of brain
development.
Motivated by her personal experience of parenting two
teenage boys, renowned neurologist Dr. Frances Jensen gathers what we’ve
discovered about adolescent brain functioning, wiring, and capacity and, in
this groundbreaking, accessible book, explains how these eye-opening findings
not only dispel commonly held myths about the teenage years, but also yield
practical suggestions that will help adults and teenagers negotiate the
mysterious world of adolescent neurobiology. Interweaving clear summary and analysis
of research data with anecdotes, Dr. Jensen explores adolescent brain
functioning and development in the contexts of learning and multitasking,
stress and memory, sleep, addiction, and decision-making.
Rigorous yet accessible, warm yet direct, The Teenage
Brain sheds new light on the brains — and behaviors — of adolescents and
young adults, and analyzes this knowledge to share specific ways in which
parents, educators, and even the legal system can help them navigate their way
more smoothly into adulthood. |
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We Don't Talk Anymore: Healing after Parents and Their
Adult Children Become Estranged. Kathy McCoy, $24.99
Estrangement or partial estrangement from an adult son or
daughter is one of a parent's worst nightmares. It can mean angry silences and
anguished days and nights wondering what went wrong. Becoming estranged from a
parent can be equally painful for an adult child, who may miss the relationship
they once shared. We Don't Talk Anymore is a tender and practical new
exploration of estrangement for both parents and adult children. Each chapter
also provides compassionate, practical insights focused on what both parents
and adult children can do, including:
- Finding courage to reach out to your loved one
- Understanding the conflict and discovering a new and
fulfilling connection
- Letting go and rebuilding your life
Families deserve clarity and understanding. We Don't
Talk Anymore will show you those first steps toward healing. |
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When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their
Problems, Loving Them Anyway and Getting On With Our Lives. Jane Adams, $22.00
How do today’s parents cope when the dreams we had for our
children clash with reality? What can we do for our twenty- and even
thirty-somethings who can’t seem to grow up? How can we help our depressed,
dependent, or addicted adult children, the ones who can’t get their lives
started, who are just marking time or even doing it? What’s the right strategy
when our smart, capable grown kids won’t leave home or come boomeranging back?
Who can we turn to when the kids aren’t all right and we, their parents, are
frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed?
In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who’s
been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts
our deepest concerns, including our silence and self-imposed sense of
isolation, when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a
generation that “did everything right” and expected its children to grow into
happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven’t, at least, not yet — and
meanwhile, we’re letting their problems threaten our health, marriages,
security, freedom, careers or retirement, and other family relationships.
With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a
positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to “fix” their
adult children — Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without
separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while
getting on with our own. As we navigate this critical passage in our second
adulthood and their first, When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us reminds us
that the pleasures and possibilities of post-parenthood should not depend on
how our kids turn out, but on how we do! |
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Complete
Booklist
Beautiful Boy: a Father’s Journey through His Son’s
Addiction. David Sheff, $22.99
Beyond the Mommy Years: How to Live Happily Ever
After...After the Kids Leave Home. Carin Rubenstein, $39.00
The Empty Nest: 31 Parents Tell the Truth about
Relationships, Love and Freedom after the Kids Fly the Coop. Karen Stabiner,
editor, $25.95
Emptying the Nest: Launching Your Young Adult Toward
Success and Self-Reliance. Brad Sachs, $27.25
Home Free: the Myth of the Empty Nest. Marni Jackson,
$22.95
How Not to Move Back in With Your Parents: the Young
Person's Guide to Financial Empowerment. Rob Carrick, $22.95
How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting
Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. Julie Lythcott-Haims, $23.50
The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in
College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up. Barbara Hofer & Abigail
Sullivan Moore, $18.99
Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings are Choosing a Slower
Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone. Richard Settersten &
Barbara Ray, $23.00
Parenting Your Emerging Adult: Launching Kids from 18 to
29. Varda Konstam, $22.50
The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling
in Life. William Damon, $21.00
Smart But Scattered — and Stalled: 10 Steps to Help Young
Adults Use Their Executive Skills to Set Goals, Make a Plan, and Successfully
Leave the Nest. Richard Guare, Colin Guare & Peg Dawson, $24.50
The Teenage Brain: a Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to
Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. Frances Jensen, with Amy Ellis Nutt,
$18.99
We Don't Talk Anymore: Healing after Parents and Their
Adult Children Become Estranged. Kathy McCoy, $24.99
When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their
Problems, Loving Them Anyway and Getting On With Our Lives. Jane Adams, $22.00
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