One school night this month I sidles up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, and stroked his ek in a manner I hoped would em casual. Alex knew better, nsing by my touch, which lingered just a moment too long, that I was sneaking a touch of the stubble that had begun to sprout near his ears. A year ago he would have ignored this intrusion and returned my gesture with a squeeze. But now he recoiled, retreating stormily to his computer screen. That, and a peevish roll of his eyes, told me more forcefully than words, Mom, you are so busted!
I had committed the ultimate folly: invading my teenager’s personal space. “The average teenager has pretty strong feelings about his privacy,” Lara Fox, a recent young acquaintance, told me with an assurance that brooked no debate. Her friend Hilary Frankel chimed in: “What Alex is saying is: ‘This is my body changing. It’s not yours.’” Intruding, however discreetly, risked making him feel babied “at a time when feeling like an adult is very important to him, ” she added.
每日英语学习O.K., score one for the two of you. The young women, after all, are experts. Ms. Frankel and Ms. Fox, both 17, are the authors of Breaking the Code (New American Library), a new book that eks to bridge the generational divide between parents and adolescents. It is being promoted by its publisher as
contacts
the first lf-help guide by teenagers for their parents, a kind of Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus that demystifies the language and actions of teenagers. The girls tackled issues including curfews, money, school pressures, smoking and sibling rivalry.
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Personally,I welcomed insights into teenagers from any qualified experts, and that included the authors. The most common missteps in interacting with teenagers, they instructed me, stem from the turf war between parents asrting their right to know what goes on under their roof and teenagers zealously guarding their privacy. When a child is younger, they write, every decision revolves around the parents. But now, as Ms. Fox told me, “often your teenager is in this bubble that doesn’t include you.”
Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel acknowledge that they and their peers can be quick to interpret their parents’ remarks as dismissive or condescending and respond with hostility that masks their vulnerability. “What we want above all is your approval,” they write. “Don’t forget, no matter how much we act as if we don’t care what you say, we believe the things you say about us.”
Nancy Samalin, a New York child-rearing expert and the
author of Loving Without Spoiling(McGraw-Gill, 2003), said she didn’t agree with everything the auth英国研究生申请条件
ors suggested but found their arguments reasonable. “When your kids are saying, ‘You don’t get it, and you never will,’ there are lots of ways to respond so that they will listen,” she said, “and that’s what the writers point out.”
As for my teenager, Alex, Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel told me I would have done better to back off or to have asked “Is your skin feeling rougher the days?”
北京新东方英语培训国际音标在线学习A more successful approach, the authors suggest in their book, would have been for the mother to offer, as Ms. Fox’s own parents did, a later curfew once a month, along with an explanation of her concerns. “My parents helped me e,” Ms. Fox told me, “that even though they ud to stay out late and ride their bicycles to school, times have changed. The days there is a major fear factor in bringing up kids. Parents worry about their child crossing the street.”
The writers said they hoped simply to shed light on teenage thinking. For their parents it did. Reminded by Ms. Fox that teenagers can be quite territorial, her father, Steven Fox, a dentist, said, “The days I’m better about knocking on the door when I want to come into Lara’s room.” “I try to talk to her in a
rotomore respectful way, more as an adultish type of teenager rather than a childish type of teenager,” h
e added.
1.The book Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus is mentioned in the third paragraph becau .
A.It has the same theme of the book written by the two girls.
B.It has the opposite opinion to the book written by the two girls.
C.It has ranked first on the list of best llers for veral times.
职位英文D.It is another book that the two girls have ever written.
2.As to the views mentioned in the two girl’s book, the author believes that .
A.They provide some approaches to her child-rearing.
B.They revealed thought patterns of teenagers and parents.
C.They have obtained unanimous support from the public.
D.They have overestimated the rights of teenagers.poker face mp3
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3.Which of the following words best describes teenagers as en by the two girls?
A.Independent.
B.Arrogant.
C.Sensitive.
D.Isolated.
4.what does the ntence “ You don’t get it, and you never will” (6th paragraph) imply?
