Afraid of your teenager? Some tips for winning the battle of wills
An Australian author and mother of two teenagers comes out with a new book to reassure parents that no one has all the answers
Joanne Fedler knows just how unpleasant teenagers can be. She's mother to two, Jesse and Aidan, and, as with her previous parenting books, their lives are grist for her writing mill as she gives hope and consolation to parents battling teen wars.
South African-born, Sydney-based Fedler is quick to emphasise she is no expert. "I don't say I know better than anybody else," she says of her new book, Love in the Time of Contempt (Hardie Grant Books), subtitled Consolations for Parents of Teenagers.
"But I hope that parents will engage with their children, take action, not just sit back and let their kids slide into this silent cyberworld.
"I think a lot of parents are bullied or afraid of their teenagers and step into the shadows. I hope they feel more empowered to say: 'My job is to connect with my children, and it does not matter how contemptuously they are behaving.' That is my modest hope."
A Yale-educated lawyer who now focuses on writing and inspirational speaking, Fedler was approached to write this book by a publisher taken with her popular columns about coping with teenagers for an Australian newspaper's magazine.
"I am very honest about the experience. I don't try to make myself look better or romanticise an experience," she says. "It allows other people to think: 'It is not just me; there are other people experiencing these myriad conflicts and emotions'."