Parenting an emotionally dysregulated teen is the hardest work in the world. There’s a lot of advice available in the media and from mental health professionals for how to do it. Much of the advice is next to useless because it tells you what to do—offering skills to better manage your teen’s problematic behavior—but not how to face the pain when a child reacts aggressively to your new parenting strategies. Techniques, strategies, and skills are not enough. Parents need a way to deal with their own hurt, their own fear, their own discouragement.
That’s why acceptance and commitment therapy—the approach offered in Patricia Zurita Ona’s excellent book—is your best guide for successfully parenting a dysregulated teen. As you’ve no doubt discovered reading this book, ACT shows you how to cope with your own emotional struggles while effectively helping your teen to both down-regulate emotions and modulate problematic behavior. The conflict resolution and behavioral management skills are excellent, but, most importantly, they are taught in the context of mindfully observing and accepting your own pain as a parent.
There’s another reason the ACT approach promotes more effective parenting for emotionally overwhelmed teens. ACT will help you identify your parenting values—who you want to be to your child—and turn them into committed action. One-size-fits-all parenting protocols don’t work very well because they are generic and not tailored to you. This book, by turning your parenting values into specific and profound changes in the relationship to your teen, will reshape your family life. It will make possible a set of new parenting responses that will help your child better regulate and better function at home and in the world.
—Matthew McKay, PhDCoauthor of Thoughts & Feelings and Communication Skills for Teens