How to Hug a Porcupine: Negotiating the Prickly Points of the Tween Years

Book recommended by my daughter's classmate's mother. Insightful and easy read. I've passed it onto another mother.

If you are a parent thinking ahead, or wondering how to handle issues (and when), this book is just what you need. It isn't a "how to" - it is a "here is the perspective you need to make your own decisions". While every example obviously won't suit your family situation, you will be getting a real dose of reality about the issues your children and their friends (and their friends' families) will be dealing with. Ms Ross approaches every issue with common sense and clear thinking. In several cases, I couldn't see myself handling the issues the way they were handled in the examples, but seeing how someone handled them is invaluable in thinking about what might be best in your family. The sections on drugs and sex were especially valuable for two reasons: 1) the advice was clear and sensible, and 2) if you think you can skirt the issues, or avoid tackling them head-on, you won't after you read this book - as Ms Ross guides you through the issues and various ways to handle them, she also makes clear exactly what is at stake for your child and his or her personal safety and happiness. If you are a concerned parent, you will find this highly intelligent book filled with thoughtful advice and interesting perspective on how other parents in this generation are dealing with this generation's issues. I've read lots of advice books, and none of them are perfect. But this is the one that left me with the clearest plans for dealing with critical Tween issues. Parenting isn't about reading a book and doing what it tells you - it's about understanding issues, and figuring out how to deal with them in a way that best suits you and your children. Ms Ross' book is a wonderful resource for intelligent,thinking parents.

I read lots of parenting books (I'm a librarian) and this was one of the best I could find on parenting tweens. I just finished reading the library's copy but now I'm going to buy my own. Highly recommended.

The impact of Julie Ross's book may not be felt for another 15 to 20 years, but the impact could be powerful. If you look at the financial crisis we're facing, it's obvious there's a significant portion of the current generation that believes that anything goes as long as you don't get caught, and if you do get caught, find someone other than yourself to blame. Children raised to "behave" or "obey" rarely develop an inner compass between right and wrong. They may have the appearance of propriety, but the when push comes to shove, they'll do what's in their best interest, and to hell with everybody else. To counter this trend, Julie Ross's new book offers the radical proposition that instead of trying to get your child to "behave", we should teach our children how to "cooperate". Using dozens of real life examples culled from actual cases, she offers clear, practical techniques on how to raise children who are neither door mats or bullies but instead are courageous, cooperative and compassionate human beings. This is not a "know it all" book. These are dispatches sent directly from the trenches of modern day parent / child conflict, and Julie doesn't steer away from difficult and touchy topics like sex, drugs, addiction and peer pressure. But as with her other books (Joint Custody with a Jerk and Practical Parenting for the 21st Century), she writes with insight and humor about the challenges of raising prickly 'tweens, always with an eye on the prize: raising children to become the kind of adults we can be proud of.

This is an extraordinary book which will change the way that I think about and relate to my child. The book's premises are that pre-adolescents and adolescents in the years of middle school are like the chrysalis of a butterfly, struggling to change but susceptible to damage if handled too much or in the wrong way, and that communication which creates a trusting relationship enables the teenager who eventually emerges to make healthy choices. The strengths of the book are the care with which it details specific forms of communication which will and will not create this relationship based on case histories of parents and adolescents. I found it compelling because it was able to take highly personal situations and put them in a perspective that persuaded me to see my own child's behavior in new ways. Ross presents a significant amount of research on such topics as substance abuse, sexual practice and internet use but weaves the research so gracefully through case history that the book is accessible, lively and clear to the general reader while still making a theoretical contribution to theories of personality.