Welcome to adolescence! This comprehensive guide is written by experts to help parents navigate their child’s 12th year.
Get prepared for 12 years old.
Twelve marks your child’s last year before becoming a teen. Here’s what to expect and how to support your child through their growth and development.
12-Year-Old Ready includes:
How to deal with the onset of puberty—it’s a positive thing!
General guidance for the proper nutrition, sleep requirements, and exercise for your growing child.
Expert advice on a wide range of topics, from emotional development to changing social roles, including identity and resilience.
Practical suggestions and relatable anecdotes.
Conversation starters for you and your 12-year-old to open new lines of communication that can continue throughout the year.
Effective strategies to balance guidance and support with encouraging self-reliance, helping parents strike the right balance.
12-Year-Old Ready is edited by Wendy Thomas Russell, an award-winning journalist, author, and editor. Following her career as an investigative reporter for a daily newspaper, she spent several years as the parenting columnist for the PBS NewsHour while founding a boutique publishing company called Brown Paper Press. She is the author of Relax, It’s Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You’re Not Religious and the co-author of ParentShift: Ten Universal Truths That Will Change the Way You Raise Your Kids. Wendy lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband and teenage daughter.
Contributors include:
Craig Balfany, Registered and Board-Certified Art Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor
Karissa DiMarzio, M.S., Doctoral Candidate in the Clinical Science and Adolescent Psychology Program at Florida International University
Megan Green, Registered Dietitian
Dr. Tyish Hall Brown, Director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at Children’s National Hospital
Sarah S. Jaser, Ph.D., Pediatric Psychologist
Dr. Janice Key, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the MUSC Boeing Center for Children’s Wellness
Zeinab Khodaverdi, Researcher from Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Justin Parent, Clinical Psychologist at the Children’s Partial Hospital Program at Bradley Hospital and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University
Dr. Wesley O’Brien, Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and Coaching Science at University College Cork
Eden Pontz, Award-winning Journalist and Media Professional
Andrew C. Pool, Ph.D., MSc, Research Scientist at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Jonathan Santo, Professor of Psychology at the University of Nebraska and Director of Adolescence Peer Relations & Identity Lab
Joanna Lee Williams, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University