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Playing at Being Bad: The Hidden Resilience of Troubled TeensMichael Ungar, PhDCulture, Youth, Popular Psychology Order this book: |
![[Cover of Playing at Being Bad.]](../images/1895900522.jpg)
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This book is for anyone trying to understand the challenges children and youth face today. It offers particular insight for parents, teachers and caregivers of troubled youth who may be just beginning, or are already stuck in, patterns of delinquency, drug or alcohol addiction, sexual promiscuity, violence, suicide, depression, and truancy. Here is a better way to help our kids grow up without these debilitating problems. In the continuing aftermath of Columbine High School, a perceived proliferation of gangs, and a host of other youth-related problems, this book offers a way to help build resilience in even our most disturbed young people. It takes a close look at the crises kids face and explores the important role adults can play in keeping dangerous and delinquent youth from drifting further into trouble.
Unlike many other books about difficult kids that reflect the wisdom of adults, this one explores the truth of adolescence. It build on recent explorations of youth such as Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, Judith Rich's The Nurture Assumption, and William Pollack's Real Boys. It examines some of the emerging trends in psychology and recent innovations in work with our most unhealthy young people.
For over 15 years Michael Ungar has worked as a marriage and family therapist, social worker, researcher, academic, and administrator of programs for high-risk youth in both community and institutional settings. He is an associate professor at the Maritime School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and continues to work extensively with both front-line staff and professional therapists, parents and community groups, conducting workshops internationally on the treatment of vulnerable youth.
"Our most troubled youth are far more resilient and healthy than we are ready to admit. If we take the time to listen very closely to our children speak about their experiences beyond our front doors, we hear an entirely different story about their lives than the one we adults tell."
This book tells the stories of the teens Michael Ungar has worked with over the past 15 years - it is both an exploration of their lives and a book parents, teachers and counsellors can use to more effectively reach out to the youth in their care.