The Four Corners of Love-Based Parenting

How to Develop a More Trusting and Honest Relationship

Raising teenagers in today's world can be trying. Well-meaning parents who may have had positive relationships with their young children are suddenly confronted with a teenager who questions their authority, disobeys household rules and verbally challenges them. Parents need to successfully navigate the troubled years of adolescence.

"Parents – if they want to maintain a healthy relationship with their teens – must reassess their personal values, question their own authority and even reexamine their own unresolved childhood issues with new intensity," says Jeffrey P. Kaplan, Ph.D., co-author of Finding the Path: A Novel for Parents of Teenagers.

Finding the Path is the story of a single mother and her rebellious teenage son. By using the concepts of love-based parenting, a more trusting and honest relationship results. In the text are reference numbers that are linked to explanatory endnotes. As you learn more about how the characters in the novel find solutions, you learn love-based parenting strategies that you can apply to your own situation.

At the center of love-based parenting is acceptance. In it, the challenges teens bring to your life are not seen as threats to your role as a parent but as invitations to better yourself emotionally and spiritually. Kaplan reminds us that, "Treating a sometimes difficult teen with love and compassion now will make a significant contribution to your adult relationship later."

There are four corners to love-based parenting:

Want to see more?

• Learning to Let Go
• Behavior Contracts
• Dealing With the Ingratitude Attitude
• Talk about it!