Noting that with informed understanding, parents can prepare for and cope with their adolescents' profound internal turmoil, this book provides parents with a clear view of what to expect during their child's adolescence: the major biological and psychological developments of adolescence; the most significant social, sexual, and cultural pressures; and the critical problems commonly faced by parents. The book emphasizes the importance of a parent-child relationship built on trust, respect, limit setting, careful listening, negotiation, and compromise, and offers ways that parents can handle the most widespread problems and conflicts of adolescence. The chapters of the book are: (1) "An Introduction to Adolescence: Experiments and Upheaval, but Not Hostility"; (2) "Latency: One Last Chance," on setting the stage for trust and negotiation during the elementary school years; (3) "Sex and Sexuality: The Classical Battlefield with No Safe Towers"; (4) "Drugs and Alcohol; The Need for Calm Confrontation"; (5) "Self-Esteem: The Bedrock of Confidence and Competence"; (6) "Identity and Separation: Disruptions and Opportunities"; (7) "The Limits of Parental Power"; (8) "Conflicts and Negotiations"; (9) "Relinquishing Control"; (10) "Role Identity and Parental Frustrations"; (11) "Divorce: Complex Trauma, but Manageable"; (12) "Special Problems," such as depression, suicide, and eating disorders; (13) "Getting Help," on overcoming resistance to counseling for adolescent problems; (14) "Extended Adolescence," on the problems that arise when college-age or older children must still live at home; and (15) "Timeline: A Summary, Year by Year," which places the major issues of adolescence in an approximate chronology. (HTH)