The Second Family

Taffel, Ron. The Second Family. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.

Audience:  Anyone wishing to understand how to deal with teenagers.

Genre:  Non-fiction, self-help

Topics of Focus:  Why we don’t really know our kids & and how to fix that. How to handle situations with your child and their friends. How to build a balanced and trusting relationship. 

Red Flags:  Language & sexual material

“Taffel is at his best explaining why today’s teens are so disdainful and disconnected from their families… This is a probing look into the often-misunderstood phenomenon of teen culture.”

The Second Familly by Dr. Ron Taffel and Melinda Blau is a book that both helps you to understand adolescents in this generation and how to deal with them. This book takes a deep look at the influence that a close group of peers have on a child, or as Taffel puts it, the ‘second family.’  But also it puts to rest long-standing misconceptions about the effects this second family has. Taffel includes examples of individuals and families that he has helped counsel recently in his career. Although some of the examples of teenagers acting out are rather extreme cases, most readers will still be able to empathize with the characters, or at least pull something out of it to which they can relate.

I really enjoyed this book because it let me look at myself through a parent’s perspective which can be a very difficult side to understand sometimes.  Originally when I picked this book up, I thought I would be laughing through it, due to cliché and silly advice that  they think would work (but me being a teenager, knew wouldn’t).  To my surprise Taffel actually knows what he’s talking about! The language he uses isn’t too complex and is pretty easy to read. I would definitely recommend this book to parents, and recommend my peers  give this to their parents if they are having problems getting through to them. 

Annotation by Ava Mittelsteadt