Are teenagers becoming more violent? More difficult to handle than they were 20 years ago? The statistics seem to be conflicting, but what is certain is that many parents find themselves as alienated from their teens as their teens do from them. Certainly, the increasing stresses and frustration of everyday life, unintentionally transferred from parent to child, only aggravate this condition. Moreover, at the foundation of the current "showcased" incidents of child homicide and the silent, not as newsworthy epidemic of child suicide, is a malaise among adolescents that most parents and teachers are aware of but don't discuss. The one factor that ties together all worries and fears about contemporary teens is that adults are dismayed that their children seem foreign and lost to them. This itself, without any form of violent acting out, torments many well-meaning and quietly anxious parents. Hard Lessons examines the causes of teen malaise including drug use, outdated education models, parental absence, and the Internet as well as other media that provide a kick for adolescents bored with parental authority and classroom clichs. The book presents a new model and formula for firm, supportive and loving guidance that can begin to undermine the overwhelming and profoundly effective array of messages that influence our children, against which traditional parenting simply cannot compete. In short, it will explain to parents how to find out whether their child is in pain and, more importantly, what to do about it.