Just as the previous generation was raised in front of televisions, adolescents at the turn of the 21st century are being raised in an internet-enabled world where blogs, social networking, and instant messaging are competing with face-to-face and telephone communication as the dominant means through which personal interaction takes place.…

"Dramatherapy with Children, Young People and Schools" is the first book to specifically evaluate the unique value of dramatherapy in the educational environment. A variety of highly experienced dramatherapists, educational psychologists and childhood experts discuss the benefits to the children and young people, and also in relation to…

The purpose of this book is to bring together in one place empirically based information from many different scientific fields on what is presently known about aggression and related behaviors in children and adolescents. A further purpose of this book is to facilitate research into these behaviors by collecting into one volume the present state…

Originally developed to treat antisocial behavior, multisystemic therapy (MST) has emerged as a leading evidence-based treatment for serious emotional disturbance in children and adolescents. This manual presents the MST approach to working with this challenging population. Delineated are ways to develop and implement collaborative interventions…

Now more than ever, counselors, teachers, community youth workers, and parents are striving to prevent individual and school-wide tragedy before it happens. Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescent experience. In this book, author and social worker Michael Ungar takes a fresh, hopeful approach to challenging…

Teenagers are perplexing, intriguing, and spirited creatures. In an attempt to discover the secrets to their thoughts and actions, parents have tried talking, cajoling, and begging them for answers. The result has usually been just more confusion. Light is being shed on these mysterious young adults. What was once thought to be hormones run amuck…

This book assembles and synthesizes some of the latest available information, research findings, and informed opinions regarding the parameters of homicide by youths and concerning the nature of young killers themselves. It provides a framework for understanding youths who kill, for moving forward with treatment, and for reducing violence in…

The essays collected in this book examine the effects of ethnicity on the mental health of adolescents. A dual set of issues emerges throughout the volume: the importance of adolescent mental health in contributing to adult well-being, and the necessity of understanding ethnicity in studying and treating mental health problems. The book is divided…

Kids who distrust adults are highly skilled at hiding their real nature and resisting change. Most adults shun such youths or get mired in conflict with them. Punitive get tough practices as well as traditional flaw-fixing treatment are reactive strategies that often drive these youths further from adult bonds and reinforce oppositional and…

While all teenage behavior and character traits can be challenging, the issues facing the at-risk teenager are particularly thorny. Anger, aggression, and a lack of good decision-making may happen on a minute-to-minute basis, as teachers try to guide these young adults. Unlocking the key to keeping them in school and facilitating proficiency in…

Current educational and juvenile justice systems rely greatly on punishment and power over strategies-- especially when faced with youth whose severe behaviors escalate to violence. This book attempts to go beyond the typical problem-focused book, offering field-tested, concrete prevention and intervention strategies that can be used to help even…

A model for treating difficult adolescents and their families is presented. Part 1 offers six basic assumptions about the causes of severe behavioral problems and presents the treatment model with guidelines necessary to address each of these six causes. Case examples highlight and clarify major points within each of the 15 procedural steps of the…

A variety of approaches to preventing antisocial behavior in children have ranged from infant schools to residential treatment centers, from social training to psychological therapies, with evaluations that have typically been little more than testimonials to current fashions. By introducing experimental approaches to the study of intervention…

Concentrating on the development of the brain, this book discusses the impact of children's social environment on their potential for psychological and personal growth. The introduction identifies many child and adolescent behavior patterns that have changed within the last 20 years and are symptomatic of larger societal problems, which include:…

The phrase "prosocial gang" may seem a contradiction but such gangs do exist. This book describes a gang intervention program, Aggression Replacement Training (ART), which resulted in reduced arrest rates among violent gangs in a large urban area. The book opens with a list of prosocial gangs followed by an analysis of the development,…