#21 - Get Outta My Face!

When I bought Get Outta My Face! by Rick Horne, I thought I was buying a parenting book about the teen years. Even though I don't have teenagers yet, I like to read parenting books to prepare me for what's coming.But this book is not really about parenting teenagers. It's even more specifically about how to communicate with angry teenagers who don't want to communicate. Horne writes, "This book has a narrow focus and a limited goal. It does not present a full-scale method of youth counseling or parenting. Nor does it show parents how to hold their teens accountable for their foolish choices."

Horne's main point of the book is "that your first words to an angry teen will strongly push that interaction toward one of two outcomes: your words being received, thus beginning a conversation, or a Get outta my face response, thus shutting it all down. Presentation, the way we approach our teen and start to talk, can make or break effective communication." [italics his]

I think it took me a few chapters before I fully appreciated the narrow focus of the book. I kept wanting him to deal with the heart of the teen, to apply Scriptures to the soul and to bring the Gospel to bear in the life situation of the young man he was describing. But then I fully realized and appreciated what he was doing. Horne gives a basic method of communication that describes how to listen to and build a bridge of communication so that we can start a relationship with a teenager who has shut down and tried to burn, explode and napalm that bridge.

As adults, we often give too much information. We move too fast in trying to tell and speak into our child's life (or anyone for that matter) before we fully listen to and understand the perspective of our child. I am guilty of that often. I call it monologuing as opposed to dialogue. Proverbs 18:13 speaks to that too - He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.

If you work with teens, have a teen or anticipate either and have struggled with communicating with teens, you may want to get this book. It is written clearly and gives good examples to illustrate the communication principles outlined in this book. However, as with many counseling books, the examples are somewhat ideal. I have not talked with a teenager who gave such concise and clear, almost "perfect" answers to the questions asked. Usually, I get more of the "I dunno know" or incredibly verbose with various tangential stories type answers. Of course, maybe I'm just not applying the principles of this book well enough!