In her new book, Teen Wise, Celeste Gonsalves encourages parents to think about the world from the life experience point of view of their teenagers in order to help them improve communication and decision making skills.
The social scenarios that she includes in the book are meant to be discussed between students, parents, educators and counselors to help teens become self disciplined and gain confidence in their decisions by teaching them to think about consequences and repercussions. It’s all about starting teens on a thought process and getting them in the habit of practicing “Self-Serving Strategies”.
The book begins with an introduction by Celeste and an explanation of the five “Wise” segments that provide advice and background information for the different types of scenarios explored in the book. There’s “Addiction Wise”, “Friendship Wise”, “Dating Wise”, “Romantic Relationship Wise” and “Parent Wise”. Each chapter, broken up by grade level for age appropriateness, presents a series of scenarios with possible outcomes and consequences. Some of them are truly thought provoking and I can see how they would be a good catalyst for discussions.
In general, some of the concepts and language in Teen Wise may be a bit difficult for teens to understand, but for its purposes in getting teens to think and talk about social situations it succeeds. Celeste will be using her book and the practice of using “Self-Serving Strategies” in various interactive assemblies where students, parents and teachers can discuss these issues together.
Her first interactive assembly will be: Thursday, Sept. 17th at Kalani Highschool from 6:30-9:00pm. Everyone is welcome, the event is open to the public. You can check here at her webpage for upcoming events and assemblies.
