Growing Up Too Fast: The Rimm Report on the Secret World of America's Middle Schoolers
by Sylvia Rimm, PhD

Published by Rodale

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Sex, drugs, peer pressure, and underachievement: don't these sound like issues that high schoolers might confront? But according to Dr. Sylvia Rimm's research findings, your middle schoolers may actually be encountering these problems every single day. And because kids today communicate via instant messaging and their cell phones, you may not know what they're actually going through.

In an extensive survey of more than 5,400 middle school kids, and through more than 300 focus groups, Dr. Rimm discovered that today's kids face difficult, grown-up decisions younger than ever. A 5th grade boy explained, "We learn about everything from the movies and try out the sex we see." A 6th grader told Dr. Rimm, "A girl in our class even got her tongue pierced."

With straightforward, real-life advice, Growing Up Too Fast offers sensible strategies for raising this new breed of tweens. Sample conversations show the best ways to talk with kids about issues that really matter, like terrorism, drugs, alcohol, and sex and violence in the media. Growing Up Too Fast is an essential guide to parenting middle school kids to  a bright and successful future.

pub date: 2005-08-17 | hardcover | 9781579547097