From Magical Child to Magical Teen: A Guide to Adolescent Development Paperback - 2003

From the rear cover

PARENTING / EDUCATION "Praiseworthy. . . . Going far beyond his earlier Magical Child to explore the dysfunctions of culture, the promise of meditation, and the paradoxes of sexuality." --Library Journal "He has pointed the way to an acceptance of the adolescent discovery of spirit as the normal start of a developmental path." --San Francisco Chronicle Something is supposed to happen during the adolescent years--something greater than MTV, video games, and the Internet. Joseph Chilton Pearce describes this something as the natural mandate for post-biological development--the development of the sexual and spiritual senses and expansion of our growth process outside of our bodies and into the world that surrounds us. Though first written in the mid 1980s, the message of From Magical Child to Magical Teen is even more compelling and helpful today--especially for those who live with and work with adolescents. Drawing on the stages of development outlined by Swiss biologist Jean Piaget and the brain research of neuroscientist Paul MacLean, Pearce demonstrates how nature has built into us an agenda for the intelligent and creative unfolding of our lives. The author illuminates the connection between adolescent mind and heart development as it relates to the perennial issue of nature vs. nurture, offering a powerful critique of contemporary child-rearing practices that are at the core of today's serious social and psychological problems. From Magical Child to Magical Teen is an essential guide to the unfolding of the adolescent. It enables us to understand our children and help them release their potential in order to experience the fullness of life the way nature intended. JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE is the author of the bestselling Magical Child, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Evolution's End, and the recently published The Biology of Transcendence. For the past twenty-five years, he has taught about the changing needs of our children and the development of human society. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.