On Sept. 28, the Piedmont Education Foundation Speaker Series begins the 2021-22 season with sociologist, author, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and sought-after expert speaker and coach Dr. Christine Carter. Carter will discuss topics relating to her most recent book, The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction, in conversation with Millennium High School Principal Shannon Fierro.
Carter has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CBS Sunday Morning and PBS, among others. She writes the popular Raising Happiness blog and contributes to US News & World Report, Huffington Post, PsychologyToday.com and more. She is the author of Raising Happiness (2011) and The Sweet Spot: How to Achieve More by Doing Less (2017).
Similar to her previous books, New Adolescence offers lists, contracts, and other easy-to-remember science-based practices and recommendations for parenting healthy teenagers in contemporary times. The 280-page volume manages to be comprehensive, deeply researched, and arrives with personal anecdotes. Her own parenting experiences make the Carter’s work intimate and readable. Carter is parent in a blended family that includes four teenagers. With frank and brisk sections on sexting, vaping, pornography, depression, sleep disorders, anxiety, social media addiction and adults as role models — yes, we who have work to do also — Carter pushes into the current-day realities of living with adolescents.
For parents and school personnel navigating even the most entrenched conflicts, she advocates practical, progressive approaches that helps provide the structure teens need while giving them the autonomy they seek. Carter’s website offers additional resources and practical guides for both parents and teens — including ways to dial back from social media.
Series coordinator Lisa Peters says in an interview, “We’re so excited to hear the conversation between Christine and our own Shannon Fierro to help us find some strategies to best help our kids navigate these trying times.”
Register by Monday, Sept. 27
Individual event tickets are available at PEF’s Piedmont Store. Peters reminds everyone that PEF’s Zoom events require registration. For the event with Carter, registration by Monday, September 27 will ensure access. Copies of Carter’s newest book are available while supplies last at the PEF Office, 401 Highland Avenue between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday-Friday.
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