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Being a teenager in today’s “age of anxiety” is scary. Being a parent of a teenager is even scarier. Zoomers may seem more together, more confident and more independent than prior generations, but in fact, they are more anxious, lonely and emotionally fragile, and less resilient to stress, says psychoanalyst, clinical social worker and parenting expert Erica Komisar.
“We are asking children to handle more — more stress, more stimulation, more pressure, more choices and more decisions — without giving them a secure foundation of support, emotional security, and real and meaningful connections,” says Komisar.
Her important new book, Chicken Little the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety, is a comprehensive guide filled with compassionate and practical advice to help parents guide, educate and connect with their children on a range of current topics, including gender and sexual identity, anxiety and depression, disordered eating, ADHD, vaping, social media and bullying, to name a few.
Chicken Little also contains valuable insights intended to help readers prevent, recognize and address mental health disorders, as well as help their teens navigate academic and social pressures, social media and technology usage, increased social isolation and family pressures. With Komisar’s guidance and support, parents will learn how to be beacons of hope and change, as well as how to raise emotionally healthy, resilient adolescents.
About the Author Erica Komisar, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and parent guidance expert who has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. As a psychological consultant, she brings parenting workshops to schools, clinics, corporations and childcare settings. She is also a contributing editor to the Institute for Family Studies. She is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.
Erica lives in New York City with her husband and is the mother of three adolescent children.
Chicken Little, the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: November 2, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757324002 ISBN-13: 9780757324000 Trade Paperback, 288 pages Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
How to Raise Resilient Children in Our Complex World
(This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Being a teenager in today’s “age of anxiety” is scary. Being a parent of a teenager is even scarier. Zoomers may seem more together, more confident and more independent than prior generations, but in fact, they are more anxious, lonely and emotionally fragile, and less resilient to stress, says psychoanalyst, clinical social worker and parenting expert Erica Komisar.
“We are asking children to handle more — more stress, more stimulation, more pressure, more choices and more decisions — without giving them a secure foundation of support, emotional security, and real and meaningful connections,” says Komisar.
Her important new book, Chicken Little the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety, is a comprehensive guide filled with compassionate and practical advice to help parents guide, educate and connect with their children on a range of current topics, including gender and sexual identity, anxiety and depression, disordered eating, ADHD, vaping, social media and bullying, to name a few.
Chicken Little also contains valuable insights intended to help readers prevent, recognize and address mental health disorders, as well as help their teens navigate academic and social pressures, social media and technology usage, increased social isolation and family pressures. With Komisar’s guidance and support, parents will learn how to be beacons of hope and change, as well as how to raise emotionally healthy, resilient adolescents.
About the Author Erica Komisar, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and parent guidance expert who has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. As a psychological consultant, she brings parenting workshops to schools, clinics, corporations and childcare settings. She is also a contributing editor to the Institute for Family Studies. She is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.
Erica lives in New York City with her husband and is the mother of three adolescent children.
Chicken Little, the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: November 2, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757324002 ISBN-13: 9780757324000 Trade Paperback, 288 pages Available for pre-order on Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
The Message that Families Impacted by Addiction Need to Hear: You Are Not Alone
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When Christine Naman says that her daughter is “doing well,” the caution in her voice is palpable. Addiction recovery is a work in progress — not a quick fix — and Christine has learned to celebrate each day for the tiny victory that it is.
Her daughter, Natalie, was just 15 years old when she became addicted to heroin. They were everyday people, living everyday lives, and then the floor dropped out.
“It’s exactly where you don’t want to end up,” Christine said in a recent interview. “I was caught flat-footed, and I’m embarrassed to say that.”
Christine traces her daughter’s years-long battle with addiction — and her own struggles with denial — in About Natalie, a gripping, cautionary tale of how a child can suddenly end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her.
Interwoven with Christine’s reflections are Natalie’s brilliant poems that share her personal pain and the unvarnished truth of her struggle.
Full of compassion, understanding and hope for addicts, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It is a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and never giving up.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
The Home Stretch Poignantly Captures Midlife Moments of Reckoning
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While no two journeys are ever exactly the same, many of us will one day retire from a career that defines us, become a caregiver to a parent and contemplate our own mortality. How we navigate these changes depends largely on our ability to make sense of life’s complicated path and to find forgiveness for others while we still have the chance.
From award-winning author Wayne M. Johnston comes The Home Stretch, a powerful coming-of-age story for grownups that poignantly captures the complex crises that often accompany middle age and the unresolved emotions that surface when our past and present selves collide.
The Home Stretch is presented through the voice of everyman Bill Smith (loosely based on Johnston himself) who, throughout his life, is confronted with extraordinary circumstances. Raised in a religious cult, Bill’s unconventional upbringing and strained relationship with his father inform his life experiences and underwrite his formidable urge, from a young age, to simply escape this life altogether.
Bill struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, and embarks upon a career navigating the rough waters of the Pacific on a tugboat. His tales of weathering gale-force winds and violent storms at sea provide metaphorical undercurrents for Bill’s fraught relationship with his father, his failed early marriage, his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s and his own battle with leukemia, which he is told will kill him.
Just when Bill has come to believe he has put the worst of it to rest, he learns something more about his father that opens everything up again, except this time, Bill’s sister is the victim.
Johnston’s thoroughly absorbing, reality-based story offers candid glimpses into life-defining moments of reckoning that many of us will have to face head-on. The Home Stretch serves as a stark reminder that the peace we hope for as we age is often shoved aside to make room for another crisis, but it is also an ultimately inspiring tale woven with themes of forgiveness and survival.
Wayne M. Johnston taught English, Creative Writing and Publications at La Conner High School for 19 years. Prior to that, he worked on tugboats for 22 years, usually as chief engineer, towing freight barges between Canadian and West Coast American ports. In 2011, he won the Soundings Review First Publication Award for his essay, “Sailing,” and has published other essays locally. For his debut novel, North Fork, he drew from years of experience reading student journals to reproduce the way kids voice serious matters to a trusted adult. North Fork was released in 2016 as a YA novel. The story is told through the voices of three 17-year-olds as journal entries for their English class. Bill Smith, the protagonist in The Home Stretch, is their English teacher, and The Home Stretch (book two in a planned trilogy) is his back story.
Johnston lives with his wife, Sally, on Fidalgo Island in Washington State where he is working on another book.
The Home Stretch Publisher: Black Heron Press ISBN-10: 1936364344 ISBN-13: 978-1936364343 Available from Amazon.com, BN.com, Target.com and anywhere books are sold
Trish Stevens Patricia Marks Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
How Our Government Really Works—What Every Teenager Should Know
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Whether you’re a student, parent, educator or engaged citizen seeking the truth, You Call This Democracy? How to Fix Our Government and Deliver Power to the People from public policy expert Elizabeth Rusch paves the way for every citizen to not only understand the flaws in our current democracy but to also fix them.
“We think we live in a democracy. One person, one vote. But how democratic is our government really?” Rusch asks. “The hard truth is that political power is not shared equally among all citizens. It shouldn’t matter if you are rich, poor, urban, rural, Democrat, Republican, old or young when you mark your ballot. Your race and gender shouldn’t matter either. But they all do.”
You Call This Democracy? gives an honest view of how our democracy truly functions, who really has the power and why (and how that power impacts politicians and policies) and how we can work together to make our democracy more responsive to the will of the people.
Consider the following:
Presidents can take office without winning the popular vote.
Voting districts are drawn by politicians for their own benefit.
Millions of citizens—young, old, poor, people of color, women—are blocked from voting.
Money wields much more influence than the wishes of ordinary Americans.
You Call This Democracy? offers insightful solutions to undemocratic elements plaguing our government, with inspirational examples of citizens already working to make change. International comparisons, extensive sources and resources prompt readers to dig deeper ― and take action.
Supplementary materials to the book include Rusch’s “50 State Democracy Report Card” (https://www.youcallthis.com/your-state), where people can check to see how democracy fares in their state overall and on specific metrics, and how they can strengthen democracy in their state; and a series of short, fun, informative videos on the issues covered in the book, called Flash Course on Democracy, available free at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUOGZlteO6dRY7aQV1uqpddW1C1maGLxP. Additionally, discussion guides and debate questions are available at www.youcallthis.com.
Elizabeth Rusch is the author of 20 award-winning books, and more than 100 magazine and newspaper articles. She is also the creator of the “50 State Democracy Report Card” and the video series Flash Course on Democracy. You Call This Democracy?, an Amazon Bestseller, was featured in the New York Times Book Review and received a starred review from Kirkus, which called it “a riveting must-read.” Rusch and her work have also been featured in The Discovery Channel, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud, The Wall Street Journal, Teacher magazine, Parenting Magazine and Working Mother, among many others. Rusch has a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and has served as a Jacob K. Javits Fellow in the U.S. Senate. Visit her at www.elizabethrusch.com, www.youcallthis.com and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUOGZlteO6dRY7aQV1uqpddW1C1maGLxP.
You Call This Democracy? How to Fix Our Government and Deliver Power to the People Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN-10: 0358176921 ISBN-13: 978-0358176923 Available from Amazon.com and wherever books and audiobooks are sold
Trish Stevens Anna Jones Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone 800.854.2207 Fax
