Synopses & Reviews
Adolescents face unique pressures and worries. Will they pass high school? Should they go to college? Will they find love? And what ways do they want to act in the world? The uncertainty surrounding the future can be overwhelming. Sadly, and all too often, if things don’t go smoothly, adolescents will begin labeling themselves as losers, unpopular, unattractive, weird, or dumb. And, let’s not forget the ubiquitous ‘not good enough’ story that often begins during these formative years. These labels are often carried forward throughout life. So what can you do, now, to help lighten this lifelong burden?
The Thriving Adolescent offers teachers, counselors, and mental health professionals powerful techniques for working with adolescents. Based in proven- effective acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the skills and tips outlined in this book will help adolescents and teens manage difficult emotions, connect with their values, achieve mindfulness and vitality, and develop positive relationships with friends and family. The evidence-based practices in this book focus on developing a strong sense of self, and will give adolescents the confidence they need to make that difficult transition into adulthood.
Whether it’s school, family, or friend related, adolescents experience a profound level of stress, and often they lack the psychological tools to deal with stress in productive ways. The skills we impart to them now will help set the stage for a happy, healthy adulthood. If you work with adolescents or teens, this is a must-have addition to your professional library.
Review
With wisdom, kindness, and inspiring clarity born from years of mindful living and teaching mindfulness, Amy Saltzman guides us through the research-proven, practical steps of how to help young people learn the fundamentals of resilience, focus, and compassion. Science-supported, clinically-sound, and educationally brilliant, this book will provide essential tools for all who wish to learn from a master about how children and adolescents can discover
A Still Quiet Place, a source of emotional and social intelligence and a lifelong center of inner peace.”
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain and Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation; clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine; and codirector of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center
Review
With great clarity and uncommon attention to detail, Amy Saltzman gives us much more than a first-rate mindfulness program.
A Still Quiet Place is a portrait of a master teacher at work.”
Richard Brady, MS, cofounder and president of the Mindfulness in Education Network and coauthor of Tuning In: Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning
Review
Amy Saltzman has produced a highly illuminative and extremely practical mindfulness-based program for children and adolescents.
A Still Quiet Place provides step-by-step instructions for facilitators to administer the program in whole or in part. It is a must-have for mental health professionals, educators, and parents wishing to teach children and adolescents mindfulness and social and emotional learning. Highly recommended!”
Sam Himelstein, PhD, director of the Mind Body Awareness Project and author of A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Working with High-Risk Adolescents
Review
Amy Saltzman's authoritative book provides the wisdom and building blocks you'll need to share mindfulness with children and teens. Far more than a workbook, it's a curriculum that you can pick up and use to teach a class, written by someone who has been instrumental in the movement to bring mindfulness to youth since its inception.”
Susan Kaiser Greenland, JD, author of The Mindful Child
Review
A Still Quiet Place is exactly the guide that parents and professionals have been waiting for to take the mystery out of the practice of mindfulness. We all know that our children are too stressed, and we want it to change.
A Still Quiet Place is an essential antidote and accompaniment for the stressed lives that our children lead today. This crystal-clear program teaches children exactly how to bring thoughtful, calming awareness to their day-to-day experiences and struggles, not only reducing pressure and strain but enhancing their quality of life. Filled with child-friendly explanations and exercises, every child will benefit from finding their still quiet place within. Amy Saltzman is the perfect guide to lead them there.”
Tamar Chansky, PhD, author of Freeing Your Child from Anxiety: Powerful, Practical Solutions to Overcome Your Child's Fears, Worries, and Phobias
Review
In this clear and compassionate guide, Amy Saltzman offers a joyous path for leading children to peace and self-discovery through mindfulness.”
Christopher Willard, PsyD, author of Child's Mind
Review
Amy Saltzman makes teaching mindfulness widely accessible with this wonderful book. It is a brilliant distillation of years of experience teaching mindfulness to children kindergarten through twelfth grade. Saltzmans passion and experience flow through these pages.
A Still Quiet Place is a must-read for anyone who desires teaching valuable life skills. It is one of the best and most complete books on teaching mindfulness that Ive read.”
Brian Despard, author of You Are Not Your Thoughts: Mindfulness for Children of All Ages
Review
What our busy modern world needs is for more adults to introduce more children to
A Still Quiet Place. Finally, we have a step-by-step guide to building vital skills for children like kindness, resilience, attention, and stress management. Saltzman offers practical, everyday guidance to support children of any age and has created an irreplaceable resource in the field.”
Mark Bertin, MD, developmental pediatrician and author of The Family ADHD Solution. Learn more at www.developmentaldoctor.com.
Review
A Still Quiet Place is a smart, thoughtful, and encouraging guide to bringing mindfulness to children. Amys warmth and experience shine through her words, and her invitation to explore the world with kindness and curiosity is exactly what I would want for my own daughter. My teaching, and my parenting, will be better for having read this book.”
Jennifer Cohen Harper, author of Little Flower Yoga for Kids
In a time when it's needed more than ever, Amy Saltzman delivers an effective program that not only offers to ease the stress and emotional struggles of our children, but also provides a recipe to begin healing our world.”
Elisha Goldstein, PhD, author of The Now Effect and coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook
Review
“Reading The Thriving Adolescent sets you on a journey into the hearts and minds of young people in a way that is unique, fascinating, and incredibly informative. From the beginning, I felt compelled to reflect upon how, as a therapist, my goal was always to help distressed adolescents adapt to the adult world. This book turns that assumption upside down and asks us instead to help adolescents linger longer in their journey to adulthood by cultivating their abilities to notice what is going on in their world; to detach from destructive, self-focused mental chatter; and to be playful and experimental in their behaviors. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a prosocial approach like the DNA-V model to give us a sense of direction with a distressed adolescent. This book is packed full of revealing insights, interesting case examples, therapist-client dialogues, practical clinical tips, teaching protocols, and worksheets. All of this is done in an easy-to-read, conversational, and entertaining style. The Thriving Adolescent addresses the social landscape of adolescence, from the intricacies of developing healthy self-narratives to creating naturally occurring prosocial groups that help adolescents discover the practice of kindness to self and others. This book is a must-read for teachers, school counselors, therapists, and anyone else who wants to help teenagers thrive.”—Kirk Strosahl, PhD, cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and coauthor of Inside This Moment and In This Moment
Review
“This book breaks new ground in our understanding of how to nurture the development of adolescents. It translates the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) perspective into a strategy for helping young people develop social and emotional competence. I expect that it will enable schools, families, clinics, juvenile justice works, and communities become much more oriented toward ensuring that young people become caring and productive members of their communities.”—Anthony Biglan, PhD, senior scientist at Oregon Research Institute, and author of The Nurture Effect
Review
“This is an excellent resource written by two eminent thinkers and skilled practitioners. Every chapter is filled with creative exercises, metaphors for explaining complex ideas, and scripts that can be fine-tuned for each teenager you’re trying to help. With step-by-step strategies, this book is a road map for leading adolescents toward a better life.”—Todd B. Kashdan, PhD, professor of psychology at George Mason University and coauthor of The Upside of Your Dark Side
Review
“This book is not about psychopathology. It is about that struggle for identity and becoming that happens in adolescence. Hayes and Ciarrochi offer a comprehensive developmental approach built on the best available science. It contains well-thought-out theory to ground the work and is packed with tools, transcripts, and real-life examples to make it readily accessible to any teacher, counselor, and health care professional.”—Kelly G. Wilson, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi and author of Mindfulness for Two
Review
“How I have longed for this book! It’s an invaluable resource for helping teenagers to grow into their full potential and live life full out. This book is an engaging and clear road map with its practical suggestions, worksheets, exercises, and examples. It’s a must-have for teachers, counselors, and health professionals working with adolescents.”—Fredrik Livheim, licensed clinical psychologist, clinical researcher on ACT for teens at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and coauthor of The Mindful and Effective Employee
Review
“The Thriving Adolescent moves beyond traditional behaviorisms to present a new perspective on engaging young people in vitalizing relational ways. The book is rich with ideas at the interface between positive psychology and youth development, and with practical strategies for helping young people identify meaningful goals and life values. Hayes and Ciarrochi map out many useful and concrete pathways for adults to build constructive, facilitating relationships with teenagers that can contribute to flourishing on both sides of the dialogue. Definitely advances the field.”—Richard M. Ryan, professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University
Review
“The Thriving Adolescent contains a great deal of wisdom and understanding of young people, and a practical approach to working with them in a developmentally attuned way. There are few clear and practical blueprints for this vital work, and the model the authors have crafted will be a useful addition to the repertoire of clinicians.”—Patrick McGorry, AO, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRANZCP, executive director of Orygen, and professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne
Review
“This is a long-needed book. The combination of Hayes’s and Ciarrochi’s expertise in clinical and research work with adolescents contribute to make acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) simple to apply even for those who are new to this third-generation cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach. Their DNA-V model is robustly grounded in the ACT research tradition. The authors distill its essence into three core behaviors, making it easy to build psychological flexibility and openness to the world and to any experience (which is basically what is needed by any adolescent in the world). There is no need to be an ACT expert to practice the DNA-V model, but you will become that expert. Exercises and metaphors are specifically tailored within a developmental frame and with adolescence in mind to help the reader become the context that models, instigates, and reinforces DNA skills in young people. This book should be read (and practiced) by any person interested in adolescence, or in being a therapist, counselor, teacher, or simply a parent.”—Giovambattista Presti, associate professor of psychology and coordinator of the undergraduate program in psychology at Kore University of Enna, Italy
Review
“Listen up counselors, teachers, and primary care clinicians. If you care about adolescents and helping them flourish, this book is for you. The authors provide a theoretical basis to support ‘DNA-V conceptualization’ of adolescent evolution, and they make intervention easy with downloadable worksheets. Read it, apply it, and take pride in the fact that you are more able to love, protect, and equip tomorrow’s leaders.”—Patricia J. Robinson, PhD, director or training at Mountainview Consulting Group, and coauthor of Real Behavior Change in Primary Care
Synopsis
Todays children and adolescents face intense pressuresboth in the classroom and at home. A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their lives. The easy-to-implement practices in this guide are designed to help increase attention, learning, resiliency, and compassion by showing children how to experience the natural quietness that can be found within. The book also includes links to helpful audio downloads.
Synopsis
Teaching kids stress management skills early in life will help them to grow into happy and healthy adults. And if you work with children or adolescents, you know that kids today need these skills more than ever. The pressures they face in the classroom, on the playground, in their extracurricular activities, and at home can sometimes be overwhelming. So how can you help lay the groundwork for their success? A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their lives, and develop their natural capacities for emotional fluency, respectful communication, and compassionate action. The program detailed in this book is based on author Amy Saltzmans original curriculum, which has helped countless children and adolescents achieve significant improvements in attention and reduced anxiety.
One of the easiest ways to find the still quiet place within is to practice mindfulnesspaying attention to your life experience here and now with kindness and curiosity. The easy-to-implement mindfulness practices in this guide are designed to help increase children and adolescents attention, learning, resiliency, and compassion by showing them how to experience the natural quietness that can be found within. The still quiet place is a place of peace and happiness that is alive inside all of us, and you can find it just by closing your eyes and breathing. For more information, visit www.stillquietplace.com.
Synopsis
The Thriving Adolescent offers teachers, counselors, and mental health professionals powerful techniques for working with adolescents. Based in proven-effective acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the skills and tips outlined in this book will help adolescents and teens manage difficult emotions, connect with their values, achieve mindfulness and vitality, and develop positive relationships with friends and family. This is the first book to apply ACT to treating this population.
Synopsis
The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook for Kids offers parents a variety of techniques they can use to help their children relax, unwind, and deal constructively with common stressors such as divorce, loss of a loved one, a family move, starting at a new school, and more.
Synopsis
Children pay close attention to their parents' moods. When parents feel upset, their kids may become anxious, and when parents wind down, children also get the chance to relax. When you feel overwhelmed and stressed, it can be hard to help your child feel balanced. The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook for Kids, written by two child therapists, offers more than fifty activities you can do together as a family to help you and your child replace stressful and anxious feelings with feelings of optimism, confidence, and joy.
You'll learn proven relaxation techniques, including deep breathing, guided imagery, mindfulness, and yoga, and then receive guidance for teaching them to your child. Your child will also discover how taking time to do art and creative projects can create a sense of fulfillment and calm. By completing just one ten-minute activity from this workbook each day, you'll make relaxation a family habit that will stay with both you and your child for a lifetime.
Synopsis
Being a teen in today’s fast-paced, media-saturated world is difficult, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed or stressed out. To help, Amy Saltzman—author of A Still Quiet Place—offers a comprehensive workbook to help teens manage daily stressors and challenges in their lives, whether at home, school, or with friends. Using proven-effective mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques, teens will learn to balance emotions, stay focused, and experience the natural quietness that lives within.
Synopsis
Being a teen in today’s fast-paced, media-saturated world is difficult, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed or stressed out. This breakthrough workbook will help you balance your emotions, stay focused, and experience the natural quietness that lives within you.
If you’re a teen, you’re probably experiencing stress. And is it any wonder? You’re juggling schoolwork, friendships, and countless other activities. You get endless messages every day—texts from your friends, advice from your family and teachers, images from television, social media, and advertising about who you could and should be. Sometimes you just need a place to unwind and be yourself!
A Still Quiet Place for Teens can be that place. It is a place of peace and calm within. In this workbook, mindfulness expert Amy Saltzman offers a comprehensive program to help you manage daily stressors and challenges in your life, whether at home, in school, or with friends. Using proven-effective mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques, this book will help you be fully present in the moment, cultivate kindness and curiosity toward yourself and others, and find constructive ways of dealing with the pressures of being a teen.
Between school, friends, and dating, there’s plenty to feel stressed about! This book will help you find a quiet place inside yourself that you can go back to again and again, no matter how overwhelming life gets.
About the Author
Louise L. Hayes, PhD, is an international ACT trainer and speaker; she is also a clinical psychologist, and researcher with the University of Melbourne and Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health in Australia. She has published research trials using ACT for young people, and is coauthor of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens. She is dedicated to helping young people and their families live well.
Joseph Ciarrochi, PhD, is a professor at the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University, and coauthor of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens. He has published over 100 scientific journal articles and many books, including the widely acclaimed Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life and Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Positive Psychology. He has been honored with over four million dollars in research funding. His work has been discussed on TV and radio, and in magazines and newspaper articles.Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor and director of clinical training at the department of psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 38 books and over 540 scientific articles, his career has focused on analysis of the nature of human language and cognition, and its application to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering and promotion of human prosperity. Among other associations, Hayes has been president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. His work has received several awards, including the Impact of Science on Application Award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.