What Works with Teens A Professional's Guide to Engaging

Authentically with Adolescents to Achieve Lasting Change

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“Baron and Rathbone illustrate a profound understanding of one
of our most misunderstood clinical populations—adolescents.
What Works with Teens provides the field of youth service
workers with poignant insights into the transforming physical,
neurological, social, and cognitive world of teens, providing us a
firm foundation and effective tools with which to build our
support given our unique roles. The authors’ candid, realistic
engagement strategies will empower all of us to feel the
inspiration and passion to join adolescents along this tumultuous
and exciting journey of self-exploration and identity
development. When in doubt, pull this book from your shelf, and
stay engaged!”
—Debbie B. Riley LCMFT, CEO, Center for Adoption
Support and Education, and coauthor of Beneath the
Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens

“In What Works with Teens, Rathbone and Baron have pulled
back the curtain on relating successfully with teenagers, and ably
demonstrate the understated yet incontrovertible power of
thoughtfulness, graciousness, and courtesy in influencing
behavior change among youth. These authors understand what
teenagers have always known but have been unable to articulate:
that what really makes us credible and trustworthy as mentors,
helpers, and sources of inspiration doesn’t derive from our
pointed explanations or advice, but rather from our ability to
make a young person feel validated and respected in our presence.
… This is a terrific book, deserving of attention from therapists,
counselors, parents, coaches, and the people teaching our next
generation of mental health providers. I know of no other book
like it and consider it a very valuable addition to the literature on
counseling, parenting, teaching, and simply caring for
adolescents.”
—Janet Sasson Edgette, PsyD, child and adolescent
psychologist, author of Stop Negotiating with Your
Teen, and coauthor of The Last Boys Picked
 Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold
with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional
services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2015 by Britt H. Rathbone and Julie B. Baron
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer
Edited by Susan LaCroix
All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

 To every single adolescent I have had the privilege of working with in my career. You
have all taught me something.

—B. H. R.

To all the incredibly hardworking therapists and counselors, doctors, nurses, educators,
case managers, coaches, and youth workers dedicated to serving adolescents by helping
them feel valued and understood.

—J. B. B.
 Contents
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART 1 WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF ADOLESCENCE
1 THE ADOLESCENT OPERATING SYSTEM (A-OS)
2 ADOLESCENTS DON’T COME WITH A USER’S MANUAL
3 THE VALUE OF THE RELATIONSHIP
PART 2 PUTTING THE SKILLS TO WORK
4 RESPECT
5 AUTHENTICITY
6 KINDNESS
7 PREDICTABILITY
8 ACCEPTANCE
9 CHANGE
CONCLUSION: A CALL TO ACTION
REFERENCES
 Foreword
Not too long ago, a fifteen-year-old boy I was working with was kicked out
of his school’s lunchroom for being loud. It wasn’t the first time he had
been disruptive, and the monitoring teacher was fed up. She threw him out
of the cafeteria and reported him to the principal. Later that afternoon, the
teen tried to apologize to the teacher, but she interrupted him as soon as he
said the word “but.” She said, “Your apology is meaningless if you’re going
to sit here and make excuses.” The boy shut down and walked out,
convinced that even when you try to make amends the teacher will be
waiting for you to mess up and throw it in your face.
As a teacher, I can empathize with how frustrated that woman was. This
may have been the tenth time she had talked to this kid and he wasn’t
getting it. On the other hand, it can be pretty uncomfortable for a teen to
seek out a teacher and apologize—because apologizing is ultimately putting
oneself in a vulnerable position (and, in this case, in front of someone with
more authority).
Working with young people is a constant opportunity to do meaningful
work. It’s an incredible privilege to participate in teens’ personal growth—
to help them learn to regulate themselves and hold themselves accountable
(like the loud student described above), and to support them as they learn to
sit with powerful feelings, process what those feelings mean to them, and
then act in a way they can be proud of. But it’s also a constant opportunity
to experience feelings of failure and frustration. I have made mistakes with
the young people I work with. I’ve accidentally embarrassed some of them.
I’ve had kids look at me like I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking
about. And I’ve certainly lost my temper.
Those experiences would be funny if the consequences weren’t so
profoundly negative. As common as those negative feelings and
experiences are, I am convinced that adults can only be credible and
effective teachers if we mindfully and relentlessly reflect on our own
behavior as individual professionals, and on the systems within which we
operate. The adults working with youth too often neglect to examine our
own attitudes and behaviors toward them. We perceive a teen’s critical
feedback as disrespectful. We are loath to apologize to a teen when we
should—mistakenly believing that this will somehow take away our
authority instead of strengthening it. We discipline young people by
isolating them and therefore alienating them from our communities. We
resist implementing disciplinary practices based on what common sense and
science consistently prove—that social connection is fundamental to
learning community values and inspiring a teen’s personal motivation for
change.
We are asking young people to challenge themselves in fundamental
and deeply uncomfortable ways. Are we willing to do the same?
As I read the pages you are about to read, I underlined many paragraphs
—not only because I could relate to the situations that Baron and Rathbone
describe, but also because their advice was easily relatable. I could see how
to implement their suggestions. Some sections inspired me to stop reading
and work on improving lesson plans I have used for years. They reminded
me to stay honest and direct, avoid blame, and develop a plan that reflects
our best understanding of adolescent development and the learning process.
We do that and we do our best by the youth under our care.
Fundamentally, this book asks us to hold ourselves to the same standard
to which we hold others. It not only challenges us but also lays out what we
can do to build or rebuild our relationships with the parents, colleagues, and
teens in our professional lives. It gives permission for the understandable
feelings we well-intentioned educators feel when faced with seemingly
intractable resistance in our work. I hope you find what I did in reading this
book: hope, acknowledgment, a call to do our best work, and the
methodology to help us do so.

—Rosalind Wiseman
 Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Julie Baron for her commitment to coauthoring this book,
and for maintaining a sharp focus on our message. I am fortunate to work so
closely with a passionate and committed professional of her caliber; her
clients are very, very fortunate as well. I am forever appreciative of Pat
Harvey’s collegiality and friendship. Her support pushed me to grow and
write. Susan Loughman is a brilliant teacher and thinker, and I thank her for
taking the time to nurture my growth for more than twenty years. I continue
to be grateful to Kathy Myers, whose ongoing professionalism, honesty, and
dependability with practice-related tasks has allowed me the time to write.
Most importantly, thank you to my wife, Susan, and daughter, Huntly, for
allowing me to do what I love.

—Britt H. Rathbone

I feel incredibly fortunate to have Britt Rathbone as a mentor, colleague,

and coauthor. His relentless support, clinical guidance, and commitment to
adolescents are inspiring and contagious. The collaborative and creative
process of writing with Britt has been more fulfilling than I ever imagined.
Thank you to every adolescent I have worked with in my career; you have
taught me more than you will ever know. And thank you to my own
therapists who guided me skillfully through my adolescence; you gifted me
presence and insight then, which allows me to do this work with such
passion and awareness. My gratitude goes to Mary Allman, my most
treasured mentor, who taught me deep respect for human beings through her
inspirational compassion. Thanks to my parents—my concrete foundation
—for their unwavering love, support, and confidence in me; to my husband,
Andy, with love, for being my biggest believer and protecting my time
when “the creative juices were flowing”; and to my children, Jonathan and
Eliot: I love you so much and hope you have wonderful, helping adults
guiding you through your adolescent years.

—Julie B. Baron
Our greatest acknowledgment is to the hundreds of teens and the adults
who work with them who provided us with countless stories and
suggestions and kept us committed to getting their message delivered. We
owe a big debt of gratitude to Pat Harvey, Phyllis Pomerantz, Ben Pleasure,
JoJo Gaul, Alejandro Berthé, Chris Taylor, and James P. Marsh, Jr. They
generously agreed to read chapters of the manuscript and gave their time,
feedback, and support to this project. We are appreciative of the
relationships with our talented professional colleagues: John Dunn, Phyllis
Pomerantz, JoJo Gaul, Carla Pappas, Anu Lukk, Lisa Behrens, Craig
Windham, Betty Bae, James P. Marsh, Jr., Ben Pleasure, Chris Taylor,
Kharod France, and Laurie Nelson. Thank you to Tesilya Hanauer, Jess
Beebe, and the entire New Harbinger team for their enthusiastic support and
thoughtful feedback throughout this project. Special thanks to Susan
LaCroix, copy editor extraordinaire, for carefully polishing the manuscript
and making it more readable.

—Britt H. Rathbone and Julie B. Baron

 Introduction
We are clinical social workers who have spent our careers working with
adolescents in individual, group, and family therapy, as well as in schools
and other treatment settings. We have observed, studied, and learned
through experience what does and does not work in helping teens. There are
numerous guides available on therapeutic techniques, classroom curricula,
medical procedures, coaching drills, and so on. What we have found lacking
is a guide for how to implement all of this very good information
specifically with adolescents who may be ambivalent about the process, or
outright resistant to it. Most of the material we have come across over
decades of work presupposes a certain level of cooperation. In the real
world, adolescents may be angry, hostile, resistant, unmotivated,
unengaged, overwhelmed, distracted, or otherwise difficult and challenging
to work with. Research and clinical experience bring us to the same
conclusion: it’s the relationship you develop with the adolescent that
matters.
Those of us who work with the dynamic and challenging adolescent
population know that no two days will ever be the same; there will be
constant excitement and energy; and if we are doing this well, we (and they)
will always learn something new. Adolescents are at a unique stage in their
growth. The complex nature of this developmental period means we will
face various obstacles in the course of our work. Whether in therapy, at the
doctor’s office, in the school counseling office, in the classroom, in the
administrator’s office, on the field, or in any number of community-based
recreational and support programs, we all face similar challenges in
reaching this population and guiding them toward the successes they seek
and deserve.
This age group requires collaboration and teamwork not only with teens
and their parents, but also with a host of other providers playing various
supportive roles in the teens’ lives. We have interacted with a great number
of very talented professionals over the years who truly “get it” in their work
with teens. We have also come across well-meaning professionals who
unfortunately miss the mark. We want to reveal our bias at the outset: we
believe that others should be treated the way we want and expect to be
treated. Kids are no exception. We believe all human beings, including
young people, have the right to be treated in a respectful manner. This is all
the more critical with youth, given that they will grow up to care for us one
day. The concepts in this book are win-win. When relationships flourish,
adolescents thrive, and we pay it forward.
The quality of the relationship is a potent predictor of success in many
settings, yet we don’t always instinctively know how to engage with teens
without a thoughtful and effective framework to guide us. This book is that
framework.
This is a relational approach based on research and information
gathered from focus groups, surveys, and interviews with hundreds of
adolescents and helping adults. The words of teens are clear and direct: they
want us to help them. Providers also seek guidance in successfully
connecting with teens. We provide practical help with the teens you serve.
The examples we offer throughout the book all come from the real world,
and can be extrapolated to all settings and utilized by various professional
disciplines to establish and maintain effective relationships with young
people.
Part one of the book describes the rapidly changing physical,
neurological, social, emotional, and cognitive world of adolescents and how
the interactions between these numerous changes contribute to a complex
and tumultuous experience for the adolescent as well as for the helping
adult. We explain some of the reasons teenagers can be so difficult to
understand and engage. We also describe the developmental tasks at hand
for adolescents in their move toward independence and self-sufficiency. The
ways that adolescents treat relationships are often contradictory, confusing,
and frustrating. We provide explanations for these dynamics, so your
approach with adolescents will be based on a full awareness of the complex
world in which they live today.
In part two, we describe the six fundamental and essential components
for unlocking successful working relationships with adolescents. We
describe these necessary elements, show you what they look like in real life
through examples and anecdotes, and troubleshoot potential difficulties. We
describe ways to understand and attend to the change process to help move
teens effectively toward their goals. We then synthesize all the components
necessary for improved outcomes. Our goals are to inspire you to elevate
your practices with your students, clients, patients, and athletes; to give you
a solid sense of what adolescents are capable of; and to show you how to
guide them on their path to success.
Adolescents can be suspicious, guarded, and hostile toward well-
meaning adults serving in supportive roles. They are also creative, funny,
daring, curious, caring, compassionate, empathic, impassioned, and driven.
Most importantly, adolescents are our future. We have a great moral
responsibility to create environments and relationships that empower,
validate, motivate, and engage. Climates of caring, connection, safety, and
respect shape the future of our communities and our culture at large. This
work is at times exasperating and exhausting. The reward is in contributing
to a generation so they will be likely to give back and, in turn, shape future
generations. We wrote this book because we feel passionate about the work
we do. We hope the tools and guidance we offer lead to renewed
inspiration, energy, and passion in your work with adolescents.
 Part 1
Welcome to the World of Adolescence
Adolescents are developmentally distinctive. They are not children and
they are not immature adults. Their needs, tasks, and functions differ from
those in the developmental stages that border them on either side of the life
span. It is for this reason that we spend part one discussing the particulars of
adolescence and the challenges that this time in life poses to the creation
and maintenance of a productive relationship with helping adults. When we
as adults understand the potential and struggles of young people, we are
better equipped to guide them through a learning and growth process
toward positive change.
In chapter one, we take you on a tour through the adolescent brain and
its workings in the cognitive, social, and emotional development of teens
and young adults. We discuss the period of adolescence—the definition of
which varies from person to person and has changed in the last century. We
use the word “teens” in this book interchangeably with “adolescents,” but
of course adolescence does not miraculously and definitively end on the
twentieth birthday, just as adulthood does not miraculously appear at age
eighteen (though many eighteen-year-olds may believe otherwise). Many
teens have reminded us that when we address a general developmental
stage, it is important to view and treat them as individuals and not merge
them with a series of stereotypes and clichés. Just as each adult and each
child is unique, so are adolescents, with different neural wiring and
temperamental attributes.
We then delve into the influences of social culture during adolescence
and the increasing need to rely on a peer group. Social culture is a complex
and powerful system, and adults need to understand it if they want to make
authentic connections with teens.
 Finally, we guide you through the process of identity development and
the ways in which relationships with family tend to shift during
adolescence. This is an opportune time for adults to step in and help anchor
adolescents in their whirlwind journey toward adulthood.
In chapter two, we navigate the twists and turns of working
relationships with adolescents. We discuss common challenges helping
adults face when engaging with teens and encouraging positive change. We
also ask readers to reflect on their own adolescent experiences and consider
how we each bring our own challenges to providing unconditional support
and commitment to change. If we ask adolescents to make themselves
vulnerable to challenging themselves, we adults must be willing to do the
same. Throughout this and the chapters following, we include stories and
experiences that adolescents have generously shared to assist us in writing
this book. So many adolescents we spoke with and surveyed were eager for
adults to know what they need from us! We use these stories to illustrate
various needs and goals in working with this age group, and in later
chapters to demonstrate the skills that need to be acquired or honed in the
development of outcome-driven relationships with young people.
Finally, in chapter three, we present research confirming the importance
of the relationship, across disciplines, in fostering change. Whether
mastering a new basketball shot, calculus problem, coping skill, or musical
piece, adolescents are more likely to stick with the task at hand and strive
toward growth when they feel an authentic connection with their teachers,
mentors, counselors, coaches, or trainers. This connection is our best tool in
making strides toward progress with teens, no matter the venue. We need to
understand the power and influence of the relationship, because it’s the key
to what works with teens.