This Is So Awkward Modern Puberty Explained

By: Cara Natterson, MD, Vanessa Kroll Bennett

Published by Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2023-10-10

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The ultimate guide for adults helping tweens and teens navigate the rollercoaster of puberty.

“An accessible, enjoyable, and detailed road map for addressing even the most delicate topics with confidence and compassion.”—Lisa Damour, PhD, author of Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers

Almost everything about puberty has changed since today’s adults went through it. It starts, on average, two years earlier and stretches through high school . . . and for some, beyond. Gens Z and Alpha are also contending with a whole host of thorny issues that parents didn’t experience in their own youth but nonetheless need to understand: everything from social media and easy-access pornography to gender identities and new or newly-potent drugs. Talking about any of this is like puberty itself: Awkward! But it’s also critical for the health, happiness, and safety of today’s kids.

Bewildered adults have begged for reliable and relatable information about the modern adolescent experience. This Is So Awkward answers their call. Written by a pediatrician and a puberty educator—together the hosts of a lively and popular podcast on puberty, and moms to six teens between them—this is the handbook everyone has been searching for, and includes:

• Pointed advice about how to talk to kids about almost anything: acne, body odor, growth spurts, eating disorders, mood swings, sexuality, and more.
• Science-based explanations for all of puberty’s physical, emotional, and social changes, including the many ways hormones affect kids both above and below the neck.
• What adults needs to know about today’s teen culture: their mental health drivers, the un-gendering of body image issues, the ways they think about sexual orientation, and more. 
• Invaluable commentary straight from young adults just out the other side of adolescence that highlights what they wish the adults in their lives had known or done differently.

Eye-opening and reassuring, This Is So Awkward will help adults understand the turbulent pubescent decade and become confident guides for today’s kids.