Behind Closed Doors

A Guide to Help Parents and Teens Navigate Through Life’s Toughest Issues

By: Jessica L. Peck

Narrated by: Jessica L. Peck

Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Read by the author.

Behind Closed Doors is a practical guide for parents guiding their tweens and teens through cultural change and modern-day health threats. Jessica Peck, a pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, helps parents escape the secrecy and shame surrounding challenging moments and find freedom in honest conversations grounded in faith in Christ.

There are many jokes about the difficulties of raising a teenager, but beneath these jokes parents are hurting and feeling helpless while their teens are navigating extraordinary cultural challenges unlike anything faced by previous generations. Teens are feeling more isolated, anxious, and depressed. But how can we help them effectively navigate social challenges when we don't have the social skills to communicate authentically with dignity and compassion? How do we create safe spaces in a seemingly unsafe world?

Jessica Peck (DNP, APRN) has spent countless hours advising and encouraging parents after talking to their teens behind closed doors. In the privacy of her exam room, she has treated teens with mental illnesses, responded to suicide attempts, treated self-harm wounds as well as the emotional trauma of cyberbullying, sexting, pornography addictions, and numerous other issues. Through it all, Jessica found that teens really want to talk to their parents, so they don't have to face these challenges alone.

Jessica seeks to move the private conversations that happen in the clinic to relationship-building conversations at home. Behind Closed Doors is a guided lifeline to help parents assess their teen's emotional, physical, and spiritual health, and to ultimately help them strengthen their connection with their kids. She has divided her book into three sections:

• Behind the Clinic Door: professional advice for parents on tough teenage issues from a health impact lens, sharing true stories of patients.
• Behind the Home Door: suggested settings, activities, and question prompts to give parents conversation keys to unlock doors for open dialogue with their teens on tough issues and meet them at their point of need.
• Behind the Heart Door: a time of reflection and spiritual application for parents to explore devotional readings, relevant Bible verses, Scripture-based prayers for parents, themed Christian music playlists, and prompts to write 12 Legacy Letters, a generational keepsake for teens.

Jessica shares her personal story of broken family relationships, challenges she's faced raising her teens without guidance from her own parents, and lessons learned along the way—personal and professional; good and bad; mundane and miraculous. Covering topics including mental health, social media, suicide, sexting, substance abuse, gender identity, and more, Jessica Peck's book will encourage and strengthen all parents—married, single, or divorced; grandparents, stepparents, godparents, bonus parents, adopted parents—anyone who is serving a parental role in a teen's life.

Scriptures, playlists, and resources are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Jessica L. Peck (P)2022 Thomas Nelson

A must read for parents of teens

This book is full of practical and timely advice that can easily be incorporated into your relationship with your teen. I wish this type of resource was available when I was raising mine!

Must read for parents!

This book was recommended to me by a friend. I downloaded the audible version and began listening. There was so much I wanted to refer back to I decided to purchase the book as well. Excellent information for all parents, especially parents of teens.

Great read

This is a great read to help navigate the craziness of raising teens.

Thank you

Important handbook for raising teens!

I can’t begin to count the number of times my peers and I have asked why there aren’t more books on raising teens. There seems to be quite a few about raising babies, but very few in navigating the teen years. Look no further, this book is a very helpful guide.

I so appreciate Dr. Peck’s perspective and advice on things that she sees “behind the office door.” It was incredibly helpful to learn new ways to have the tough conversations we face today. Some of which I didn’t even know in need to have. To hear a clinical perspective feels like a unique edge in this tough job we call parenting.

The audible is so soothing to listen to but I just purchased a hard copy to be able to refer to often.

Thank you for this perspective, Dr. Peck.