Michelle Icard has one of the essential books for parents that have teens, tweens, or even children that will be starting intermediate to junior high. Overall it is an informative book that helps you understand, as a parent, that children will start gradually pulling away from parents. It is more of emotional readiness. As a parent, you will blink and your eight-year-old will become an eighteen-year-old telling you bye as they drive away to college. Children are curious and want their parents there when they need your advice or guidance. I highly recommend this informative book for all parents that are beginning to navigate through the teen years.
Thank you, NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

All I can say is where was Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School by Michelle Icard before my daughter turned 15? This book would have been great to be able to read about 5 years ago. Would recommend to anyone with children in middle school. #FourteenTalksbyAgeFourteen #NetGalley

This is a super fun read. I really enjoyed this one!

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is really insightful! As an elementary school teacher, I felt pretty confident about child development through the tween years -- but I definitely need some support to get our family through the teen years.

LOVE! She clearly knows her stuff and writes like it's a conversation. These strategies are so great for tweens and also the others in our fam. I love this!

As a parent of a middle schooler, I have been eagerly looking forward to Michelle Icard's follow-up to Middle School Makeover. In 14 Talks by Age 14, she gives loads of practical, useful wisdom on how to broach some of the most difficult topics that come up in adolescence. The BRIEF model she uses provides a great framework for starting a discussion, with the flexibility to adapt to your own family's needs. While much of what was discussed are things we already do, reading this book definitely helped identify the weak spots where my spouse and I could do better! I highly recommend to anyone who is looking to build or maintain two-way dialogue with their tween or teen, built on trust rather than just lecturing them.

With two daughters, ages 12 and 11, this book could not have come at a better time. I have noticed the shift from little girl to tween and have been struggling with how to understand and communicate. I learned very quickly that even though my girls are very different in their path to teen hood and independence, everything we are experiencing is completely normal and that with a minor shift in my own attitude and a few new techniques for communicating we can get through this together. Michelle helps us recognize the many challenges that we face in this stage of parenthood while providing a handbook for successfully navigating those challenges. She provides very practical topics and scenarios along with dialogues for parents to confidently help their teens manage the ups and downs of adolescence. The BRIEF model is such a simple technique that makes conversations less confusing and more meaningful for both the parent and the their child. This book is an excellent guide that will serve as a reference for me over the next several years.

This book hits it out of the park with advice on how to talk to your middle-school aged kids about anything and everything. It is filled with practical advice, real-life scenarios, and realistic conversation possibilities. As a long-time middle school educator, I believe that this book is a gold mine for parents wondering about how to tackle both everyday conversations AND tough topics with your kids. . Skip the battling, and engage in conversation! I found it helpful as an educator and also got some great tips for use with my own adult children as well--you are never to old to learn!

The book Fourteen Talks by Age 14 is a book that every parent of a teen or preteen should read. It is filled with straightforward advice on how to build and maintain an open communication relationship with your child. Parenting a teenager today is fraught with many concerns and issues that were not faced by parents in the past including: social media, bullying, and increased use of drugs. This book explores and explains about how to have those difficult conversations with your child in order to help him/her through the teenage years. The communication style presented by this book is called the BRIEF model. The steps are as follows: begin peacefully, relate to your child, interview, echo, and feedback. These steps are clearly explained and easy to follow. As explained in the book, the foundation of having better conversations with your teen is earning trust and building support. There are so many helpful tips to communicating with your teen including: conversation crashers, how to talk to your child about fun stuff, how to have rewarding conversations with your teen. So many important conversational topics are explored in this book and examined through role plays and examples including: friendship, money, independence, taking care of yourself, fairness, and sexuality. I highly recommend this book to all parents of pre-teens and teens. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this advanced review copy for my honest review.

There's a saying that kids don't come with guidebooks, but as far as parenting tweens and teens, this is the closest thing you will find to one. Michelle Icard's newest book is full of tips on how to communicate with middle schoolers in a nuanced and relatable way. I have found her guidance to be invaluable with my own kids (ages 12 and 10) and will recommend this book to everyone I know who interacts with kids of any age. A real gem!

As a parent with no small amount of self-doubt, it was great to find this book that covered a lot of ground in a straightforward and non-judgmental manner. The author approaches a variety of topics with lots empathy, for the kids and for the parents, breaking conversations down in a practical way. I think this would be a great resource for parents of teens wondering how to navigate potentially thorny conversations that are nevertheless important.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I like the first part that helped parents to make sure they had the tools, so to speak, to have these conversations. But I was worn out by the time I got to the 2nd part and the 14 conversations. I am probably too impatient to read all that stuff in each chapter to get to the nitty gritty. Even the "crash course" section didn't seem to help me get my mind around "the" conversation I needed to be having. It seemed to me these are conversations you need to perpetually be actively pursuing with your child.

Michelle Icard lays out an easy to follow, casual formula for talking to your tween. The topics range from common sense living advice to more serious issues such as consent and sexuality. The book features a quick "crash course" at the end of each chapter to highlight the key points presented.

Having been a middle school teacher for twenty years I knew this book would be filled with plenty of wisdom that I had already picked up on. As a parent of an eleven and fourteen year old I read it anyway. I'm so glad I did. We've had some very difficult conversations with my daughter over the last six months or so and I know that we have more ahead of us with her as well as with my son. Michelle Icard's BRIEF model is a valuable tool to use and easy to remember so I expect to put it into good use. I loved her real-world examples and I love that the model is flexible enough to only use the parts necessary in a given situation. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to create an open two-way dialogue with their kids instead of the automatic one-way lectures we so commonly steer towards.

I have a tween and we have slowly been going through the conversations in this book. I found this incredibly helpful to organize my thoughts and be able to really engage in the topics with my daughter. It gives you the tools to have the conversations without feeling like you have to follow a script. I was really pleasantly surprised how much this book enabled me to have good thoughtful conversations. I would highly recommend for parents whose kids are starting to enter the hormone and emotional stage. (Love the tween stage! :) ) Definitely worth a read!

Since I’m not a parent I can’t say how relevant this was. But having worked with young teens. And tweens I’m not sure how this would actually help. It feels very contrived.

I enjoyed this book! So many good pointers for parents who may think their kids are the only ones challenged by the bizarre underbelly of middle school. Thank you to the author, publisher, and Net Galley for the advance digital copy! #FourteenTalksbyAgeFourteen #NetGalley

I feel like I read this book just in time as my oldest son will turn fifteen in a few months. The middle school years are a significant milestone in a child’s life and Michelle Icard does a beautiful job illuminating many of the complexities that middle grade-aged children go through. Her main thesis is that there are fourteen talks she implores readers to have with their children with the undercurrent of before it’s too late. I appreciate how the sections were broken down into palatable bites: changing friendships, sexuality, criticism and technology, to name a few. I came away from this read with concrete ways in which to start sometimes challenging conversations with my children as well as precisely what not to say. Michelle Icard has made me feel less hesitant to have these important conversations sooner, rather than later. And I am going to listen, armed with all of the wonderful knowledge imparted on me from this fantastic resource.

Every parent should read this book — part tips, part prompts — this is a detailed guide to having meaningful conversations with your teenagers on crucial topics. I intend to use these suggestions and questions with my son and will recommend this to other adults.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."
It provided good information, but seemed overly thorough. Maybe that is what another parent needs, but it was overkill for me personally.