First Love

Today’s young people are beginning their love lives in a time of rapidly changing ideas and ideals about identity, commitment, sexuality, and consent. For parents, the new realities of teenage relationships can be both mystifying and daunting.

In First Love: Guiding Teens through Relationships and Heartbreak, Lisa A. Phillips chronicles the challenges today’s adolescents face as they navigate crushes, dating, and breakups—and the challenges adults face as they strive to provide guidance and support. Phillips sheds light on how the relationships teens have today are different from their parents’ generation, including their reliance on technology and social media, the rise of young people identifying as LGBTQ+, high rates of depression and anxiety, and consent consciousness. She provides concrete strategies and insights from experts and teens themselves on ways parents and other adults can help young people cope with the timeless issues of love and heartbreak.

Told from the perspective of a professor, mother, and award-winning journalist, First Love is a critical resource for parents, educators, mental health professionals, and others who want to understand the new realities of teen relationships—and help teens become caring, self-aware, and thriving young adults.

Lisa A. Phillips is the author of Unrequited: The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Romantic Obsession and Public Radio: Behind the Voices. She’s written about relationships, mental health, and teens for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Psychology Today, Cosmopolitan, Salon, and other outlets. She teaches journalism and the popular “Love and Heartbreak” seminar at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Phillips began her journalism career in public radio, working for radio stations in the Midwest and Northeast for more than a decade. She lives in Woodstock, New York.

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