You Raised Your Child to Attend College
and Be Independent. . . But Are You
Ready for the Launching Years?

Welcome to “the launching years”—that often tumultuous time between your child’s senior year of high school through the beginning years of college. It can be a roller coaster of emotions, with parents and teenagers reeling from the stress of college applications and a shift in relationship roles. Many families are taken by surprise with the challenges. Parents can find navigating the changes frustrating while trying to enjoy these last moments together at home with their child and help them prepare for the future. The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior Year to College Life addresses these issues and others, such as:

• Managing your pangs of impending separation
  
• Co-navigating decisions about college while managing your teen’s bouts of senioritis
  
• Responding to “freshman freakouts” and staying connected from a distance
  
• Handling your teen’s newfound independence and the experimentation with alcohol and sexuality that college often involves

Combining years of family therapy experience and research with engaging text and stories of families dealing with launching issues, authors Laura S. Kastner, Ph.D, and Jennifer Wyatt, Ph.D., offer parents strategies for making this challenging transition a successful one.

Laura S. Kastner, Ph.D. is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington. A psychologist and mother of two, she lectures widely on adolescence and family behavior.

Jennifer Wyatt, Ph.D., a Seattle-based writer and mother of four, contributes widely to a number of parenting publications. They are the authors of The Seven-Year Stretch: How Families Work Together to Grow Through Adolescence and the new book Getting to Calm: Cool-headed strategiesfor parenting tweens and teens.