Behind Closed Doors, by Jessica L. Peck

Behind Closed Doors offers practical advice for parents guiding their tweens and teens through cultural change and modern-day health threats. Jessica Perk, a pediatric nurse practitioner and mother of four, helps parents feel the secrecy and shame surrounding challenging moments to find freedom in honest conversations grounded in faith in Christ.

You have heard several jokes about the challenge of raising teenagers, but under all those jokes is a parent hurting and feeling helpless while their teens are navigating extraordinary cultural challenges unlike anything faced by previous generations. Teens today feel more isolated, anxious, and depressed. How could we help them effectively navigate these social challenges when we don't have the social skills to communicate authentically with dignity and compassion? How will we create safe spaces in a seemingly unsafe world?

Jessica Peck (DPN, APRN) has invested countless hours into advising and encouraging parents after talking to their teens behind closed doors. In the privacy of her exam room, she's 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 those challenges alone.

Jessica wants to move those private conversations from 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's divided her book into three main 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 gets into her personal story of broken family relationships, challenges she's faced raising her teens without guidance from her own parents, and lessons she learned along the way. This book is here to encourage and guide all parents, or anyone serving in a parental role for a teen's life.