The book’s title comes from the fact that life is like a jungle, but stresses, unlike real tigers, are often hidden or invisible to the eye. This much-needed book tells teenagers (and their parents) what to do about all of the stress in their lives, without weighing them down with heavy reading. This topic is just too important to avoid. This tiger is too fast and big to run from for long.

Inside the covers of this readable, practical guide to stress management, traditional flight-or-fight conflict is discussed, plus short and long term stresses. Coping strategies include alternate perspectives (taking a step back) reaching out to others that your children trust, planning to avoid last minute all night panic studying, self forgiveness for common human mistakes, assertiveness verses aggressiveness, and my own favorite—appropriate laughter.

Negative coping strategies, as you might expect, include eating disorders, excessive gaming and television, prolonged withdrawal, compulsiveness, and other quality of life limiting activities. Left unchecked, these can grow and lead to major conflicts in your child’s life that require professional intervention.

Finally, since stress isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, especially with world events beamed to our TV screens and delivered in our newspapers daily, competition in school on the rise, and the raising of the bar for eventual entry into desirable careers, you and your children need to learn to “tame” the tigers out there.

This book offers that help in an easy to read and understand format.  

David L. Jones, GATE parent