From Magical Child to Magical Teen: A Guide to Adolescent Development

Something is supposed to happen during the adolescent years--something greater than MTV, video games, and the Internet. Joseph Chilton Pearce describes this something as the natural mandate for post-biological development--the development of the sexual and spiritual senses and expansion of our growth process outside of our bodies and into the physical world that surrounds us. Though first written in the mid 1980s, the message of From Magical Child to Magical Teen is even more compelling and helpful today--especially for those who live with and work with adolescents. Drawing on the stages of development outlined by Swiss biologist Jean Piaget and the brain research of neuroscientist Paul MacLean, Pearce demonstrates how nature has built into us an agenda for the intelligent unfolding of our lives. He offers a powerful critique of contemporary child-rearing practices and a groundbreaking alternative to existing perspectives on adolescence so we can unleash our greatest potential, as well as that of our children, in order to experience our fullness in the manner nature intended all along.