Adolescence tests our character – our strengths and weaknesses. We hope that this book will help or has helped us come out of it alive and whole. i really like ready the short stories & different experiences as a teenager things i can relate to .i love it so far As time went on I made friends with lots of different people, some from “the popular crowd” and some not. My standards were different though. The people I sought out for friends were the nice ones—period. (p. 311-313) Although Lena didn't haver her old friend or her parents, she had Diana, her new friend. Diana made Lena feel pretty. Lena said that even though she didn't talk about her feelings with the popular girl, she didn't feel alone anymore. These important topics, and more, are covered in this new collection, with stories selected to help teenagers develop self-esteem, confidence, gratitude, compassion for others, resilience, and enthusiasm for taking on new challenges. One of the keys to the original book’s success has been that it shows teenagers they are not alone, that other kids their age share the same emotions and experiences. That continues in this new collection.

I thought about that question for a long time and about how God doesn’t make junk. Who was I going to believe? I chose to believe my wife and God. (p. 315) I told her my day had not been so great. She said she was sorry and offered to walk me outside. At that moment I realized how wrong I was in wanting to only be friends with popular people. Those people weren’t even going to consider being my friends, but there were some people who I’d already met today and liked and they liked me. Maybe I shouldn’t decide whether a person is worthy of being my friend or not by their reputation, but by who they are. I said, “Thanks, I’d like that. I’m sorry I was kind of rude this morning.” She said it was okay, she was new at school once too. Walking with Diane made me realize how nice it would be to have a friend like her. On the way to class she asked me if I wanted to go out after school to hang out with some of her friends and get to know them better. I did go out with Diane and had a lot of fun. Canfield is the founder of "Self Esteem Seminars" in Santa Barbara, and "The Foundation for Self Esteem" in Culver City, California. The stated mission of Self Esteem Seminars is to train entrepreneurs, educators, corporate leaders and employees to achieve their personal and professional goals. The focus of The Foundation for Self Esteem is to train social workers, welfare recipients and human resource professionals. The following story about learning to be yourself was one of the inspirational stories from the book. The original story, found in the book, was written by Brianne Monett. I have taken bits & pieces of it to share with you. Enjoy! “If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.”– John Allston I’ve always heard stories about how parenting today’s teens are “a dreaded few years,” but I’m here to tell you that it’s just not true. On the contrary, the preteen & teen years are wonderful, and parenting a teenager is like a reward for putting in the time & energy when our children are younger.Another thing that really got to me was that the title suggests that these stories are meant to be soothing- but they just made me feel depressed; it's normally only the last two lines that are happy.

She went through a lot of changes over the next month. She bought new clothes – the ones she wanted to wear. She dropped her art class & joined theatre. She made new friends who liked her for her. She “ never again just followed the crowd.” She just follows you around trying to be you. She copies you; she doesn’t have a personality of own.” another girl said. The teenage years are when kids discover who they really are and define how the world sees them. It’s the time when they start to feel empowered, recognize their strengths, and become more mature about relationships with family and friends, learning how to be compassionate, forgiving, and open-minded. This is the time when they plan for their futures, try out working, and become more independent. This is also the time that they recognize that tough stuff happens, too, to themselves and the people they care about. It is like passing through the eye of a needle, as others may say. And requires responsibility and accountability on the part of family and society.Now, today’s parents and grandparents can provide a new generation of teenagers with the same guidance, comfort, and inspiration the previous generation enjoyed, with stories that are up to date and relevant to their lives. I loved how this novel consists of stories told by the people who actually lived them. You can feel the honesty they’ve written it down with, the feelings they poured into their words. With all the different stories, you just know that they’re all feel unique too and I loved that. I followed them around, laughing when they told jokes, agreeing when they had opinions – most enthusiastically at the ones I disagreed with. I didn’t say much. I wouldn’t want them to think I was being rude by disagreeing. This continued for several months. In our teenage years, we had to deal with several pressures – peer and society, family, school, career, relationships – and the greatest challenge posed before us is to triumph against temptations, i.e. to cross the adolescence bridge successfully. But the stories were all so narrow in range; they seemed to take a very conservative, closed viewpoint in that there was never any mention of drug abuse, ex-prisoners, people who had dropped out of school and had been successful, or homosexuality. Considering the modern day and age, I found this disheartening to say the least. Almost all the stories were based around students (not surprising considering the target audience) which rather narrowed down the variety.

Lena's parents are getting a divorce. Lena's friends have told her they are leaving her because she hasn't changed. Lena also doesn't feel pretty. Lena is going through a hard time both at school and at home. She doesn't have anyone to talk to about it. It didn’t bother me exactly, but I know that there are people who would definitely not cope with certain of these stories and they wouldn’t be warned up front. These true inspirational stories for teenagers are organized into chapters that will inspire you to: The same type of thing happened all day in all of my classes. At lunch, I ended up sitting by myself because I had snubbed people who had been nice to me and I had been snubbed by people who I tried to be nice to. I didn’t realize it then, but I had been really shallow just wanting to be friends with popular people.Then her mother gave her advice… so simple, but so effective. She had heard it a million times before, but suddenly it sounded profound: I began listening to the music she listened to, wearing the clothes she wore. I quit reading and started watching TV programs Ashley watched. I even tailored my sophomore year schedule to her interests. I haven’t read many anthologies in the past so I was quite eagre to have a reason to be able to read one! I defiantly underestimated how good anthologies are as they are short stories put in a collection, which are usually categorised. The mass effect of all the stories put together gave me a stronger message to take in and remember. Finally one day my wife looked at me and asked, “Why is it that you never look at me when I say that you’re handsome?” I decided to tell her about the yearbook and my conclusions. “You can’t believe that! It’s wrong! Somebody who didn’t even know you in grade seven can’t be taken that seriously! I know you, I love you and I chose to marry you. I think you’re handsome and I think I’ve proved that.” So was I going to believe my wife... or that old graffiti? I liked about three or five of the (tens of) contributions in this book, at least one of which was by an adult. I think that part of the problem in my not liking this book is the part where I'm no longer a teenager. I'm sure that the themes and writing in the book might be more appealing to a teenager than to an adult, because by virtue of being written by a peer they are valued? But honestly I think highly enough of teenagers' capacity to read and write that I can't imagine most of them liking this book either.