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Reclaiming The Village: Parents Taking Back Their Rightful Place In The Family



Genre: Personal Development

Book Type: Physical

Author: Kathy Sparks

Pages: 84

Publisher: Clarity Cove Publishing (January 22, 2022)

Book Description: As a middle school counselor for nearly 25 years, Kathy had the opportunity to work with a variety of students and family situations. Some family situations were difficult to manage, but what was certain is that parents love their children and want the best for them; they may not always know the best way to do that.


Kathy and her colleague, Lori, began facilitating parent workshops when they saw an increased rate of teens participating in thrill-seeking behaviors.


Parents were frustrated to see their well-adjusted, happy kids turn into young people that didn't understand, and their behavior changed when they entered middle school. The information and strategies Starks and her colleague provided to the parents were well received, and they believed they had some tools to handle being the parent of a middle school child.

Now, as she works at the high school level, Starks sees teens struggling with different issues. Anxiety and depression became a replacement for thrill-seeking behaviors. Some parents are at a loss about how to help their children, and fear of their child's failure has caused them to enable poor behaviors.


Parents are overwhelmed, the extended family doesn't live nearby anymore, and the recent pandemic has made matters worse. It seems like the village has disappeared.

Starks has seen the highs and lows of adolescents trying to navigate high school and their teen years and attempt to make good decisions for their futures. How can parents and families get back to the role of supporting the children so they can be ready for adulthood?


  • Do teens understand the value of work?

  • Are they able to face the consequences of their behavior without their parents "bailing" them out?

  • Are they getting enough sleep and balancing their schoolwork with other activities?

Through anecdotal stories from Starks' experiences, Reclaiming the Villageexamines some of the struggles teens face and offers practical strategies for parents to implement to help their children move beyond high school with confidence.


Thoughts: This book was full of useful information for parenting teenagers in middle school through high school. About to have one child in middle school and another moving on to high school, I wanted to see what I could take away from this book, since it was written by a school counselor and I looked forward to the insight she may be able to offer.


I liked the overall flow of the book. It is broken down into the following chapters which can be read in order, or independent of the others:

  1. Enabling Behaviors

  2. Middle School and the Teenage Brain

  3. The Role of Sleep

  4. The Role of Sports

  5. Helping Children Create Their Legacies

  6. The Family as a System

  7. Exposure and Experience Can Expand Potential

  8. Resilience

  9. Parenting Styles and Discipline

  10. The Role of Organized Religion

  11. Here’s What the Kids Have to Say


Sparks includes stories from teens she has helped and I found both her stories and their advice to be useful. I liked that at the end of each chapter she has concluding tips you can use and found each chapter short and to the point, which made for an easy and quick read.


While I didn’t discover any breakthrough advice, what I liked best was that it was a combination of useful parenting advice, found in one simple manual. The biggest take away is the reminder of the transition teenagers are in, but the constant need for communication and listening to your teen to hear what they are actually saying, not what we want to hear. Additionally, the reminder that kids need to become independent during these years and we, as parents, are not doing them any service by making things “easy” for them and allowing them not to fail. They will grow more through their failures during these years and be able to discover themselves, and we should be embracing this.


Thank you for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I found value in this book and am very glad to have been able to read it.


Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

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