The Relationship Code is the report of a longitudinal study, conducted over a ten-year period, of the influence of family relationships and genetic factors on competence and psychopathology in adolescent development. The sample for this landmark study included 720 pairs of same-sex adolescent siblings--including twins, half siblings, and genetically unrelated siblings--and their parents.

Using a clear expressive style, David Reiss and his coinvestigators identify specific mechanisms that link genetic factors and the social environment in psychological development. They propose...

Should teenagers have jobs while they're in high school? Doesn't working distract them from schoolwork, cause long-term problem behaviors, and precipitate a "precocious" transition to adulthood?

This report from a remarkable longitudinal study of 1,000 students, followed from the beginning of high school through their mid-twenties, answers, resoundingly, no. Examining a broad range of teenagers, Jeylan Mortimer concludes that high school students who work even as much as half-time are in fact better off in many ways than students who don't have jobs at all. Having part-time jobs can...

Gay, straight, bisexual: how much does sexual orientation matter to a teenager's mental health or sense of identity? In this down-to-earth book, filled with the voices of young people speaking for themselves, Ritch Savin-Williams argues that the standard image of gay youth presented by mental health researchers--as depressed, isolated, drug-dependent, even suicidal--may have been exaggerated even twenty years ago, and is far from accurate today.

The New Gay Teenager gives us a refreshing and frequently controversial introduction to confident, competent, upbeat teenagers with...

Seventy deeply troubled teenagers spend weeks, months, even years on a locked psychiatric ward. They're not just failing in school, not just using drugs. They are out of control--violent or suicidal, in trouble with the law, unpredictable, and dangerous. Their futures are at risk.

Twenty years later, most of them still struggle. But astonishingly, a handful are thriving. They're off drugs and on the right side of the law. They've finished school and hold jobs that matter to them. They have close friends and are responsible, loving parents.

What happened? How did some kids...