I’d like to tell you that Parenting Talent is a must-read for every parent of an artistic young adult. But I can’t lie – this book is actually essential for every creative human being. We all need Dr. Alaina’s empathetic and scientific way of breaking down myths and misunderstandings between creators, their own minds and those who love them. This is an invaluable resource that is now assigned homework for my students, their parents and adult music-making professionals. If you work with me, you’ll be reading this book!
Melissa Mulligan-Owner/Founder: Music Career Mastermind
About the Book
About the Book
Are you raising a teen or tween musician, actor, dancer, artist, instrumentalist, content creator, make-up artist, architect, graphic designer, singer, or any other type of creative art loving human? Do you ever find yourself wishing for a little more parenting talent in your journey parenting talent?
Have you found yourself yearning for more clarity and confidence in nurturing, supporting and motivating your creatively driven, talented teen? Do you ever find yourself walking a tightrope between encouraging and pushing them in their art?
Parenting “talented” tweens and teens can be both a wonderful journey of creative inspiration and celebration and jarring experience full of worry, frustration, confusion and lack of direction. You may be wondering if some of the emotional challenges your tween or teen is facing has a direct connection to their relationship with their art.
In Parenting Talent: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Understanding and Supporting Artistically Driven Tweens and Teens; psychologist, author and fellow parent of three creatively driven teens Dr. Alaina Johnson brings her professional expertise and personal experience to help you gain insight and build confidence in understanding many of the concerns and challenges facing talented teens. Dr. Alaina provides wisdom and clarity in supporting your creative teen around challenges including:
- How to become the type of parent your teen turns to for support (when they’re not asking you for rides to their activities, of course).
- What to do when perfectionism, procrastination, fear, and anxiety rear their ugly heads (because unfortunately, denial won’t make them go away).
- How to use your tween or teen’s specific personality type to help them find and sustain motivation (because every teen is different! ).
- Strategies for helping your teen build their skills, share their art, and face rejection (because your teen didn’t come with a manual).
- Tips for navigating the modern technological landscape of social media and cyberbullying (without feeling like you should just toss your teen’s mobile phone into a river and avoid the internet altogether).
- What to do when your teen utters one of two dreaded phrases: “I quit” or “I want to go pro.” (Hint—it’s not running away screaming, “Nooooo!”)
Some of it is like an old friend, making me feel more confident in the choices that I made some of it is an old friend showing me something I should’ve seen sooner.
K.H. Parent and Studio Owner
I am a parent of a creatively driven pre-teen and found this book to be an amazing resource. The parenting approaches and techniques explained in the book will help me as my child grows into her teen years and beyond.
N.N. Parent
About the Author
As a child therapist and a mom to a 15 year old, I found many valuable strategies for working with creative tweens and teens. I am excited to share this book wide and far. – M.D. Parent and Therapist
About the Author
As a child therapist and a mom to a 15 year old, I found many valuable strategies for working with creative tweens and teens. I am excited to share this book wide and far. – M.D. Parent and Therapist
Dr. Alaina Johnson is a psychologist, parenting and mindset coach, mother of three creative boys, and mindfulness practitioner. She began her career earning her Doctorate degree in psychology and spent the early part of her career working with severely abused and neglected children and teens in a pediatric rehabilitation hospital. Her other area of interest, maternal identity development, led her to open her private practice with a focus on postpartum mood disorders, trauma, anxiety and adjustment disorders. Over time, clients returned to her practice for “tune-ups” which developed into an interest in parenting and the impact of parental trauma on the parent-child relationship.
During the course of her work in private-practice, she found mindfulness practices to be extremely beneficial in her work with her clients. She began to incorporate mind-body techniques with traditional talk therapy. After the birth of her three children, she came into a deeper appreciation of Autonomy Supportive Parenting in both her own parenting and in her work with parents. She also has an interest in how self-deception, fear, anxiety, mindset, motivation, ambition, self-esteem and support systems interact to influence behavior.
After taking a break from her practice to allow her son to pursue his dream of performing on Broadway, she began coaching as a way to continue her love of supporting others in their emotional journey while allowing for a more flexible schedule that met her sons’ needs to travel. As a mom to three boys who live in the creative space which occasionally demands travel, this has proven an enjoyable solution for work-life balance.
Alaina lives with her husband, Kermit, and her three sons outside of Chicago. She describes herself as an accidental entrepreneur, writer and emotional well-being advocate who loves being in nature, supporting her, her husband’s and boys’ passions and dreams, travel, and a really great meal.
And may have spent more of her retirement fund that she wants to admit on her boys instruments and acting classes because….parenting talent
