"Yes, your fears are correct. He is disturbed, whether it's diagnosable or not:" risk discourse in parenting guides
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Date
2017-12-18
Authors
Konecny, Daniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Sociology
Abstract
Parenting guides are illustrative of the current ethos of parenting and provide a
rich site of examination due to the intersecting discourses that shape knowledge
regarding ‘proper’ parenting. In this thesis, I offer a discourse analysis on the parenting
guides Yes, Your Teen is Crazy (2003) by Michael Bradley, Brainstorm (2013) by Daniel
Siegel, and the parenting website Empowering Parents in order to illuminate how
discourses of risk (re)produce and naturalize assumptions of parenting and adolescence. I
contend that each text utilizes risk to define adolescents as an inherent threat to
themselves and their communities if left unchecked and situates parents as the shepherds
for adolescence, shepherds who are subject to responsibility and blame. Both
adolescence and parenting are produced as objects of expert knowledge that position
adulthood as the normative foil to adolescence.
Description
Keywords
Adolescence , Families , Parenting , Parenting Handbooks, manuals, etc , Problem youth