Book Review: Love No Matter What

Of course they will make wrong decisions, and you may fight tooth and nail to try and lead them the proper way in life but just sometimes, you need to spread your wings and let your teenagers fly and make their own decisions as wrong as you feel they may be. This is what Brenda Garrison tells us in her novel Love No Matter What. If you only relate with one thing in her book I hope that you remember to love no matter what!! Just as the title says! Life comes with its own struggles, and since you (the adult) have gone through these times both thick and thin you know that wrong decisions were made, but did your parents turn their backs on you and never speak to you again? Chances are, they didn't right? Well , using real life situations and families, Brenda shares with us so many different family scenarios and takes us through both the parents thoughts and feelings and the opposing teen. Will there be a wall stuck between your child and you? or do you have confident open communication ? Whose to say until you've been in the situation that Brenda has when her very own daughter decided to move out of home on her own with no means of supporting herself and the struggles they made. One neat thing about Love No Matter What, is that Brenda's daughter puts her own input in as well in regards to each topic discussed. I found this gave you another insight on how you or your own teen may feel if confronted with the same situations. Not everyone will have the same feelings/situations but i think its fair to have an open mind, and with two viewpoints helps keep your mind open to all options. Reading Brenda's writings is like literally being in the room with her and having a face to face conversation. Unlike many parenting teenager books, Brenda is not telling you the right way to raise your teens or what to do when your teenagers decide to make a radical decision that you may disagree with but instead she speaks on how to recognize your emotions when confronted with a decision that you dont' agree with. How to keep calm and work through the situation while her daughter offers a young person's view on the same topics such as religion,disagreeing, illegal drug use and even bi-sexual relationships. Each chapter offers discussion questions and conversation starters as an overview for you and she defintly makes you think about how to react when/if you are confronted with an independant teenager going against your own 'norm'. And with each teenager/parent relationship and issue, Brenda does not leave you hanging and she offers you the end of their story, what each teenager did with their decision and how the family handled it. This book is definatly a must read for parents(moms AND dads) and even the teenagers! Lots of discussion and thinking topics and well personally although my children are still pretty young, gave me some advice that I will keep tucked in the back of my mind for if one day i encounter one of these situations in the book. I can see this book being a good choice for parenting teens courses or as a book club choice.