The Unofficial Rules of Adolescence represent an effort to describe the unwritten, unspoken, implicit laws that teens must cope with in order to survive adolescence. This is not a list of Commandments that must be adhered to, but rather a list of the challenges that teens must confront as they mature from child to adult. These requirements of adolescence are not implicitly good or bad, but represent expectations of their peers and their society that can be coped with in healthy or unhealthy ways. Articulating the Unofficial Rules helps guide parents and teens toward healthy coping.

Experts have long listed the tasks of adolescence but in doing so often fail to frame them in a way that teens and for that matter parents of teens can relate to and benefit from. If one were to take those vaunted tasks of adolescence and toss them in a blender with popular American culture, what you would pour out of the pitcher might look very much like the Unofficial Rules of Adolescence. While the developmental tasks of adolescence represent adult expectations of adolescence, the Unofficial Rules of Adolescence represent teen expectations of each other.�

Download the Unofficial Rules Workbook

Unofficial_Rules_of_Adolescence_Workbook_v3.pdf