~ My Teenage Zombie Book Review

Is your teenager having a hard time finding their way? Do you worry that they might not ever turn in to the mature adult you’re raising them to be?

As parents, we care deeply for our children, and it breaks our hearts to see them struggle their way through life. We want nothing more than to see them successfully launch into society with purpose and determination. We try to offer guidance, but all of our guiding seems to get us nowhere. In fact, it can sometimes look as if we are only making things worse. Does this sound familiar?

What do we do if we have a teenager who for whatever reason is struggling to find direction and motivation?

A Book Review of My Teenage Zombie:

In David L. Henderson’s book My Teenage Zombie, he hopes to provide parents of teenagers with a guide to help them teach their children to successfully live their lives. In his book, he compares the unmotivated adolescence to that of the zombies on the silver screen. He describes the teenage zombie as one who lacks spark, pulse, and fiber–in other words, they mirror a zombie’s lack of motivation, direction, and determination.

“When we believe in our kids, we are not denying that they will fail. We are accepting that they will grow from their failures and ultimately succeed.”

– David L. Henderson, MD

After reading the book, I can see that Dr. Henderson wants to help parents identify and overcome any challenges that may be preventing our kids from success. All throughout the book, Dr. Henderson shares real-life situations from some of the things his patients experienced. I thought this was helpful in giving a clear picture of what our kids might be going through. He also includes strategy questions at the end of each chapter for parents to work through. The questions, in my opinion, are helpful because they force us to think about the issues that may or may not be going on with us and/or our children.

The book is broken down into three sections:

Part one helps us to identify and understand the teenage zombie
Part two encourages us to face our fears concerning our teenage zombie
Part three guides us to bring our teenage zombie back to life

Although God and the bible are mentioned quite a few times, this is not a book of prayers or bible verses for parents to meditate on. This book is written from the perspective of a medical doctor. Dr. Henderson uses his professional expertise to help parents guide their teenagers to live a life full of purpose.

Every child’s situation is different, and that must be taken into consideration when it comes to choosing the best way to guide our kids. With that said, I do think this book would benefit parents looking for ways to help their children to walk successfully through life. Because kids seem to grow up faster than they used to, I think this book would be good for parents of children as young as twelve years old. I also recommend it to parents whose children are in their early adult years. Both of my kids are in college, and I still found some of the information in Dr. Henderson’s book helpful in guiding them.