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Pastor Jay's Blog

Book Review: Keeping Your Cool

 

Some books seem to come a couple of decades too late.  This is one of those book for me. What a help this would have been to me when I was a teenager.  And I wasn’t even a particularly rebellious teen. Yet, the areas and issues that this book covers are so common for every teen, there will be loads of help for all.  But to be honest, anger is not just a teen problem. It is something the youngest child and the oldest saint deals with. While teens are the focus, this book will help anybody immensely. 

Lou Priolo is the author of this book.  He is a trusted name in the biblical counseling world.  He has written a strong number of other books, many dealing with relational issues, which are common in the counseling setting.  I regularly see his other books recommended by some of the most respected pastors and Bible teachers. Priolo is particularly strong in practical application, which makes sense for a biblical counselor.  It is one of the reasons this book is so helpful, and I will fill this out in a moment.  

While this book will help anyone, it is written to teenagers.  It is not trying to be hip and trendy (for which we can be thankful), but it does speak to them directly and even brings in dialog from the “every teen” just to make it all the more readable and relatable.  The situations addressed are ones that teens deal with (friends, parents, curfews, school, etc.) and all the topics have a direct connection to teen culture.  

This book is about anger, but remember; anger is a variegated issue.  Anger is a response that flows out of numerous sin issues and connects to many areas where teens need understanding and skills.  It opens with a biblical look at anger and how it fits into the picture of rebellion and the nature of the “fool.” The second chapter turns to the most common expressions of anger (blow up/clam up) and how it is all tied into the big issue of communication.  Communication is really important, and a whole additional chapter is given to it. After giving hope that anger is something that can be confronted and overcome biblically, Priolo gives two chapters to the two most common reasons that anger can arise: Rejection and Hurt, and provocative parents.  

The first 6 chapters mentioned above are really good, but the following 8 chapters are flat-out fantastic.  It is in these chapters that practicality gets cranked way up. The practicality begins with chapter 7: Journaling Your Anger.  This is where teens are instructed about how to think biblically about every part of what was happening in an anger incident. Not only are teens given the 4 questions to answer, and how to go about answering them, they are also given 4 separate examples of what a filled-out anger journal would look like.  This is pure gold. Just to make sure that process gets across in the fullest possible way, the next two chapters go through how to draw out and evaluate the teen’s heart of anger. These two chapters are so incredibly good. They help make the anger journal become a process of heart surgery. They are packed with lists and examples and options of how all of this is done.  One top of that, these chapters end with 4 more examples of using the anger journal for specific issues. The teen will learn what biblical heart probing, heart evaluation, and heart transformation looks like.  

If the book ended there it would be worth the price two times over.  But it doesn’t. The following chapters draw out some of the most common places where anger is displayed and how to confront it biblically.  There is a chapter each for disrespect, manipulation, how to make a godly appeal to parents, and what to do when parents sin. Finally, the book ends with a series of appendices that take the practical applications into the stratosphere.  These provide check-lists and charts that will be wonderful resources for the teen who wants to grow.  

So if you haven’t caught my drift, I really loved this book.  Every teenager needs to read it, and if parents read it with a teen it will have double the impact.