Get out of my life - but first take me and Alex into town

This is the best survival guide for parents who find themselves marooned among volatile and incomprehensible aliens on Planet Teen.

Area maps cover the ground - with chapters on school, sex, drugs, suicide, and so on - but it's the title of Chapter 2, 'What They Do and Why,' that best captures the book's spirit and technique.

One key mistake is getting dragged into no-win conflicts instead of having the wisdom to shut up at the moment when shutting up would be most effective - albeit the least satisfying - thing to do.

There are also some nicely tongue-in-check samples of 'ideal' communication - the stuff we imagine might get said by better parents.

After one such rosily cooperative and considerate interchange between a father and his adolescent son, the book offers the following two-edged comfort: 'The above conversation has never happened.

Never. Not in the whole history of the world.' Message: parenting adolescents is inherently difficult.

Efforts shouldn't be judged by otherworldly standards.