Our Last Best Shot

Our Last Best Shot presents the personal stories of twelve girls and boys from across America. Their stories, and Laura Sessions Stepp's extensive research, provide real insight for parents trying to raise well-adjusted children in this difficult age. Filled with wisdom and common sense, based on cutting-edge research, and featuring an invaluable resource list, this is a book that parents and educators cannot afford to be without.Introduction

Part One: Knowing Who They Are
Introduction
1. Am I Competent? (Eric's Story)
2. Am I Loved? Am I Loving? (Chandler's Story)
3. Am I Normal? (Shannon's Story)

Part Two: The Company They Keep
Introduction
4. Hangin' with the Crowd (Libby's Story)
5. The Loner (Chip's Story)
6. Best Friends (Angela's Story)

Part Three: Learning In and Out of School
Introduction
7. Low Expectations (Rodney's Story)
8. Learning Values and Being Valued (Jessica's Story)
9. Outside the Box (Jack's Story)

Part Four: The Right Connections
Introduction
10. Mom's Friend (Michelle's Story)
11. Connections Severed, Connections Made (Mario's Story)
12. The Power of One-Plus (Alana's Story)

Epilogue: School Year 1999-2000
From My Home to Yours: Some Concluding Thoughts
Notes
General Resources on Adolescence
Bibliography
Index

Laura Sessions Stepp is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who specializes in covering teenagers and young adults for the Style section of The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in such publications as Parent, Child, Working Mother, Reader's Digest, and Harvard’s Nieman Reports. She has twice been a resident scholar at the National Academy of Sciences, has served as a member of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Healthy People 2000 panel on adolescence and chairs the board of advisors of the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland. Stepp, who has three grown children, lives outside Washington, D.C., with her husband.