2024年3月3日发(作者：)

One school night this month I sidles up to Alexander, my

15-year-old son, and stroked his seek in a manner I hoped would

seem casual. Alex knew better, sensing by my touch, which

lingered just a moment too long, that I was sneaking a touch of

the stubble that had begun to sprout near his ears. A year ago he

would have ignored this intrusion and returned my gesture with

a squeeze. But now he recoiled, retreating stormily to his

computer screen. That, and a peevish roll of his eyes, told me

more forcefully than words, Mom, you are so busted!

I had committed the ultimate folly: invading my teenager’s

personal space. “The average teenager has pretty strong feelings

about his privacy,” Lara Fox, a recent young acquaintance, told

me with an assurance that brooked no debate. Her friend Hilary

Frankel chimed in: “What Alex is saying is: ‘This is my body

changing. It’s not yours.’” Intruding, however discreetly, risked

making him feel babied “at a time when feeling like an adult is

very important to him, ” she added.

O.K., score one for the two of you. These young women,

after all, are experts. Ms. Frankel and Ms. Fox, both 17, are the

authors of Breaking the Code (New American Library), a new

book that seeks to bridge the generational divide between

parents and adolescents. It is being promoted by its publisher as

the first self-help guide by teenagers for their parents, a kind of

Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus that demystifies

the language and actions of teenagers. The girls tackled issues

including curfews, money, school pressures, smoking and

sibling rivalry.

Personally,I welcomed insights into teenagers from any

qualified experts, and that included the authors. The most

common missteps in interacting with teenagers, they instructed

me, stem from the turf war between parents asserting their right

to know what goes on under their roof and teenagers zealously

guarding their privacy. When a child is younger, they write,

every decision revolves around the parents. But now, as Ms. Fox

told me, “often your teenager is in this bubble that doesn’t

include you.”

Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel acknowledge that they and their

peers can be quick to interpret their parents’ remarks as

dismissive or condescending and respond with hostility that

masks their vulnerability. “What we want above all is your

approval,” they write. “Don’t forget, no matter how much we act

as if we don’t care what you say, we believe the things you say

about us.”

Nancy Samalin, a New York child-rearing expert and the

author of Loving Without Spoiling (McGraw-Gill, 2003), said

she didn’t agree with everything the authors suggested but found

their arguments reasonable. “When your kids are saying, ‘You

don’t get it, and you never will,’ there are lots of ways to

respond so that they will listen,” she said, “and that’s what the

writers point out.”

As for my teenager, Alex, Ms. Fox and Ms. Frankel told me I

would have done better to back off or to have asked “Is your

skin feeling rougher these days?”

A more successful approach, the authors suggest in their book,

would have been for the mother to offer, as Ms. Fox’s own

parents did, a later curfew once a month, along with an

explanation of her concerns. “My parents helped me see,” Ms.

Fox told me, “that even though they used to stay out late and

ride their bicycles to school, times have changed. These days

there is a major fear factor in bringing up kids. Parents worry

about their child crossing the street.”

The writers said they hoped simply to shed light on teenage

thinking. For their parents it did. Reminded by Ms. Fox that

teenagers can be quite territorial, her father, Steven Fox, a

dentist, said, “These days I’m better about knocking on the door

when I want to come into Lara’s room.” “I try to talk to her in a

more respectful way, more as an adultish type of teenager rather

than a childish type of teenager,” he added.

1. The book Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus is

mentioned in the third paragraph because .

A. It has the same theme of the book written by the two girls.

B. It has the opposite opinion to the book written by the two

girls.

C. It has ranked first on the list of best sellers for several times.

D. It is another book that the two girls have ever written.

2. As to the views mentioned in the two girl’s book, the author

believes that .

A. They provide some approaches to her child-rearing.

B. They revealed thought patterns of teenagers and parents.

C. They have obtained unanimous support from the public.

D. They have overestimated the rights of teenagers.

3. Which of the following words best describes teenagers as

seen by the two girls?

A. Independent.

B. Arrogant.

C. Sensitive.

D. Isolated.

4. what does the sentence “ You don’t get it, and you never will”

(6th paragraph) imply?

答案

1. A

第3段倒数第2句指出，这两位少女作家写的书类似《孩子来自火星，父母来自金星》这类书，剖析了青少年的言行举止，因此选A

2. A

第7，8段很显然是关于作者从中得到的一些处理母子关系的建议，因此A正确。第9段首句表明这本书主要反映的是青少年的思想，B错。由第6段首句可知并非所有人都赞同此书的观点，C错，D无原文依据。

3. C

第2,9段中两位少女作家指导作者如何处理母子关系时，强调孩子不愿总被当做孩子，应该照顾他的感受。尤其第5段提到青少年外表抗拒是为掩饰其内心的脆弱，由此可知他们感情上极其敏感，故C正确。B,D与文章主题无关，应予排除。重点要注意干扰项A，文中两位少女客观反映同龄人的想法，强调青少年不愿总被父母当做孩子看，他们虽然有独立的倾向，但不是本文叙述的重点，故排除。

4. It’s teenagers excuse to disguise their vulnerability.

第6段这句的字面意思为，你们不会理解的，永远不会，这是孩子对父母说的一句话。第5段提到当青少年觉得与父母的谈话是建立在不平等基础之上，就会摆出敌对态度，以掩盖他们的脆弱，而第6段这句真实青少年对家长的敌视反应，所以它暗示的言下之意为It’s teenagers excuse to disguise

their vulnerability.