Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff

Six years ago we had the idea to write a
Chicken Soup for
the Teenage Soul
book for teenagers. As you know, it was very well received and millions of teens have found comfort and support in the stories that were written by their fellow teens. We received thousands of letters requesting that we compile more books for teens. These requests, combined with the deluge of stories that were being sent, gave us the needed motivation and resources to continue the series.

Every week we continue to receive hundreds of letters and stories from teenagers around the world via the Internet and through the mail. As we read the mountain of mail, we began to notice that the chapter on tough stuff was the most popular chapter in the books. After a while, we began to get requests for an entire book on tough stuff. Our response to these requests is the book you now hold in your hands.

For those of you who might be new to the
Chicken Soup
for the Teenage Soul
series, Tough Stuff has been a chapter in all of our previous books that included the more challenging issues and experiences of being a teenager, such as drugs and alcohol, rejection, loss of friendships and relationships, death, suicide, divorce, physical and emotional abuse, and eating disorders.

Although the content of these stories is often disturbing and sometimes even tragic, the potential for insight, learning and “growing up” is enormous. We believe this is the reason for the overwhelming response to these types of stories. For example, we have had stories in previous books that dealt with the death of a parent. This is one of every child's worst fears and one might question the benefit of including such stories. However, we have repeatedly heard comments such as these from our readers: “After reading that story, I immediately sat down and wrote my parents a letter apologizing for giving them such a hard time.” And, “Though my mom and I still have our little arguments, it is different now. I appreciate her so much more and I KNOW that everything she does is because she loves me. I didn't really understand that before reading that story.” We rarely print a story unless the person writing it has learned or realized something profound from their experience. Hopefully, this lesson gets passed on to you, the reader, and will spare you similar pain. At the very least, it will let you know that you are not alone in the world with your challenges.

One of our most important criteria for including a story is that it leaves the reader a better person for having read it. An example of this is the much-loved poem “Somebody Should Have Taught Him” from the first
Chicken Soup for
the Teenage Soul
book. In this poem a young girl is killed by a drunk driver on her way home from a party where she chose not to drink. It is an extremely emotional poem that still makes us cry when we read it. The response this simple but powerful poem has evoked from thousands of teenagers is a newfound commitment to never drink and drive. Many teens have written letters promising this to their parents; others have designed contracts that they have signed with witnesses, while in other cases some teens simply made a promise to themselves that they have written about to us. The most gratifying part of all of this is that years later we have received follow-up letters informing us that they have kept their solemn commitment.

Another subject we touch upon in our Tough Stuff chapter is eating disorders. There was a story in
Chicken
Soup for the Teenage Soul
about a girl and her difficult, but ultimately successful, recovery from anorexia. Several months after the book was released, Mark Victor Hansen was approached by two people in tears at a booksigning asking if they could have a minute of his time. They told him that their daughter had received the book as a graduation gift. She was about to leave for college and everyone was excited. When she spent the entire weekend before her departure alone in her room, they became upset. The parents thought their daughter should at least find some time to spend with them before she left.

Sunday night she came downstairs and asked if they could talk. She sat down with them and announced she would not be leaving the following day for college. She went on to say that she had an eating disorder and now, after reading
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
, she was able to find the courage to be honest with them about it. She said she felt weak and scared for her life. She asked her parents to take her to see a doctor first thing in the morning. They did and her fears were confirmed. She was on the brink of death and, had she not come forward when she did, she would have died. At the time they told Mark this story, she was still in the hospital.

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