Saving Beauty from the Beast: How to Protect Your Daughter from an Unhealthy Relationship

By Ellen Zelda Kessner and Vicki Crompton

Book Overview

For parents who are concerned that their daughter is in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, here at last is a book based on personal experience and authoritative research that provides answers. Dating violence affects a huge number of teenage girls -- one in three girls between the ages of ten and eighteen reports having been assaulted by a boyfriend -- and can run the gamut from possessiveness to stalking to outright physical abuse. Often it is the girls with the highest selfesteem, those who believe they are in control of their lives and can bring out the best in their boyfriends, who find themselves in the grip of a relationship in which the tables have been turned. This essential and timely book incorporates the insights and advice of experts in the fields of education, adolescent psychology, criminal justice, threat assessment, and sociology. Authors Crompton and Kessner also include the voices of teenagers and parents to provide an in-depth portrait of the dynamics of controlling behavior. Book jacket.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316090581
• ISBN13: 9780316090582
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Empowering

A very important book that should be mandatory reading for all educators, especially in middle schools, high schools, and colleges. Abuse and male privilege are far too common and even accepted by so many. Saving Beauty from the Beast is very readable and compelling. All school counselors should read this book. As a former victim of domestic violence I know what an uphill battle it can be as the victim is often blamed by the police and clergy. This book is a ray of light in a dark tunnel. I am grateful to its authors.

This book may save your daughter's life

If you even SUSPECT that your child may be in an unhealthy relationship, please read this book! It contains so many insights that would have helped keep my daughter safe had I known. Out of ignorance we let her continue a breaking up and 'getting back together' cycle with a young man who we now know has been abusing her for almost a year. Fortunately, some friends convinced her to tell us, so we can help her get out safely, and make sure he gets the help he needs so that he doesn't do this to someone else. Besides the many chapters for parents of abused girls, there is a chapter for parents of suspected abusers, and one for youth who suspect a friend is being abused. I feel so guilty that this has happened to my daughter, and the book addresses that as well. It also gives very practical information about how to set up safety plans, minimize the chances of his finding her new phone number, etc. Dating abuse is so much more common than it used to be. This book is an excellent tool to help us protect our children. Every parent should know about the 'power and control spiral', the cycle of abuse, and the warning signs of potential abusers and abusive relationships, and educate their children about them as well.

Stop the abuse---read this book

In a 2003 "Montel Williams" show on dating violence, Vicki Crompton, co-author of Saving Beauty From The Beast, did more than plug her book, co-written with Ellen Zelda Kessner; she told the highly personal story of her daughter Jenny's murder at the hands of boyfriend Mark Smith, and offered advice to young women and parents torn apart by callous teenage boys, adolescent angst, parent-daughter conflicts, and a culture that, as the book points out, romanticizes forbidden love, taking what you want at any cost, love that hurts, and having a boyfriend. Crompton, hand-in-hand with parenting author Kessner, has turned her daughter's shattering, unthinkable death into a brilliant, readable book that draws on real teenagers and their parents from all backgrounds, speaking in clear, intelligent voices, articulating the myriad pressures young women today face when involved in a love that hurts. Crompton and Kressner do not make light of peer pressure, or fail to note that the very rich and the very poor of today's youth are the most at risk to become abusers, or shrink from advising parents to "back off" and accept the relationship. The personal safety plan for daughters in abusive relationships, the safety plan for daughters who have left the relationship, the ingenious suggestion of a "code word" signaling danger, are useful tools. The coda of Crompton confronting Mark Smith in prison serves as a poignant reminder and incentive for all parents of teenage girls to read and share this book with their "Beautys."

Very helpful book. Wish we bought it sooner.

I recently bought several books on abusive relationships.My husband (a very picky reader) has read many passages out loud to me from this one.It is filled with many examples of abusive relationships that are unbelievably similar to what we have seen. We almost feel as if the authors know the young man we are concerned about. The book is clearly written, provides good details and ideas on how to cope.Buy this book before your daughter gets involved with an abuser, or at least at the first signs of an abusive relationship. You want to know, as early as possible, what can be going on.The book is worth many times what it costs..

A must for every home

This book is a classic, a must for every personal family library. It's a page turner, for me a chapter turner, for I leaped from one section to another quickly seeking means for protecting my children. I now feel more acutely sensitized to the problem and better able to get a grip on some of the interventions. The authors are to be congratulated and thanked for improving our competence concerning so frightening a scenario.