A Guide On How To Care For Teenagers - Written By Teenagers.

Two 17-year-old schoolgirls have written a guide for parents on how to raise teenagers.

Parents of teenagers will know that there is no greater mystery than what is going on in their children's minds.Now, however, help could be at hand, with the release of a new parenting guide on how to raise adolescents – written by two 17-year-old girls.Megan Lovegrove and Louise Bedwell, schoolgirls from Cheam, south west London, have written the manual based on their own experiences as well as interviews with 100 of their peers.The book contains more than 200 pages of advice for parents on how best to handle their teenager, on topics from sex and drugs, to tidying up their bedroom.

On this often contentious issue, the guide, which is published this week, suggests giving children three hours to clean their room and not to check until the time is up.The authors say the tactic is likely to pay off for parents because teenagers feel they are being trusted. To lure reluctant adolescents out of their room, the book recommends straightforward bribery.Parents are also told how they can stop their homes being wrecked by house party gatecrashers: by ensuring that when their teenager organises the event through the website Facebook, details are only visible to friends and the full address is not disclosed.Another practical piece of advice in the book – "Teenagers Explained: a manual for parents by teenagers" – is to reduce your teenagers' phone bills, by encouraging them to use smart phone "apps" for free messaging, such as Viber or Whatsapp. However, this advice may entail helping them to buy such a device first.

Other tips for parents include:* do not fuss too much over your own appearance as this can rub off on your teenager and make them sensitive about their looks.* "scare tactics" can work to keep your child off drugs: saying how they can ruin your hair and skin would discourage many girls.* do not ban your teenager from social networking sites – they will sign up anyway. It is better to make sure they are aware of safety implications.

Megan and Louise, who attend Nonsuch High School for Girls, a grammar school in Cheam, were selected to write the book after a publisher asked pupils from 50 schools in the area to take part in a creative writing contest.Louise, who lives in Cheam, with her father, an IT worker, and mother, a personal assistant at an accountancy firm, said: "We wanted it to be a real 'tell it like it is' manual from the teenagers' perspective."We had to analyse our own behaviour when writing the book, and that has certainly helped us to recognise how at times we may have annoyed our parents, and also how we may have unintentionally worried them, such as when going out without telling them where."