by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Personal Strength, Teen Success, Work
I’m recalling a moderately adverse experience that started with a phone call. My wife was about to return home from a shopping excursion at a mall about 30 miles away when her car wouldn’t start. She asked me to drive to the mall to give her a jump-start...
by Dennis Coates | Guest Blog Posts, Parenting, Self-Esteem, Teen Success, Work
Guest post by Kari Kampakis, author of 10 Ultimate Truths Girls Should Know. When I became a mom, I got lots of advice on how to love my child. But not until a few years ago did someone actually point out that loving a child means wanting what’s best for them...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Behavior Change, Critical Thinking, Parent-child Communication, Parenting
Kids can learn a lot from experience. But that doesn’t mean they will, just because something happened to them. Most of the time young people go from one life event to another without learning a thing. The same thing is true of adults! What makes the difference?...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Drugs, Education, Parenting Books, Teen Culture, Teen Success
One crucial step in helping your adolescent child build a superior mind is to protect the prefrontal cortex (PFC) from damage during adolescence – the developmental period for wiring the foundation for critical thinking. To this end, I’ve written a number...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Parenting, Teen Culture, Teen Suicide
In 2014 a huge tornado devastated a small town in Oklahoma, killing 24 people. Stories and images of the destruction were all over the Internet, the newspapers and television news. The coverage reminded me of when in early June, 1966, I walked among the ruins in...
