by Dennis Coates | Aug 3, 2015 | 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...
by Dennis Coates | Jul 12, 2015 | Adolescent Brain, Education, Mentoring, Parenting Books, Teen Success
Two decades ago, Michael Gurian’s best-selling book, The Wonder of Boys, created a stir. The push for women’s rights assumed the developmental needs of both genders were the same. Going against this assumption, he made a convincing case that while boys and...
by Dennis Coates | Jul 8, 2015 | Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Parenting Videos, Programs
FASD stands for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: a variety of permanent birth defects caused by the mother’s consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. The mother consumes alcohol, the substance travels to the womb, where it can disrupt normal development of the...
by Dennis Coates | Jul 3, 2015 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking
Often when I write about adolescence, I make reference to a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. To help you appreciate where that part of the brain is and what it does, I’ll give you a quick guided tour of your brain. I’ll do my best here, even...
by Dennis Coates | Jun 25, 2015 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Education, Parenting
I accidentally help wire my boys’ teen brains for critical thinking. It was Christmas 1982, and like all parents at the time, I knew nothing about the teen brain. But I didn’t think twice about what to give them for Christmas. It just seemed like a great...
by Dennis Coates | Jun 14, 2015 | Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Books, Teen Success
Every time a teenager tries to figure out why something happened, tries to understand the relationship between thing A and thing B, tries to see the connection between cause and effect, foresees possible consequences, evaluates options, solves problems and consciously...
