by Dennis Coates | Apr 26, 2016 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Education, Encouragement, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Books, Teen Culture, Teen Success
I’ve posted before about the importance of critical thinking and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young person to lay down a foundation of critical thinking skills in the developing prefrontal cortex – what I often refer to as “the smart...
by Dennis Coates | Jan 11, 2016 | Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Parenting, Parenting Videos, Personal Strength, Strong for Parenting
I recently streamed the movie, About Sunny, starring Lauren Ambrose, an accomplished but relatively unknown young actress. Whenever a movie is excellent in every way and I want Netflix to give me more suggestions like it, I always rate it 5 stars. Released in 2013,...
by Dennis Coates | Dec 7, 2015 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Rebellion, Self-Esteem, Teen Culture, Teen Sex, Teen Success, Teen Suicide
Most of the 50 million parents of school-aged children in the U.S. are all too aware of the gauntlet of dangers that threaten when a child becomes an adolescent: under-age smoking and drinking; drug abuse and addiction; low self-esteem and peer pressure; self-harm and...
by Dennis Coates | Nov 30, 2015 | Adolescence, Alcohol, Drugs, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Teen Culture, Teen Suicide
When they’re little you read to them, hoping they’ll learn to love books and reading and learning. Before you know it they’re in school, beginning a learning journey that will teach them about the world. And in half a dozen years, puberty begins the...
by Dennis Coates | Oct 5, 2015 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Peer Pressure, Rebellion, Self-Esteem, Strong for Parenting, Teen Culture
In this piece, I reference an interesting video. Even though you may find it shocking, watch it all the way through. Don’t click off just because you think it’s disgusting. The clips were recorded by the teens themselves. There are thousands of videos like...
by Dennis Coates | Aug 4, 2015 | 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...
