by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Education, Encouragement, Mentoring, Parenting, Parenting Books, Teen Success
During the first few months of life, parents show lots of colorful, noise-making objects to their infant. Slowly, the baby learns to pay attention. The child is doing the work to program the neural pathways for sight. During the first year of life, parents guide and...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Personal Strength, Programs, Strong for Parenting, Teen Success
Adults care a great deal about the youth in their communities. They want fewer kids to be at risk. They want more kids growing up to be strong, happy, successful adults. They’re willing to be mentors to young people. And it’s important that they do because it...
by Dennis Coates | Mentoring, Parenting, Parenting Books, Strong for Parenting
If you’ve never gone to war or if you’ve never had to stay behind when your spouse is deployed, you can never fully appreciate the worry, loneliness and hardship of trying to raise a family not knowing if or when the family will be together again. Or how...
by Dennis Coates | Education, Mentoring, Parenting, Parenting Books, Teen Success
The thing I appreciate most about Michael Gurian’s parenting books is their focus on brain science. I’ve studied the human brain for 25 years, and I can tell you that no parenting author writes with more clarity, authority, and accessibility than Michael Gurian. His...
by Dennis Coates | 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 | Adolescence, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Peer Pressure, Self-Esteem
For many young people, low self-esteem comes with the territory. They don’t want to be thought of as children anymore, but they know they’re not adults. They lack the knowledge, skills, judgment, experience, resources, authority, confidence and maturity...
