by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Behavior Change, Parent-child Communication
Father: “Hey, son. I thought I asked you to clean and put away the tools after you use them.” Son: “Oh. Right.” Father: “Well, the tools you used last night are still on the bench. Why didn’t you put them away?” Son: “I don’t know. I guess I forgot.” Father: “I told...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Education, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Videos, Teen Sex
For the past few years, I’ve been interviewing adults about their adolescent experiences. I always ask, “What did your parents tell you about sex?” Ninety-five percent of the time the answer is, “Nothing.” I remember the one and only time...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Education, Parent-child Communication
The sound of the front door shutting announced that Ricardo was home from practice. His dad met him in the hallway. “How was it today?” “It was okay. We did a lot of conditioning drills and I’m beat.” “Good stuff. I’ll bet...
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...
by Dennis Coates | Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Parenting Books
Over the decades, a lot of bad advice for parents has been published. Strategies such as false praise, helicopter parenting and permissiveness may have played to parents’ fears of losing the love of their child, but the consequences have been horrendous. After...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Books
For quite a while now, I’ve been involved in an anecdotal research project in which I interview adults about their experiences as teenagers. This effort has taught me a lot about what I call “the teen journey.” One day while visiting one of my best...
