by Dennis Coates | Apr 19, 2020 | Critical Thinking, Education, Fitness, Health & Nutrition, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Personal Strength, Self-Esteem, Teen Driving, Teen Success
ADULTING: “The practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.” I borrowed this excellent definition from an online search; the term is too new to be included in the...
by Dennis Coates | Apr 11, 2020 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Education, Encouragement, Inspiring Quotes, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Personal Strength, Teen Success
“There’s nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – Buckminster Fuller This quote made me think of my West Point class. Before I arrived there, I had made straight A’s for 12 straight years, graduating...
by Dennis Coates | Mar 30, 2020 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Education, Encouragement, Mentoring, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Blogs, Peer Pressure, Teen Culture, Teen Success, Work
It seems like yesterday when I published Conversations with the Wise Uncle: The Secret to Being Strong as a Teenager and Preparing for Success as an Adult (First Summit, 2012). Eight years ago! It’s a series of stories about a young boy named Chris and his uncle...
by Dennis Coates | Mar 23, 2020 | Critical Thinking, Education, Parent-child Communication, Teen Success
It’s often said that experience is the best teacher and that the value of mistakes is that you can learn from them. There’s a lot of wisdom in this. It’s why we don’t want to protect our kids from every mistake and failure while they’re growing up....
by Dennis Coates | Feb 24, 2020 | Behavior Change, Education, Encouragement, Parent-child Communication, Rebellion
A young father was telling me about his two children, a seven-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy. “My daughter is an angel, but my little boy is a terror. He defies me every chance he gets. At lunch I asked him to come to the dinner table and he refused....
by Dennis Coates | Feb 7, 2020 | Behavior Change, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Teen Success
With every choice, there is a consequence. And the situation of that consequence sets up another choice. One choice after another, we create our life paths and become who we are. It’s a process that continues throughout one’s life. It’s how a child...
