by Dennis Coates | Jun 17, 2019 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Behavior Change, Encouragement, Parent-child Communication, Rebellion, Self-Esteem
I know several parents whose child is fast approaching adolescence. Even raising a sweet child can be difficult in many ways, but after puberty the challenges change. Middle school-aged children don’t want to be treated like sweet little kids anymore. Far from...
by Dennis Coates | Jun 3, 2019 | Adolescent Brain, Drugs, Education, Health & Nutrition, Rebellion, Teen Culture
You don’t want your teen to smoke cigarettes. You don’t want your teen smoke marijuana. There’s the danger that normal development of the prefrontal cortex will be disrupted, with permanent consequences. Damage to lungs. Addiction. Gateway to other...
by Dennis Coates | May 12, 2019 | Adolescence, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Rebellion, Teen Culture
A friend once told me a story about his older brother. My friend was a top student and multi-sport athlete in high school, and he eventually got a football scholarship and later had a successful career as an executive. His drive to achieve in class and in sports kept...
by Dennis Coates | Apr 29, 2019 | Adolescence, Behavior Change, Parenting, Rebellion, Self-Esteem, Teen Success, Work
I saw something striking while shopping for groceries the other day. A young boy, about 13 years old, was walking just ahead of his parents. No, not walking. Sort of dancing, as if he were a lurching, broken robot. A green bunch of hair shot straight up from the top...
by Dennis Coates | Mar 8, 2018 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Education, Fitness, Health & Nutrition, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Peer Pressure, Personal Strength, Rebellion, Self-Esteem, Teen Culture, Teen Sex, Teen Success
One of the underlying themes of my writing is that parents of teens need to be realistic. But being realistic doesn’t necessarily imply some kind of worst-case scenario. Because realistically, lots of really wonderful things can happen during adolescence. For...
by Dennis Coates | Feb 22, 2018 | Parent-child Communication, Rebellion, Strong for Parenting
Billions of human beings follow their separate paths, steps followed by steps largely unknown to the people around them – even friends and acquaintances. This limited ability to know for sure what’s happening in the lives of others in any given day —...
