by Dennis Coates | Mar 8, 2017 | Inspiring Quotes, Parent-child Communication, Personal Strength, Teen Success
Once upon a time, when my youngest boy was about 18 years old, we were walking together and he asked me, “Dad, what does masculinity mean to you?” A loaded question. I sensed that he was aware that he was growing into manhood but was unsure what it meant...
by Dennis Coates | Feb 27, 2017 | Drugs, Education, Fitness, Health & Nutrition, Teen Success
How could viewing over 25 paintings by early San Antonio artist Julian Onderdonk make me think of video game addiction? It happened. The San Antonio Museum of Art recently featured the collection of Onderdonk, an American impressionist painter who died in 1922 at the...
by Dennis Coates | Dec 22, 2016 | Adolescent Brain, Teen Success, Work
I stood under the front entrance canopy of the H.E.B. grocery store as I watched cold rain pouring onto the parking lot. Slowly moving toward me was a young woman pushing a train of about fifteen shopping carts. Her head was down as she leaned into the carts,...
by Dennis Coates | Oct 22, 2016 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Education, Parenting, Parenting Books, Rebellion, Teen Culture, Teen Success, Work
Since the 1990’s, when Dr. Jay Giedd and his colleagues at the National Institute for Mental Health published their pioneering research about adolescent brain development, more than a dozen authors with different backgrounds have written about “the teen brain.” For...
by Dennis Coates | Oct 18, 2016 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Critical Thinking, Education, Mentoring, Teen Success, Work
It was the summer of 1960, and I was 15. Elvis’ active duty service in the Army was behind him, and John Kennedy was running for President. My father, a chief warrant officer in the Army, had been reassigned to Germany and our family would follow six months later when...
by Dennis Coates | Sep 28, 2016 | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Drugs, Education, Encouragement, Parenting, Teen Culture, Teen Success
In a separate post, I quoted Dr. Jay Giedd, the pioneering brain researcher who discovered that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is still under development during a child’s adolescence, that this is the “smart” area of the brain, and that wiring the PFC...
