by Dennis Coates | Behavior Change, Encouragement, Inspiring Quotes, Parent-child Communication, Parenting, Personal Strength, Self-Esteem, Teen Success
Is your child resilient? Do you want your child to be more resilient? A non-scientific definition: Resilience is the ability to recover or “bounce back” from loss, stress, or disappointment – setbacks that can cause someone to doubt his or her self-confidence and...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Education, Personal Strength, Self-Esteem, Teen Success, Work
Out of love, many parents hover over their kids to protect them from distress or harm, to make sure they feel good about themselves and to assure they are launched on a path to success when they leave home. The all-too-frequent result: young adults who lack...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Education, Parenting, Parenting Books, Self-Esteem, Teen Success, Work
How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success (Holt, 2015), by Julie Lythcott-Haims, is the best book ever written about the kind of overparenting that has produced the struggling young adults of the Millennial...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Adolescent Brain, Alcohol, Critical Thinking, Education, Encouragement, Parent-child Communication, Parenting Books, Teen Culture, Teen Success
I’ve posted before about the importance of critical thinking and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young person to lay down a foundation of critical thinking skills in the developing prefrontal cortex – what I often refer to as “the smart...
by Dennis Coates | Adolescence, Parenting, Teen Success
On the occasion of my 50th class reunion, I remembered some of my West Point classmates. One in particular, I’ll call him Joey Sheed, graduated near the top of our class. As a freshman, I was in awe of him. We attended several classes together, and he never...
by Dennis Coates | Behavior Change, Parent-child Communication, Personal Strength, Programs, Self-Esteem, Teen Success
When you were in high school, did you take that Parent-Child Relationship Skills course? I’m sorry – trick question. No such course has ever been included in a high school curriculum. Well, how about college? No? Any other course in your church or...