Whether teens are dating or not, it's a good idea to talk to them about what a healthy relationship looks like.

The words were hard for the 13 year old sitting across from me in the counseling room. “i want to, but I can’t” she said in practically a whisper. This academically gifted, brand new teenager found herself in the grip of anxiety unable to express herself to her family and friends. She couldn’t describe the feelings or any possible causes. She had no idea how to “make” herself say hello to a person passing by in the hall or respond to a teacher. The idea of a sleepover, a pr

Recently I've been exploring wide-spread and enduring beliefs about teenagers. This month I was thinking about how we as a society often explain the risky behaviour of adolescents, by saying, Oh, they think they're going to live forever, and I wondered, do they really? Teens are infamous for their poor decision making, renowned as reckless drivers and as users of alcohol and drugs. Research reports that forty percent of adolescents didn't use a condom the last time they had s

Recently I've been exploring the myths we tell ourselves about teenagers. Last month, I discussed why we perceive teens as selfish; this month I wanted to put another common complaint under the microscope: teens are lazy. Certainly, they can seem this way. They sleep in late; they put off doing homework, they forget to take out the trash (again); they are more content to play video games than to think about the future. So, what's going on here? Well, to be honest: a lot of th

With Thanksgiving this week, I've been thinking a lot about gratitude. Gratitude can act as a bond between people. If someone has been kind to you, or done you a service, you are naturally inclined to go out of your way for them. Not surprisingly, there is a growing body of research that shows that there is an association between feeling thankful and feeling contented. I find this interesting because as parents, youth workers and teachers we tend to work towards our children'

For the past two months, I have been exploring some of the effects that normal brain development has on adolescent behavior. In today’s post, I want to examine the repercussion of the increase in oxytocin receptors that occurs during adolescence, and how parents can respond to this. Oxytocin is sometimes called the love or the cuddle hormone, because when we hug or kiss someone, when we have sex, give birth, or just bond socially, our oxytocin levels rise. The abundance of th

This summer I am exploring some of the effects that the adolescent brain has on adolescent behaviour, and today I wanted to look at what happens when melatonin release is delayed. Melatonin is also known as “the darkness hormone” and it help all people fall asleep. In adults, it is released at about 10 pm, but in teenagers it is released three hours later! (1) This three hour delay means that your teenager is liable to have a hard time falling asleep, and an even harder time

Over the next few weeks, I will continue exploring different aspects of adolescent development, and the ways in which these effect adolescent behaviour. This week, I want to look at the effect of myelination, the process during which nerve cells are coated by fatty lipids. Myelination actually begins at birth in the brain stem, but at the beginning of adolescence, myelination starts to occur in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for, “motor function, problem solving, sp

So much has been written -and read!- about the development of very young children, as if once we've got our kids sleeping and eating their vegetables, the battle is over, and yet adolescence presents brand new challenges for parents that are no less rooted in their biological development. Exaggerated activity in the nucleus accumbens relative to pre-frontal cortex activity is one of the important ways adolescents differ from children and adults. The nucleus accumbens is assoc

March is Self Harm Awareness Month. What do parents need to know about self harm? First, it's not uncommon. An estimated 13-23% percent of teens (1) engage in self-harm, across all genders and races. Although it is more prevalent in girls, it also affects boys. It is considered a coping mechanism for difficult experiences, and can encompass practices like cutting, burning, hair pulling, scratching, bone breaking, bruising, or swallowing dangerous substances. A teen who self

Last week, I posted advice for teens on how to better connect to the adults in their lives, excerpted from an interview I did with my good friend (and award winning author!) Lela Davidson. This week, I wanted to share more advice from the same interview. So here's four tips on how adults can connect with teens. 1. Partnership over parenting. While teens still need guidance to avoid risky and impulsive behavior, parents have already often done the instruction. They've told the

As promised, I want to share my reaction to Jess Shatkin’s book, Born to Be Wild. I can honestly say that this is a wonderful read, but a word of caution: it is not for the faint of heart. The research is dense and at times difficult to wade through, but it is the basis for Shatkin’s challenge to society’s current ideas about why kids take risks and he offers great advice for parents and people who work closely with teenagers! It was once thought that teenagers engaged in ri

Recently, one of my clients shared a piece of writing with me that describes herself and she has allowed me to share it with you now. On weekdays, she was a reliable and generally good person with values, morals, and messages, for those who attended school and extracurricular activities. For those who saw her sun of a face, they knew this to be true, and were pleased with the warmth it provided their skin, yet some found themselves burned by glancing too long to find she was

I frequently use videos in my practice to encourage teens to talk about themselves, to explore their feelings, and to help them identify paths forward. One of my favorite videos to use is this YouTube clip of Dean James Ryan's prepared remarks to graduates of Harvard's Graduate School of Education in May of 2016, in which he encourages his students to ask five questions of themselves regularly as a way of living a more fulfilling life. Dean Ryan’s 5 Essential Questions 1. Wai

While I am reading Born to Be Wild, I wanted to share with you one of my all time favorite books about teens: Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood , by Dr. Lisa Damour, director of the internationally renowned Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls. Published in February 2016, this book has it all! It's easy to read, has wonderful and pragmatic advice for parents, and it's based on real science!!! It's a must read for anyone wit

I am so excited to read Jess P. Shatkin's new book, Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe. Check back here for a review of this much-anticipated book in January, and in the meantime, you can read Psychology Today's review of the book here! #parenting #communication #teens #books #JessPShatkin #BorntoBeWild #bookreview

In my last post, I wrote about the epidemic of suicide among teenagers. There are probably a lot of causes for this, including increased academic pressure and reduced authentic social networks. It's also true that social media use has been linked to anxiety and depression. Jean M Twenge explored this link last month in an article for the Atlantic titled, Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? It's a great read, and I encourage you all to check it out. In the meantime, here

I am often told by the teens I see for counseling that music-“my music” is their number one coping tool. My guess would be that many of you can remember a song that summed up or pushed you through your teen years. A song that expressed how you were feeling or helped you at least know you were not alone in what you were feeling. This April, a rapper named Logic released 1-800-273-8255. The lyrics provide a chilling narrative of how difficult life is for our teenagers right no

She was just 16 years old and standing in front of an audience of 2,500 adults, most of whom were busy checking their emails, texts, or reading over proposals that they would be voting on that afternoon. It was, after all, only the conference youth report. With poise and authority, she began her speech. “We are not the future. We are the present. We are not the future anymore than you are the past.” She was getting some attention now; adults hate being referred to as the past

Parenting teenagers can be very challenging. They are no longer children and not yet adults. Sometimes we just have to stop, take a deep breath, and think things through before we interact. Let's pause and talk about using caution when sharing opinions. Teenagers have opinions- I know, right? As parents, we can be frustrated when these opinions are not our own, particularly when they appear wrong to us, or when our teenagers insist upon them as fact. But if we expect our chil