Tips on Building Trust With Your Teen A funny thing happens during pre-adolescence. This isn’t true for all kids, but for most. One day they’re all talk. Chitter-chatter about this, that, and the other thing. From the moment you pick them up from school or they get home from the bus stop to the moment they go to bed. They talk about their friends, their hobbies, the things they love,
There’s one thing we know about mental health that applies to people of any age, from children to teenagers to full-grown adults: people who are actively engaged in life report high levels of life satisfaction and overall wellbeing. That’s not only true for their mental health, but also true for their physical health. For the purposes of this article, though, we’ll focus on mental health. What do we mean by
If you’re the parent of a teenager in 2022, the past two years have most likely been challenging for everyone in your family. You and your teen faced new circumstances. Some were no big deal, while others may have caused significant stress. In some cases, the stress and disruption led to the development of mental health issues. As a parent you wonder if your teen needs professional support – and
If you follow the news online, in print, or on television, you know that over the past two years, teen mental health has become a common topic across all these platforms. Most of us notice them more, now, because of the well-documented negative effect of the coronavirus pandemic on teen mental health in the U.S. and around the world. However, articles about the precarious state of teen mental health in
We Believe in You In August of 1994, the U.S. Congress passed a bill called “The Parents’ Day Resolution.” Within two months, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law. Here’s the text of Public Law 103-62: “The fourth Sunday of every July shall be established as “Parents’ Day” to be recognized as a recurring, perennial day of commemoration. All private citizens, organizations, and governmental and legislative bodies at the
Rate of Firearm Suicide Among Teens Highest in 20 Years Over the past five years, we’ve published more than two dozen articles on the disturbing phenomenon of suicide among teens. The articles explore a wide range of suicide-related topics, including the suicide contagion effect in teens, suicide among teens with borderline personality disorder, suicide among transgender teens, suicide among teen boys, the relationship between suicide and bullying, and the relationship
Does Legalization Mean Adolescents Think Marijuana is Harmless? “Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States.” That’s the first sentence in the article “Marijuana Legalization And Historical Trends In Marijuana Use Among US Residents Aged 12–25: Results From The 1979–2016 National Survey On Drug Use And Health.” That sentence – and others that say the same thing with slightly different words – also appears on websites
Understanding the Intricacies of Self-Harm in Teen Girls For people who have never engaged in self-harm, the behavior is difficult to understand. When a parent learns their teenage child engages in self-harm, their first response is most often shock. Quickly followed by fear and worry. Anger may be part of the mix, too. A parent may be angry at their child. They may be angry at themselves. Or they may
Problem Gambling Among Adolescents When parents think of the behavioral, mental health, or emotional disorders their children might experience or develop during adolescence, a gambling addiction or disorder typically isn’t at the top of their what should I worry about? checklist. During this pandemic era, most parents have their attention on the mental health issues adolescent development experts warned them about back in March 2020. They look for signs of
Expanding Our Understanding of Dating Abuse and Violence In an article called “INTIMATE PARTNER SEXUAL ABUSE: Who Are the Victims, What Are the Risks? Adults, Teens, and Children” published in the judicial periodical The Judge’s Journal last year, author Lynn Hecht Shafran addresses a serious problem in our society: sexual violence between people who are married, in a relationship, or otherwise intimate – including teenagers. This a separate issue than
Teen Rumination Can Lead to and Exacerbate Depression Depression is a mental health disorder the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (5th Edition) defines as a mood disorder, which is a class of disorder used to describe all the various subtypes of depression and bipolar disorders. Among depressive disorders, the DSM-V identifies nine subtypes of depressive disorder. DSM-V: Types of Depression Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). This is the
How do parents impact teen bullying? A Focus on the Father-Child Relationship Bullying is an unfortunate part of growing up. Almost all kids encounter bullying at some point during their lives. It may start as early as kindergarten, preschool, or grade school, but in most cases, bullying starts in middle school and continues through the high school years. Evidence shows kids who report being bullied – whether it’s in-person or
