If your friend is addicted to drugs—whether it’s opioid pills like Oxycontin or recreational drugs like weed or crack—you may feel obligated to help. Whether or not your friend asks you for help, you may feel like you need to stop their dangerous cycle and get them back on track. First, we’ll be straight up with you: it’s not your job to make them better. What do we mean? The
Marilyn* was getting bullied at her public school. Girls made fun of her clothes and her appearance. She didn’t drink or go to clubs or bars, and they made fun of her for that, too. They called her names, threw her hostile looks, and taunted her behind her back. Every time she walked into the cafeteria, her heart would start pounding as she wondered where she would sit. Each lunch
Sometimes, our friends are the best parts of our lives. They give us emotional support, spread cheer, and/or help us become better. Whenever we’re around them, you feel happier and a better version of yourself. On the other hand, certain friends are simply bad for you. They can be difficult to be around. They might engage in risky or criminal behavior. Your mom doesn’t like them. They’re exclusive, excluding, and
Emily, Abigail, and Hannah were sitting together at lunch. The end of the shool year was just a few weeks away, so the three high school friends were discussing their summer plans. “We’re going on a cruise to Alaska,” said Emily, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “My mom found this amazing cruise line that comes with a million pools and Jacuzzis onboard, plus a movie theater and a
It’s summer, and you’re away at camp. Your friend back home calls you often to talk. But you don’t always answer, because you’re busy with your camp friends, or you simply miss her calls. She’s insulted. She thinks you’re leaving her in the dust. You’re incredulous. You wonder: Is she really that insecure in your friendship that she needs to talk to you every single day? Of course, a little
If you’re going to a new camp for the first time, where you don’t know that many faces, you may be nervous about friends. While you may or may not have a bunch of friends back home or at school, camp is a whole different setting. What if nobody likes you? Nobody talks to you? What if you have to spend every rec hour by yourself because everyone thinks you’re
Picture the scene: you just started high school, and you barely know anyone. Or you moved, and you’re starting over completely. Or perhaps you’ve been at school for a while but haven’t yet managed to form any close relationships. In each of these situations, making friends can feel like a terrifying challenge. For one thing, you’re not sure if these people are even interested in making new friends. They may
Every parent has a list of phone calls they don’t want to get from school. It’s a basic list. If you’re a parent, here are the top three things we know you don’t want to hear when the phone rings and your caller ID tells you it’s the school: Your child is sick or has had an accident. They’re being disruptive or having discipline problems. They’re having serious academic/learning issues.
Take Care of Your Friends Over the past year, there’s been a great deal of electronic ink spilled on a variety of topics relevant to teens. Suicide is in the news. Opioid addiction is in the news. School shootings are in the news. All the time. These topics – from what we can see, at least – are second only to the frenzy of political news about foreign powers working
There’s a simple lesson most of us learn by the time we hit adolescence: we either like school or we don’t. Sure, some of us are on the fence about school. We can take it or leave it. But most fall into one camp or the other, and it’s not always about the academics. Some of us excel academically and still can’t stand sitting in class, while others don’t get
Question: If you help someone just because you get something out of it, does it still count as helping? One way to answer that question is this: of course it does. If you do something and someone else benefits from it, then it doesn’t matter why you did it. The person still gets the benefit. Right? Let’s back up and clarify why we’re asking. We’re talking about volunteering, here. Community
This article is about peer pressure. Not your typical peer pressure, though. We know there are kids in your school who urge you to break rules large and small: skip class, get high, and game the system by sharing test answers ahead of time or crowd-sourcing homework assignments, projects, and papers. They get in your ear and offer an attractive sounding alternative to going to class, working hard, and conforming
