John's Articles

14-Year-Old Make-up Issue

Posted on 1/13/2004

EYELINER OK, BUT KEEP EYE ON IT Q: Our 14-year-old daughter is in her first year of high school. Eyeliner seems very common among her peers, but she is wearing too much of it for our tastes....

13-Year-Old Involved in New Age Religion

Posted on 10/21/2003

WICCAN FLIRTATION ISN'T MISBEHAVIOR Q: My 13-year-old daughter came home from boarding school last weekend and announced at a family dinner that she is a witch and a "wiccan." Then she told us...

15-Year-Old Refuses to Wear Bands on Braces

Posted on 8/5/2003

LIFE GETS SIMPLER WHEN PARENTS ARE STRICT I decided to depart from my usual format and let a reader write this column. Occasionally, I get letters from parents telling me how they've solved...

15-Year-Old Lying and Playing the Victim

Posted on 6/3/2003

SILENT TREATMENT IS TEENAGER'S METHOD OF PLAYING THE VICTIM Q: We grounded our 15-year-old daughter because she watched an R-rated movie with a girlfriend while we were out for the evening. Her...

10-Year-Old Bullied by 13- and 15-Year-Old

Posted on 1/1/2002

LET THE LAW STEP IN TO HANDLE BULLIES Sometimes, I hear a parenting story that just warms my heart, that just makes me want to jump up and shout "Amen!" Sometimes, having forgotten that I am no...

Teenagers and Drug Use

Posted on 12/11/2001

GETTING A TEEN OFF DRUGS TAKES FIRM HAND, NOT HAND WRINGING Over the past few months, quite a number of parents have asked my advice about teen-agers who are smoking pot, using hallucinogens...

14-Year-Old Argues and Wants Last Word with Parent

Posted on 9/26/2000

A WILY STRATEGY TO NIP ARGUMENTS IN THE BUD Q. My 14-year-old daughter is driving me nuts! Every single time I refuse to let her do something or give her something she wants, she starts an...

13-Year-Old Cuts Up Sister's Panties

Posted on 8/15/2000

YOUNG TEEN'S FETISH DOESN'T MEAN HE'LL BE A PERVERT Q. My wife and I recently discovered that our 13-year-old son, on two separate occasions, went into our 10-year-old daughter's room and cut...

13-Year-Old Homework Issue

Posted on 8/1/2000

TEENS WILL RESIST YOUR ATTEMPTS TO 'MICROMANAGE' THEIR LIVES Q. My 13-year-old son waits until the last possible moment to begin doing his homework. He no longer has a set bedtime, but he must...

Don't Micromanage Teenagers

Posted on 7/4/2000

TEEN-AGERS LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE, NOT NAGGING Q. In a talk you recently gave in Ohio, you warned of the pitfalls of trying to micromanage a teen-ager. This is a new concept to me. Can you...

Parent Snooping in Teen's Stuff

Posted on 3/14/2000

Q. Is it OK for me to snoop in my teen-ager's books, notes, book-bag, diary, etc., if I suspect he may be up to something? If I find evidence of wrongdoing, how should I handle it? What if I find...

14-Year-Old with Messy Room

Posted on 3/14/2000

Q. How does one get a teen-ager to keep a clean, neat room? My 14 year-old says it's his room to do with as he wants. Do you agree? A. Not on your life! From early on, my wife and I told our...

13-Year-Old Wants Out of Job Agreement

Posted on 3/7/2000

IF 13-YEAR-OLD WANTS OUT OF JOB AGREEMENT, RELEASE HIM Q. Our 13 year-old son, an only child, is generally well-behaved and does well in school. This past summer, the three of us decided that...

Teens and Hormones

Posted on 4/6/1999

HORMONE LEVELS AREN'T MAKING TEENS RUN AMOK Q. A TV newsmagazine recently ran a segment where an expert claimed that runaway hormone levels during the early teens often cause the rational part...

14-Year-Old Has Older Responsible Friends

Posted on 2/23/1999

SON'S FRIENDS RESPONSIBLE, OLDER? RELAX Q. Our 14-year-old son looks at least two years older and is more mature in many ways than most boys his age. He recently started hanging around with a...

14-Year-Old Always Asking for Money

Posted on 1/19/1999

14-YEAR-OLD NEEDS TO TAKE CONTROL OF HIS OWN MONEY Q. Our 14-year-old son is forever asking us for money. He wants the latest clothes, shoes, CDs. He wants money for movies, video arcades,...

14-Year-Old is Disrespectful and Hostile Toward Mom

Posted on 11/10/1998

DON'T LET YOUR HOSTILE SON TURN YOU INTO HIS TARGET Q. I'm a single mother with custody of my 14-year-old son. His father, whom he sees infrequently, has mental problems stemming from battle...

14-Year-Old Hanging Out with Questionable Friends

Posted on 10/27/1998

HOW SON ERIC LEARNED TO PICK BETTER FRIENDS OK, enough already! Since my recent article on the controversy surrounding Judith Harris' book "The Nurture Assumption'' (which proposes that...

Teen Issues: Co-Ed Sleeping Party and Adolescent Health

Posted on 8/18/1998

COED SLEEP' FOR TEENS IS A PARTICULARLY DUMB IDEA Q. What's the dumbest thing you've ever heard concerning teen-agers? A. Actually, there are two dumbest things: The first was a story...

Teens Have No Fear

Posted on 6/23/1998

WHY SHOULD TEENS HAVE FEAR? ADULTS ARE IRRELEVANT While I was driving down the interstate the other day, a car flashed by on my left going at least 20 mph over the speed limit. For an instant,...

School Shootings: Guns are not the Problem

Posted on 6/9/1998

GUNS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM; NEW LACK OF DISCIPLINE IS For reasons obvious to all except those who've been on an extended media fast, the 1997-98 school year may well become known as the "Year of...

Mom Has Lousy Relationship with 15-Year-Old

Posted on 12/30/1997

AN APOLOGY A WEEK MAY WORK WONDERS Q. My 15-year-old daughter and I have a lousy relationship, and I'm to blame. When she was about 12, I realized she had a mind of her own and wasn't going to...

Today's Teens are More Prone to Serious Problems Than in Years Past

Posted on 5/27/1997

TEENS AND PARENTS AREN'T WHAT THEY ONCE WERE Q. Every week it seems, I hear yet another horror story about a teen-ager who's gone "off the deep end.'' In many cases, these are kids whose...

Couple Wants to Know How to Tell 6- and 9-Year Old About Divorce

Posted on 4/22/1997

IF YOU'RE DIVORCING, BREAK NEWS TO KIDS GENTLY, CLEARLY, QUICKLY Q. My wife and I have decided to get a divorce. We haven't told our two children, ages 9 and 6, and want to do so in as...

13-Year-Old Wearing Obscene T-Shirt Shows How Far Standards Have Fallen

Posted on 3/25/1997

OBSCENE T-SHIRT SHOWS JUST HOW FAR STANDARDS FOR PARENTS HAVE FALLEN There I was, walking the sidewalks of a fairly prestigious private school somewhere in America, biding time before a talk I...

16-Year-Old Smoking - Part 2

Posted on 11/28/1996

Then there's the matter of a column I wrote several weeks ago in which I advised the parents of a 16-year-old who was smoking with her friends to give thanks for a daughter who was well-behaved,...

16-Year-Old Smoking - Part 1

Posted on 10/24/1996

PARENTS ARE FIRED UP OVER TEEN DAUGHTER'S SMOKING Q. We recently discovered that our 16-year-old daughter is smoking with her friends. Neither of us smoke and she knows she's breaking a family...

13-Year-Old Has Fears, Problems Falling Asleep, Obsessions and Compulsions

Posted on 10/3/1996

OBSESSIONS, COMPULSIONS ARE COMMON IN EARLY TEEN YEARS Q. Our 13-year-old son, Brian, has recently started having problems falling asleep. As soon as he closes his eyes he begins having...

Reason Behind Increased Rates of Teen Depression, Drug/Alcohol Use, and Violence

Posted on 8/8/1996

FEEL-GOOD' PARENTING IS HURTING OUR CHILDREN For years, the politically correct explanation for the rise of depression, suicide, violence and drug and alcohol use among America's teens has been...

Rebellious 14-Year-Old Hangs Around Kids with Bad Reputations

Posted on 5/23/1996

IF SON'S FRIENDS HAVE BAD INFLUENCE ON HIM, YOU MUST PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN Q. We have a 14-year-old who has become increasingly rebellious. In the last year, he started running with a bunch of...

Understanding and Successfully Managing Your Teen-Ager - Part 4

Posted on 5/2/1996

MUZZLING THE EFFECTS OF PEER PRESSURE EDITOR'S NOTE: Fourth in a series on teen-agers. Q. Every week, it seems, I hear another horror story about a teen-ager who's gone "off the deep...

Understanding and Successfully Managing Your Teen-Ager - Part 3

Posted on 4/25/1996

RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUNG TEEN SET EARLY Third in a series on teen-agers. Burton White, author of "The First Three Years of Life,'' compared preadolescence to toddlerhood, terming the latter...

Understanding and Successfully Managing Your Teen-Ager - Part 2

Posted on 4/18/1996

KEEP THEM BUSY; THEY'LL BE FINE Q. I've heard that the more activities - church youth groups, athletics, school organizations - teen-agers are involved in, the less likely it is they'll get...

Understanding and Successfully Managing Your Teen-Ager - Part 1

Posted on 4/11/1996

WHEN GOOD TEENS DO BAD THINGS One of my presentations is titled "Understanding and Successfully Managing Your Teen-Ager (and Yourself Through Your Child's Teen Years).'' As you might imagine,...

13-Year-Old Strong-Willed Teenager

Posted on 1/4/1996

ENLIST DAD TO DISCIPLINE SASSY TEEN-AGE SON Q. My 13-year-old son is giving me fits. Daniel ignores me, sasses me, refuses to do what he is told and refuses to cooperate in any punishment I...

Sibling Conflict: 3 Siblings Do Not Like One Another

Posted on 11/10/1995

SIBLING RIVALRY: YOU CAN CONTROL IT Q. Our three children, ages 15, 13, and 11, constantly bicker with one another. We've tried talking to them about how important it is to have good...

Parents Can't Reason With Teens

Posted on 9/16/1994

YOU CAN TALK TO TEENS, BUT YOU CAN'T REASON WITH THEM I gave a talk recently in which I said you can't reason with children. Someone raised a hand and said words to the effect that you can,...

Let Child Have the Last Word - Part 3 (Teen)

Posted on 11/12/1993

THOUGH STILL RUDE, TEEN DOES AS SHE IS TOLD My last two columns, both extolling the advantages of letting children have "the last word,'' have struck a familiar chord among some readers....

Let Child Have the Last Word - Part 2 (15-Year-Old)

Posted on 11/5/1993

WHAT'S IMPORTANT IS THAT KIDS COMPLY; GOOD ATTITUDE' ISN'T NECESSARY In last week's column, I said that when a child doesn't like a parental decision, the parent should let the child have the...

Let Child Have the Last Word - Part 1 (12-Year-Old)

Posted on 10/29/1993

GO AHEAD, GIVE YOUR CHILD THE LAST WORD There was a look of desperation, I thought, a look of last resort, in this prematurely gray mother's eyes. "What can I do,'' she asked pleadingly, "with...

8th Grader Has Troubling Friends

Posted on 7/17/1992

WORRIED THAT KID'S FRIENDS ARE BAD NEWS? One day during Eric's eighth-grade year, a friend called to warn me of the crowd Eric had recently started hanging with. I'd met the boys to whom he...

Teach Children to Respect Adults Regardless if You Like Them

Posted on 6/12/1992

DON'T BE AFRAID TO TEACH CHILDREN TO RESPECT ADULTS I don't often invite someone else to co-write this column, but every now and then a letter comes across my desk that is so pertinent, so...

Kids and Smoking

Posted on 3/27/1992

A KID'S FIRST WHIFF OF CAMEL BREATH IS NOT FROM OLD JOE Poor Old Joe Camel. The campaign to force R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to dump the dromedary from its Camel cigarette ads has become a...

15-Year-Old on Phone All the Time

Posted on 3/20/1992

WHAT TO DO FOR A 15-YEAR-OLD'S SERIOUS CASE OF PHONE EAR Q. We have a 15-year-old daughter who, if allowed, would stay on the phone in her room all day and night. When we propose regulations,...

15-Year-Old's Relationship with Stepfather

Posted on 1/3/1992

SHOULD SON BE CLOSER TO STEPFATHER? Q. I'm concerned about my 15-year-old son's relationship with his stepfather, to whom I've been married five years. They accept one another, and have...

Because I Said So 4

Posted on 3/17/1991

THESE WORDS GET RESULTS - BECAUSE I SAID SO When Eric was 14, he asked me if I'd buy him a motorcycle. "Nope," I said. "Why not?" he screeched, his arms flapping at his sides like he...

Teens and Drugs 2

Posted on 3/18/1990

SOLUTION HITS HOME: PARENTS, TOO, SHOULD JUST SAY NO In a recent column, I said that "Just Say No" (JSN) programs, based as they are on the notion that peer pressure is the evil behind the...

Teens and Drugs

Posted on 1/28/1990

PARENTS, NOT PEERS, MUST SAY NO Just say no. Simple as that. Immunize teens against the negative peer forces that lead to drug use by forming drug-free clubs, doing "self-esteem...

15-Year-Old Pornography Issue

Posted on 4/9/1989

TEEN'S INTEREST IN PORNOGRAPHY CONCERNS PARENTS Q. We recently found a copy of Penthouse magazine hidden under the mattress in our 15-year-old son's room. This is the third time in two years...

10th Grader Homework Issue

Posted on 3/26/1989

SOMETIMES HELP IS NO HELP AT ALL Upon entering the 10th grade, my daughter Amy was invited into advanced geometry. It was her first accelerated placement in math, and it turned out to be...

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