Posted on 7/23/2019
My recent column pertaining to a 12-year-old who told his parents he’d thought about suicide several times over the past six months stirred a fair number of folks to respond. Feelings toward the...
Read MorePosted on 7/16/2019
Q: We recently discovered that our 12-year-old has been visiting pornography sites of all sorts on the Internet. When we caught him red-handed, he began crying and said he is addicted. Apparently,...
Read MorePosted on 12/4/2018
Q: Our 15-year-old daughter is very demanding and, to be honest, self-centered. One of the things she does is ask one of us for something and demand an instant decision, as in, “Can I go to the...
Read MorePosted on 10/16/2018
When I was a child, my most important possession was my bicycle, followed closely by my radio. My bike was how I got around. I rode it to school, friend’s houses, pick-up...
Read MorePosted on 6/13/2018
Q: Our 15-year-old daughter has told us she’s in love with a 20-year-old guy who is in the Army and intending to make the Army his career. We’ve met him, and he is extremely respectful and...
Read MorePosted on 6/6/2018
Rates of child and teen depression and suicide continue to rise, as they have for fifty years. As regular readers of this column know, I do not agree in the least with current explanations, much...
Read MorePosted on 5/1/2018
No question about it, the peer group exerts great influence on teenagers. From the way they dress to the way they carry their books, the stamp of peer pressure is upon them. If the influence is...
Read MorePosted on 4/27/2018
"Dad! I've decided what kind of car I want to get when I'm 16! Look at this!" "Eric," I said, brushing away the copy of Car Trader he'd stuck in my face, "I've told you a hundred times, I'm not...
Read MorePosted on 2/21/2018
Q: When our daughter, an only child, turned thirteen and entered the 8th grade, it was like a switch was flipped. Almost overnight, she went from being a sweet, respectful and obedient child who...
Read MorePosted on 11/17/2017
Recently, a mother asked how she and her husband could make their 16-year-old son stop talking disrespectfully to them. So far, she said, they'd complained, threatened and occasionally taken his...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
My 11-year-old son is obsessed with screens. If we tell him to do something while he is on his phone or iPad he huffs and puffs or we are told, “in a minute." Then he only gets 2 out of 3 chores...
Read MorePosted 2 weeks ago
I am a single mom with only one child, my 15yo son. He has recently started saying that he "isn't hungry" at dinnertime, or will "eat later", and says he doesn't want to eat with me. He often does...
Read MorePosted on 6/2/2020
15yr old daughter is only happy if everything is going her way. If something doesn’t suit her she ignores the family at dinner and on picnics And other family outings. But when her friend comes...
Read MorePosted on 6/1/2020
Is it ok to go through your material with our 12 year old son listening? It seems like he would understand better this way?
Read MorePosted on 5/22/2020
My 11 year old daughter gets upset when I correct her and calls me names in her heart not aloud; but she later tells me those rude things and apologises. (The most recent name she called me...
Read MorePosted on 4/12/2020
I'm currently going through a divorce. Parenting has gotten increasingly harder for obvious reasons, and I'm the only disciplinarian. I'm concerned my kids - or some of them - are too old for me...
Read MorePosted on 2/27/2020
my daughter is 14 years old and she thinks she is crazy in love for a boy in her school , same grade. She doesn't have a smart phone . But she bought an old phone from a friend for 80 dollars and...
Read MorePosted on 2/8/2020
I have been using the alpha speech. I make mistakes sometimes, escalating my voice because I'm frustrated. On the most part I'm pretty consistent. I noticed in alpha speech you do no use...
Read MorePosted on 2/6/2020
My teenager has been caught with marijuana. He said he was done with it and a few days later, we found more. I have read Johns book on raising teens and remember that he said their is a time to...
Read MorePosted on 2/1/2020
Our 15 year daughter has been in catholic school since she was 3 years old. Our intention was to put her in a public school for high school. We live in a middle to upper middler class...
Read MorePosted on 1/8/2015
This is an entertaining and informative talk on understanding and managing even the most petulant of today’s teenagers. The talk was recorded live before an audience in San Diego, CA and is based...
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