Posted on 1/15/2020
Q: Our ten-year-old granddaughter lives with us. We have custody of her but her father, our son, is now asking us for visitation privileges. I probably don’t need to tell you that both he and his...
Read MorePosted on 11/26/2019
After a recent talk in South Florida, women came up to me in droves asking, “How much should I help my children with their schoolwork?” That not one man asked the question...
Read MorePosted on 11/19/2019
Okay, it’s time to set the record straight, confront the gorilla in the proverbial room, call a spade a spade, and so on and so forth. I recently published a column on “The...
Read MorePosted on 10/29/2019
The Portal. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, the gateway to an alternative universe that lures, then traps the unwary in its nefarious web of illusion, where things are...
Read MorePosted on 10/2/2019
Q: We held off giving our oldest daughter a smartphone until she was fifteen, the age at which we allowed her older brother to have one. We read your column weekly in our hometown newspaper and...
Read MorePosted 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 6/11/2019
Q: Our 14-year-old (he’s going into the ninth grade at a public high school) has taken up with a bunch of kids that we don’t exactly approve of. They have reputations as troublemakers and at...
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 2 weeks ago
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 3 weeks ago
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 4 weeks ago
What is your opinion on the use of School Resource Officers and how children and teenagers are now being arrested and/or prosecuted for both major (fighting, assault on staff, vandalism, drugs,...
Read MorePosted on 1/9/2020
My oldest is eleven and started middle school this year. Overall it has been a smooth transition. She has a great group of friends and likes school. She does not have a phone and has very limited...
Read MorePosted on 12/16/2019
We are a family with 4 kids (13 year old boy, 13 year old girl, 11 year old girl, 4 year old girl). None of them have any electronics (since October 2019). The three older ones did have cell...
Read MorePosted on 12/2/2019
Finally: school and studies. Being in junior high now we are trying to encourage better study habits for our son. He has always found school easy and not brought work home to review while still...
Read MorePosted on 12/2/2019
I have a few questions: In Teenproofing there is talk about allowance not connected to chores. I love the idea of teaching the kids about money responsibility, budgeting, etc., as discussed. Our...
Read MorePosted on 11/13/2019
My son is 13. He has been lying fairly often. He got a detention at school but told me he was getting help from the teacher with his work he didn’t understand. Of course I found out when the...
Read MorePosted on 11/6/2019
We have struggled with our child being ashamed to be seen with either of us (her parents) in public, to the point that she acts in a way that hurts us. She is now in middle school (7th grade);...
Read MorePosted on 10/15/2019
I have two sons (13 and 14 years old) and one step son (12 years old). They've gone to a Christian school their whole lives and are all saved. My issue is with my 13 year old. He is very smart as...
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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