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 Parenting Related NewsShe smiled and said she was proud of him. He had come to a 180 degree turn in his life. And with that, he turned to the other teens and thanked them for helping him change his life. His victory became theirs.
While it was hard to immediately see the outward effects of my pill intake, inside, I was detaching from reality. I always describe the feeling of being on pills as being inside a protective bubble. You feel like nothing can hurt you…and eventually, nothing can, simply because you’ve got no emotions left.
My colleague told me she was having her 10-year-old stepson practice his reading and comprehension skills while reading entries from my personal blog. Effectively, she noted, along the way she discovered that it’s a creative method of early drug prevention too.
Let’s face it. Teens are not that interested in talking to someone whose sole intent is to pepper them with questions, judge their answers, and offer unsolicited advice. In fact, these forms of communication serve to obstruct rather than facilitate communication with our teens. As a matter of fact, they are part of a longer list of communication blocks that parents would do well to avoid if they’d want their teens to talk to them.
Truth be told, the lessons about alcohol consumption that are the most powerful may just be the ones that are not accompanied by a wagging finger and a tongue lashing. It is the small, accumulated lessons about drinking that add up to make a difference.
Being a responsive parent instead of a reactive parent begins with more matter-of-fact interactions with our kids. This means speaking to them in a calm manner and not freaking out, overreacting and getting extreme with our emotions. Too often, when we see something in our relationship that we don’t like, we try to change everything wholesale. We say things like, “From now on, things are going to be different!”
Do you know an outstanding youth coach or student athlete who demonstrates a commitment to fair, drug-free play and an overall healthy lifestyle? Does this person inspire others to give it their all, make the team smile after a big defeat, or show exemplary character and integrity on and off the field?
If you answered YES, [...]
I am betting that very few of you have sat through a week’s worth of sex education classes at your teenkid’s school. If your school district offers – or mandates – such classes, you no doubt have received a carefully crafted note listing the topics to be covered. And, if you have somehow managed to raise one of those rare tweens or teens who, in response to “so, what happened at school today?” replies polysyllabically, you might have a general notion of what goes on.
One in five teenagers has abuse prescription pain medication. Dr. Drew shares some reasons why teens are abusing pills and what parents can do if they suspect their child is using.
As a college student living 5 hours away from my parents, I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want. If I got into any real trouble, with the university or the law, only then would the school contact my parents. Otherwise, I can get away with a lot without my parents ever knowing. That’s a scary thought for parents reading this, right?
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So That's Why They Do What They Do!A new NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) study could help explain why adolescents are so prone to make risky choices. When contemplating risky decisions, they show less activity in regions of the brain that regulate processes involved in decision-making, compared with adults. The areas are among the last to develop and are involved in control of "thinking" functions, including decision-making, and in processing reward-related input and behavior (the orbitofrontal/ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Results of the study were reported in the March 9, 2007 issue of Neuropsychologia by Monique Ernst, MD, Ph.D., and colleagues from the NIMH Emotional Development and Affective Neuroscience Branch. The study, which included data on 16 adolescents and 14 adults, involved a game of chance. At each turn, they could choose a high-risk or low-risk option to try to win. The high-risk option offered greater reward than the low-risk option, but the chance of winning was much lower. Scientists measured brain activity while the participants made their choices, using technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results suggest that when it comes to making choices involving risk, adolescents do not engage the higher-thinking, decision-and-reward areas of the brain as much as adults do. Brain development continues throughout adolescence, and the reduced activity seen in specific areas in the healthy adolescents in this study appears to be normal. Studies like this one are helping researchers map normal maturation in the brain, data that can then be used for comparison in studies of mental illnesses, some of which begin during adolescence, including depression and anxiety disorders. National Institute of Mental Health "Neuropsychologia," online Jan. 23, 2007; in print March 9, 2007. |
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