How to Explain the Importance of High School to your Teenager

Some teenagers hate high school. They don’t want to be there and they don’t want to deal with difficult people or situations. They don’t want to do work they consider useless and boring. Teenagers can have a difficult time tolerating the emotions that being forced to go to school can elicit. Often teenagers feel that they should somehow never experience frustration. There are developmental reasons for these beliefs that have to do with earlier childhood experiences when they had no responsibility at all.

Click to read more ...

Cultural Differences between Parents and their Teens in Miami

Miami is an international and an immigrant city. People come from all over the world and especially Latin America to settle here. The vibrant mix of cultures can sometimes be difficult for families to deal with. For the teenagers of immigrants who are growing up experiencing a different culture than their parents it can become more and more difficult for them to communicate effectively with their families. Parents are more likely to adhere firmly to their original culture whereas teenagers tend to very quickly soak up the culture that they experience around them. This can lead to gaps between teenagers and parents on their levels of Americanism as well as on their levels of the parents’ culture of origin. In more serious cases parents and teenagers may have a significant language barrier between them, fertile ground for misunderstandings and conflicts to spring up.

Click to read more ...

Tolerating your teen’s intense emotions and overcoming parental guilt and anger

Teenagers aren’t easy. They can be demanding, intense and moody. In the normal world of adults you have more control over how difficult people are involved in your life. When it comes to your difficult teenager there’s little choice but to be involved. So what do you do when you notice that your teenager’s words and behavior can provoke out of control and equally intense reactions in you? This is a question that I am often asked in my practice and I always say the same thing. Gain some emotional distance. Don’t take it personally and don’t expect them to behave like mature adults all the time. For me it is helpful to conceptualize your role as a parent in the following way.

Click to read more ...

The Steubenville Rape Video, Alcohol and Teenagers

Michael Nodianos really messed up. He is the teenager in the video recently released by the hacktavist group Anonymous shown joking about an incident of rape allegedly perpetrated by his fellow high school football teammates in Steubenville, Ohio. The language and attitude in the video is highly disturbing and offensive.

Click to read more ...

How to Talk to your Teen About Going to Counseling

For dedicated parents it is important that they feel that they are doing everything they can to help their teenager through life’s troubles. When parents feel at a loss when confronted with their teenager’s problems they often search for professional help. However, when they speak to their teenager about it he or she is insulted and dead-set against it. Teenagers may simply refuse to go or become enraged with the possibility of going to counseling. This unfortunate reaction puts a frustrating obstacle in the way of parents trying to help their teenagers, especially in the case of older teenagers that you cannot physically force to go.

Click to read more ...