6 Ways you can support your teen over the holidays

The holiday season can be a wonderful and magical time. It can also be a source of stress and family conflict for many – between frantically buying presents, attending parties, traveling to see family, and hosting out-of-town guests, the holidays can quickly become overwhelming. Research has found that during the winter holidays, people experience lower…

Parents: What to do if your teen is struggling with their grades?

Often, when teens struggle with grades, parents tend to either go into full drill sergeant mode and “ground” or yell at their teenager, OR they may get into helicopter parent mode and try doing the teen’s homework. Neither of these options tends to work well for the teen or the parents. Control battles, trying to…

Grounding teenagers does not work

We take a strong stance on grounding teenagers. On behalf of all our teens in our programs – parents- please stop grounding them! You don’t have to do it. Discipline can still work great without it. Grounding simply doesn’t make sense to teens. They don’t get it. It feels like senseless torture and often ends…

Value Testing: 4 Reasons Why Teens Say Outrageous Things

Teens love trying out a wide range of values and then seeing how the people around them respond. This is an essential part of teen self-concept building and is very developmentally appropriate. Often, teens love seeing their parents react to these new values negatively. Once the parents have a negative reaction, the teen will double…

How to talk to your teenager about substance use

Not all drugs are created equal and neither is all drug use. Substance use falls into three categories: Most teens experiment with substances at some point. However, of those who experiment, most will not go on to use or abuse drugs. How to set boundaries with your teen about substance use: When talking to your…

The parents guide to teen sexual health

Teen sexual health is often an uncomfortable topic for parents and teens alike. That is why we wrote this guide for parents on how to talk to their teens, celebrate important milestones, and minimize the cringy moments. Age-appropriate, evidence-based education about sex, sexual identity, and sexual health is key to lowering the risk of sexual…

A Parent’s Guide to Teen Entitlement

Entitlement Behaviors Start Early Entitlement happens when the parents treat their child as an honored guest in their home, and they act as service providers rather than parents. As the years go by, this strips the child of the ability to act responsibly. These parents fail to set limits for behavior and fail to establish…

Teen Self-Concept: the secret to raising happy teens

Teens do not know who they are and are working like mad to figure it out. Adolescents are… Often, anytime a teen looks at themselves, something is wrong. They’ll ask “What does a normal teenager look like?” or “How would a normal teenager act right now” or “What should I be thinking about?”. These questions…

My teen is giving me the silent treatment. Help!

It is disorienting, as a parent, to go from your chatty child who tells you about every minute detail of their life to a distant teenager who doesn’t want anything to do with you. Sometimes, teens can take this to the extreme and give you the silent treatment. Teens give their parents the silent treatment…