News Articles

The good news about today's youth: 7 positive trends show them behaving more virtuously than earlier generations By Kristy Cooper Courtesy of Good News Network Have teens gotten a bad rap in recent years? They are typically characterized as self-involved, reckless, and only interested in “sharing” on their phones, but the youth of today, in reality, are actually behaving more virtuously than they have in a long time. Statistics tell an optimistic story. From smoking and drug use to unwanted pregnancies and abortions, the trends today show most teenagers making good choices. They are even volunteering in their communities more [...]

Four tips that will increase your child's happiness. By Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Learning how to set and maintain emotional boundaries is an important part of growing up. It is also a key to developing relationships that are supportive, caring, and respectful. These kinds of positive relationships create the foundation for lifelong happiness. Unfortunately, many adults have difficulty setting their own emotional boundaries, let alone teaching their children. The reasons are simple. Setting boundaries is uncomfortable, forces us to speak for ourselves, and seldom results in a “thank you” from others. Yet, it is one of the [...]

Experts say kids are growing up with more anxiety and less self-esteem. By Rachel Ehmke Courtesy of Child Mind Many parents worry about how exposure to technology might affect toddlers developmentally. We know our preschoolers are picking up new social and cognitive skills at a stunning pace, and we don’t want hours spent glued to an iPad to impede that. But adolescence is an equally important period of rapid development, and too few of us are paying attention to how our teenagers’ use of technology—much more intense and intimate than a 3-year-old playing with dad’s iPhone—is affecting them. In fact, [...]

Teaching adolescents how to manage self-confidence is important to do By Carl E Pickhardt Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today The two most common self-confidence drops I see during adolescence are at the beginning, in Early Adolescence (9-13) when separating from childhood, and at the end, in Trial Independence (18-23) when leaving home to operate more on one’s own terms. In both cases, the young person must get used to functioning on a significantly expanded playing field of life experience than she or he encountered before. At these first and last stages of adolescence, as the scope of life enlarges, the [...]

By Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today We understand the benefits of mentoring young people when we hear the powerful stories of teens whose lives have been changed by a single, caring adult. If you listen, those stories are everywhere. Like me, you likely have a story of a mentor from your own youth. What we know about mentoring is that it matters to positive youth development. Now, one of the largest mentoring studies ever conducted continues to support this thinking and links mentoring to a reduction in bullying. A five year study sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters [...]

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has found that students who have never had sex rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors than sexually active peers. The report examined a large array of health behaviors of high school students according to their self-reported sexual activity, including dating violence to substance abuse, to drunk driving, to carrying weapons. The major conclusion from the report is quite stark: Virgin students rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors than their sexually active peers. They do so by remarkably stunning measures. Just one more piece of evidence [...]

By Maria Konnikova Courtesy of The New Yorker This summer, American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization. Bullying is, presumably, as old as humanity, but research into it is relatively young: in 1997, when Susan Swearer, one of the issue’s two editors, first started studying the problem, she was one of the first researchers in the United States to do so. Back then, only four states had official statutes against bullying behavior, and the only existing longitudinal work had come out of Scandinavia, in the seventies. After Columbine, however, [...]

Five research-based ways to help children and teens attain their goals. By Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today If you are an employed adult, you know that most organizations have written goals and objectives. That’s because goal-setting is a common practice in the workplace; and for good reasons. Written goals provide a road map by which employees can measure their efforts and see how they contribute to the success of work teams and ultimately, to their companies. In the same way, goal-setting helps motivate athletes, entrepreneurs, and individuals to achieve at higher levels of difficulty. But goal-setting isn’t just [...]

By Zdravko Cvijetic Courtesy of Medium.com Somebody once told me the definition of hell: "On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become." — Anonymous Sometimes, to become successful and get closer to the person we can become, we don't need to add more things — we need to give up on some of them. There are certain things that are universal, which will make you successful if you give up on them, even though each one of us could have a different definition of success. You can give up on [...]

Help your child feel confident and empowered By Cheryl Lock Courtesy of Very Well Family Best Overall Book for Teens: You Don’t Have to Learn Everything the Hard Way "Reviewers says this book is chock-full of tidbits to help teenagers navigate a complicated world." If you’re looking for a book that covers it all, check out “You Don’t Have to Learn Everything the Hard Way” by Laya Saul. Covering topics like sexual abuse, pain, facing obstacles, peer pressure, drugs, and many others, Saul provides teens chapters with bite-sized inspiration in the form of stories, ideas, quotes, and questions to get [...]