Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence

Welcome to the hard half of parenting

by Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D.

Effective punishment for the adolescent.

The healthy purpose of punishment is to apply a consequence that discourages repetetion of a misbehavior that mere words have been unable to correct. Read More

How NOT to punish your adolescent.

Punishment is a corrective of last resort brought into play only after corrective communication has failed to right acting wrong. Read More

Why violence?

Violence is scary and exciting for adolescents. Read More

Punishment and the Adolescent.

The most powerful punishment is not so much corrective as it is instructive. Communication counts. Read More

Criticizing your adolescent.

Parental criticism is a poor corrective and a powerful agent of resentment. Read More

Adolescence and the limits of parental responsibility.

Parents feel enormous responsibility for their adolescence, but actually have much less responsibility for what happens in the teenager's life. Read More

Arrested development -- when teen runs from responsibility

When adolescents want more freeedom from responsibility than for responsibility it can be very hard to mature. Read More

Parental pride and adolescence.

Parental pride gets complicated when pride in teenager is linked to pride in self. Read More

Adolescence and the loss of childhood.

Growing up is giving up. and so both parent and adolescent must let go the child he or she used to be. Read More

Emotional extortion: how adolesents can manipulate parents.

To let an adolescence use expression of intense emotionality to get their way is to encourage manipulation. Better to insist on declaration instead: "When you are through acting upset and want to talk about what it is you specifically want or do not want to have happen, I am ready to listen." Read More

Nagging the adolescent: is it worth the parental effort?

The willingness to nag their adolescent shows the parent is prepared to invest energy in the pursuit of getting what they asked for finally done. Read More

Remarriage with adolescents: the perils of step relationship

Remarriage with teenagers can make adolescent more complicated and intense, and the marriage harder to maintain. Read More

Parental divorce and adolescents

Parental divorce is a formative event in an adolescent's life, one common effect being to empower the young person to take more charge of his or her direction in life. Read More

Arguing with your adolescent.

When parents complain about their teenager arguing all the time, I aways wonder why. Argument is communication, and if parents listen they can learn about the young person's world of interests and concerns. Would they really rather have an adolescent who never argued at all? Read More

Is your adolescent acting spoiled?

It's really saddles an adolescent with later problems in adult relationships when he or she was raised to be too self-centered for their own good. Read More

Parent/Adolescent Conflict -- Fighting to Communicate.

When asked what is the most important skill for parents to have with their adolescent, I usually reply: "Being able to do the Dance of Conflict." Read More

Adolescent Boredom—Not a Trivial Emotion.

Boredom is often double-edged. It creates disatisfaction that can motivate a young person to figure out something meaningful to do. However, it can also prompt the teenager to do something, anything however unwise, just to fill up the painful emptiness of time. Read More

The Freedom Contract: Holding a Teen to Responsible Account

The lesson cannot be taught too often to the adolescent: freedom is not free. It is expensive, generally earned by conducting oneself constructively. Read More

The adolescent only child

To grow up as an only child is a mixed blessing: in some ways it is empowering (being comfortable relating to adults, for example); but in some ways it is limiting (being unpracticed and uncomfortable with conflict from the absense of siblings, for example.) Read More

Teaching your adolescent independence

For the adolescent to learn independence, they must practice it, and parents can create many oportunities for this to happen. Read More

Want to Graduate? Get to Work

Part-time work can often encourage a firmer commitment to study. Read More

Why Adolescents Cheat in School and What to Do.

Cheating in school can improve the appearance of performance, but it can't cover up the reality of knowing that what was gained was not honestly earned. Read More

Procrastination: How Adolescents Encourage Stress

Not only does delay from procrastination create last minute pressure and crowd the field of future demands, but if creates a worrisome sense obligation that can weigh on freedom in the present that was gained. Read More

Helping Adolescents Learn to Manage Stress

Since life will only become more stressful once the adolescent leaves parental care, parents need to give the teenager decision-making tools for moderating and managing life demands, and maintaining well-being as they grow. Read More

When Parents Envy Their Adolescents

Parental envy of their adolescent is often founded in loss -- the adult missing what youth has been given that aging has taken away. Read More

Worry About Adolescence, But Not Too Much

With so much responsibility for their adolescent and with decreasing actual control, parents come by their tendency to worry honestly. Read More

Too old/too soon: Moderating adolescent speed of growth

Since many misadventures in adolescence arise from trying to grow up too fast, it behooves parents to slow the rush to adult-like behavior down, Read More

Adolescent Dating: What makes a good relationship.

Adolescent dating has a lot to teach about what treatment it takes to create and manage a healthy socially attracted relationship. Parents need to help with this instruction. Read More

Eight ways to anchor adolescent growth

Parents often want to know what specifically they can do to keep their teenager tied into family as adolescent is growing them apart, as it is meant to do. Here are eight ways of doing so. Read More

"SAY YOU'RE SORRY" -- When a young adolesent won't apologize

Owning up to inevitable injuries experienced between them, parents can teach the adolescent how to process these hurts with admission, apology, and ammends for forgiveness sake, thus equipping the teenager for managing hurts in significant relationships later on. Read More

Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D., is a psychologist in Austin, Texas. His most recent books are: The Connected Father, The Future of Your Only Child, and Stop Screaming.

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About Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence

Most parents are unprepared for the normal growth changes that typically occur during their child's adolescence. For most moms and dads this is the hard half of parenting. The purpose of this weekly blog is to help parents better understand how adolesence alters the teenager, and their connection to the teenager, as they struggle to keep their relationship together while adolesence is growing them apart.