Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence

Welcome to the hard half of parenting

Carl E Pickhardt Ph.D.

Possible Effects of Parental Violence on Kids

Verbal and physical violence by parents can severely injure the relationship with their child in lasting ways that may be forgiven, but not forgotten.

Adolescence and the Influence of Increasing Disorder

For the beginning adolescent, and thus for parents, orders can be harder to satisfy and order more difficult to maintain.

Adolescence and the Unfairness of Parents

Parenting is not a popularity contest, and it can become more prone to youthful charges of unfairness during the adolescent years.

Adolescent Curiosity and Adult Internet Exposures

Because adolescent curiosity grows more worldly, Internet exploration becomes more common.

Adolescents, Parents, and the Power of Reputation

Since it can have social consequences, parents need to talk about the complexities of reputation with their teenager.

Adolescence and the Age of Painful Embarrassment

Because the adolescent can be so easily hurt by teasing from peers, parents need to keep a safe and tease-free home.

Parent, Adult Child, and Reconciling Past Unhappiness

Part of the mutual letting go by parent and child that comes with the end of adolescence is letting go of hard feelings about difficult times.

The End of Adolescence and the Risk of Lifestyle Stress

The end of adolescence is often extremely demanding as the young person strives to cope, sometimes relying on stress to get everything done.

Peer Group Membership and Adolescent Growth

While the child grows up primarily in the parental family, the adolescent now also grows up in a second family of peers.

The Power of Personal Problems in Adolescent Life

"Problems" are statements of dissatisfaction that can inspire curiosity, provoke perseverance, or teach resilience.

4 Basic Needs That Drive Family Communication

Simple talking is rarely simple between parents and adolescents. Sometimes, it's obstructed by conflicting communication needs.

Adolescence and the Protective Power of Intuition

Making reasonable sense of one's adolescent world is important, but trusting one's senses can be important too.

Adolescence and the Power of Social Cliques

Cliques can be powerful social forces in adolescent life—demanding when you're in and demeaning when you're not.

Understanding Visitation Adjustments on Children of Divorce

Parental divorce creates two-household living for children who must make a complicated transition when traveling back and forth.

Adolescent Freedom and the Ill Effects of Social Favoritism

Social favoritism creates experiences of preferential treatment that can adversely affect adolescent lives.

Talking to Your Adolescent About the Power of Habits

Through practice and repetition, people are dependent on personal habits to function automatically without having to spend much energy on conscious thought for much of what they do.

Co-Parenting With Your Ex-Partner After Divorce

When a marriage ends in divorce, the challenge of building a parental alliance for the children's sake begins.

Parenting Adolescents and Managing More Emotional Intensity

Adolescence can be a more emotional time in the parent-child relationship. It is a period to honor these feelings, but not to let them rule.

Explaining to Adolescents How Spoken Communication Matters

Spoken communication seems so obvious that the acquisition is simply taken for granted in families, with parents not devoting much attention to teaching about this essential life skill.

Reducing Acts of Social Cruelty in Middle School

As they strive for social place in middle school, young adolescents can sometimes engage in mean behaviors to secure themselves and get ahead.

Coping With Adolescent Opposition to Parental Authority

Although they can find it a wearing part of parenting, working with various forms of adolescent opposition can help youthful independence grow.

Why Adolescence Can Be a More Assertive Age

The growing assertive powers of insistence and resistance in adolescence culminate in the young adult's capacity for agency to run their own life at the end.

How Parents Can Teach Adolescents Responsibility

Responsibility is empowering, a building block for growing up. It allows teenagers to claim personal choices, and it obliges them to confront the outcomes that occur.

How Rejecting Childhood Begins the Onset of Adolescence

To begin the coming-of-age passage, the adolescent must reject much being defined and treated as a child, and let go of much from childhood that was valued.

Adolescence and Pushing Parents for Freedom to Grow

The management of freedom can be frustrating when it is denied—when the teenager can't do what she or he wants, and when parents can't get what they want.

Parenting Adolescents and the Power of Saying "Yes"

The power of saying "yes" is opening up opportunity—and all the risks that come with it.

Parenting Adolescents and the Power of Saying "No"

Being able to say "no" defends and protects one's well-being in relationships. It can also signal topics worth discussing.

Parenting Adolescents and the Choice/Consequence Connection

Part of a parent's job is helping their teen learn from chosen life experience, affirming positive choice/consequence connections and confronting the negative.

Parenting When There Is Adolescent Estrangement

The healthy separation between parent and child during adolescence need not be estranging if parents keep up their initiative to stay well-connected.

When Older Adolescents Feel Overwhelmed by Change

The end of adolescence comes at a cost—accepting all the self-management demands that come with young adult responsibility—and this can take some painful getting used to.

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