Teens, Suicide, and Gun Safety
A recent study examined gun violence in major metropolitan areas across the U.S. The good news is that homicide by gun decreased overall, but the bad news is that suicide by gun increased 10-15 percent...
View ArticleTeens, Cyberbullying, & Suicide
In what is becoming a sadly familiar story, a 12-year-old girl named Rebecca Sedwick killed herself last week after months of both in-person and online torment by her peers. What is especially...
View ArticleHow Not to Discipline Teenagers
Recently a listing on Ebay has garnered international attention. An angry mother is selling the One Direction tickets she bought for her daughter and her daughter’s friends, in order to punish her...
View Article25 is the new 18
Recently, child psychologists in the United Kingdom received a new recommendation: that their treatment population should not be birth to eighteen, but rather birth to twenty-five. The reason behind...
View ArticleThose Crazy Kids With Their Music These Days
“Music… gives wings to the mind, a soul to the universe, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, a life to everything.” -Plato “I know it’s only rock and roll, but I like it.” -The Rolling...
View ArticleTeens, Impulsivity, and Suicide
We’ve written a lot of posts about suicide, but I wanted to address a recent news story. The latest teen suicide to hit the media is that of 15-year-old Christian Adamek. On September 25th, he streaked...
View ArticleWhat You Need to Know About “Krokodil”
Headlines have appeared recently about “Krokodil”, an intravenous drug common in Russia, that has made its way to the United States. It is reported to be “more perilous than heroin“, a “flesh-eating...
View ArticleA Call for Parents: Make an Impact on Teen Health!
Hello gentle readers! I am using this blog as a platform to let you know about an opportunity available to parents of teens aged 10-21, through Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of...
View ArticleYoung Women, Drinking, and Rape
Recently there was some media buzz about women and alcohol, and how our society should approach the topic. It all started when Emily Yoffe, a writer for Slate, wrote this column on college women,...
View ArticleThrowing Teens Away
In 2006, 15-year-old Travion Blount was party to an armed robbery, along with two 18-year-olds. Nobody was killed during the robbery, and while one person was assaulted, Travion was not the one who...
View ArticleWhat is the Band Playing Now?: Adolescents, Young Adults, and HIV
I don’t remember when I first heard about HIV, it was just sort of always present in my world view. When I was very young, I remember overhearing a woman explain that she had left off training to be a...
View ArticleTeens, Responsibility, and “Affluenza”
One night in June, a teen named Ethan was driving with seven friends in his father’s truck. They were highly intoxicated on beer they had stolen from Wal-Mart, and possibly other alcoholic substances,...
View ArticleTeaching Teens to be Responsible
In my last post, I discussed the case of Ethan Couch, a 16-year-old who drove drunk and killed four people. Many were astonished when his prosecutor successfully argued that because Ethan had not been...
View ArticleMiddle School Teens and Sexting: The Survey Says…
In a recent issue of Pediatrics, researchers studied a group of seventh-graders to see how prevalent sexting was in that age group (ages 12-14), as well as whether sexting is associated with sexual...
View ArticleMeow Meow and the Problem with Designer Drugs
Sometimes when I’m not sure what to write about, I’ll scan the news for the latest stories and articles involving teens. When I did that this week, I was rather taken aback to see articles about a teen...
View ArticleWhen Your Teen Loses It
I can still recall one of my more memorable adolescent meltdowns, even though I don’t remember what I was upset about. I was about thirteen, and I was yelling and crying and for some reason lying on a...
View ArticlePuberty: The Horror Movie
Horror film aficionados know that there are many classes of horror movies. There is supernatural horror, psychological horror, sci-fi horror, religious horror, horror-comedy, etc. Some of the most...
View ArticleDoes the HPV Vaccine Lead to Risky Sexual Behavior?
A current study in Pediatrics say: No. The argument that the HPV vaccine will somehow encourage teens to have risky sex has always seemed strange to me. It brings to mind a teen thinking, “I wanted to...
View ArticleHelping Your Teen Handle a Breakup
The breakup of a romantic relationship is almost always hard. Even as adults, we might mourn, weep, question our worth, and wonder if we’ll ever be happy again. The Holmes and Rahe stress scale (for...
View ArticleThe Most Important Message Your Teen Should Hear About Money
It’s very simple: that their well-being is priceless. I was recently privileged to attend a discussion in which teen gave their thoughts on various health care issues. It was engaging, enlightening,...
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