No Sour Grapes in this Conflict

What would you do if someone secretly took grapes from your garden? Would you get mad? Feel like a victim? Blame the neighbors and call them thieves? Put up a fence to protect your property? Post angry warning signs? All of those are common understandable responses,...

Culture Clash—-Immigrant Parents and Their Teens

I’ve worked with many parents of teens who feel their children have been suddenly replaced by strangers they neither know nor understand. But when parents are from another country, and their teens are growing up here in the U.S. , these differences are magnified and...

Finding New Solutions for Parent-Teen Conflict

Successful communication and conflict resolution with teenagers can be immensely challenging. When parents find an approach that helped, it is natural to hope it will work again. Unfortunately, as teens change and grow, those old solutions may not be effective any...
Punishing Bullied Teens

Punishing Bullied Teens

Recent research is teaching parents, professionals, and teens a lot more about bullying. The spate of recent suicides (bullycides) has caused more schools to take it seriously and help all of us recognize that bullying is not conflict between two  individuals that can...

Freaky Friday and Building Parent-Teen Empathy

When children become teenagers, parents and teens alike may find the transition difficult and filled with conflict.The movie Freaky Friday offers an example of how empathy and understanding can grow even between a feuding teen and parent. When the movie begins, Jamie...