Holding Teenagers Accountable for their Behavior

Do you enable your teenager's poor behavior?

Do you enable your teenager’s poor behavior?

A woman I know named Mary had a teen son with anxiety issues.  Things escalated with him and he began to refuse to go to school. Eventually, he was placed in an outpatient program through a psychiatric hospital and also attended group sessions with other anxious kids.  His life improved and he returned to school.  However, a few months later he began skipping school again. The woman decided to get some help for herself.  After learning some important things she began to realize that she had been contributing to her son’s anxiety issues. Mary was able to see that she had always seen her son as ‘fragile’ and treated him that way. She had ‘let him off the hook’ over and over again throughout his life, thinking he was incapable of being responsible, towing the line, learning from his mistakes. Her vision of him was a weak one, and it was very perceptible to him and others. Therefore, his vision of himself was a weak one, creating lots and lots of anxiety within his psyche.

How to Handle Reluctant Learners

How to Handle Reluctant Learnes

Reluctant Learners: Keep your Son Engaged with Learning

Parents of boys are more aware than anyone when their bright, eager sons hit an invisible wall somewhere near fourth grade, after which they go from engaged to unengaged, discouraged, and disaffected. But as parents, we don’t always know what to do about that, and we hope the school will solve it. No! Let’s take back the power and pleasure of raising our boys, and figure out what we can do outside of school to help halt that potential slide down a slippery slope.

How to Parent a Child with Anxiety Issues

Parenting a Child with Anxiety Issues

Parenting Kids with Anxiety Issues

by Amy Egan

This past year I had a  few coaching sessions with a couple of two elementary aged kids.  Collin, a fifth grader and Cara, a second grader. Our first two visits we spent mostly working on  new, more effective parenting skills when handling Collin.  He was a pretty good-natured boy but his parents had typical tweenaged frustrations with him.  He was a little disrespectful, a little argumentative and tended to pull them into power struggles.  They were becoming beaten down by these things – but more than that, concerned about his anxiety level. Collin was a very anxious boy.

We mostly developed plans for handling his disrespect and the power struggles.  After reading suggested materials and a couple of coaching sessions,  they began to do the following on a consistent basis.