Health and Social
American kids are overmedicated
America is a lot of things: a global leader in innovation, an arms dealer, a centuries-old democracy, an abuser of human rights (sometimes). We are also a pharmacy, and if you are a toddler showing mild signs of hyperactivity, boy do we have the product for you. Meet the “focus pill.” Focus pills are stimulants intended to address attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.…
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Princeton’s role in combating the drug crisis must start on campus
Drug addiction is a public health crisis in the United States. Total overdose deaths have increased in the United States over the last two decades across all demographic groups, with about 17 percent of Americans battling a substance use disorder in the past year. These alarming statistics show just how large of a problem drug dependency has become, but there’s…
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3 Helpful Scripts for Teachers with Anxious, Perfectionist Students
After “the craziest admissions season ever” last year, and as we head into what will surely be another highly competitive cycle, high school students are understandably increasingly anxious about their academics. I’ve witnessed this firsthand during my years teaching high school and middle school—seeing students vibrating from the stress and barely holding it together,…
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There is no such thing as the perfect victim
The fallout of the film It Ends with Us has been nothing short of messy. Star Blake Lively faced widespread criticism after marketing the film, a story about domestic violence, as a hot pink, flower-power version of feminism. Her use of the press tour as a way to market her haircare line and her husband’s involvement…
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Health & Well-Being: Reframing the Anxiety Conversation
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] Like many schools across the country, University School of Milwaukee (WI) has seen…
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Reality(?) TV
I have a guilty pleasure. I watch reality television. I know, I know…and the only thing I can say in my defense is that until recently, I almost exclusively limited myself to cooking shows with a strong preference for ones where the contestants were kind to one another (think early seasons of The Great…
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Pathologizing men is unproductive. We should invest in better men-focused spaces.
In her Oct. 22 op-ed, Julianna Lee ’25 argued that male-only spaces could better Princeton’s campus by building “encouragement, empowerment, and friendship for men.” Columnist Ava Johnson ’27 responded on Nov. 4, contending that male-only spaces fail to address men’s problems and “[run] the risk of breeding misogyny and bullying.” These opinions come at a time when…
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14 Essential Conversations with Tweens: An Interview with Michelle Icard
Last month, I shared an interview I did with Michelle Icard on her new book, Eight Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success. It occurred to me after writing that piece that Ms. Icard’s previous book on how to have difficult conversations with tweens would be a helpful resource to parents supporting their children through setbacks…
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The Road to Success Leads Through Failure: A Conversation with Author Michelle Icard
We Can’t Shield Our Kids From Failure. And We Shouldn’t. “Helicopter” parents (monitoring every detail of their children’s lives) and “snowplow” parents (ensuring no obstacles get in their children’s way) mean well: They genuinely believe that shielding their children from failure can help them succeed. But the more I read about raising successful, resilient…
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The emerging loneliness economy
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] Social media and emerging technologies have created unparalleled opportunities for connection, to the…
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How Smartphones Are Rewiring Children: The Anxious Generation Review
In Jonathan Haidt’s justly acclaimed new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he repeats a Polynesian expression: “Standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.” Haidt explains that “sometimes it is better to do a big thing rather than many small things.” What’s the “big thing”…
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The ‘fun’ model just isn’t sustainable: a plea against hookup culture
As a top institution of higher education, Princeton tries to do its best to prepare us for our future: offering career fairs, hosting resume writing sessions, and even offering Last Lectures about careers in local government. But there is one place where the University is falling short: preparing its students to form healthy relationships. There…
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Yale Will Not Save Her
Content warning: This column contains references to sexual violence. On April 2, University President Peter Salovey emailed the Yale community under the subject line “Your Yale, Your Voice,” asking us to complete the 2024 Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct and Resource Awareness [SHARE]. The third in a series of quadrennial surveys administered by the…
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Status update: In a toxic relationship with academia
As amazing as academia can be, it also has a darker, alienating side. “I love academia, but is it good for my mental health?” “I don’t know who I am, but I have no time to figure that out.” “Americans live to work.” “Penn is my toxic boyfriend.” These are some of the things…
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From swiping to sipping: The digital pathway to dependency
More than five billion people use some form of social media. In the United States, 75% of teens have an active account on a social media platform. Digitization has crept into our lives and altered our world. People check social apps for news, trends, academics and to keep in touch with their peers. When we crave information, social media…
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Overcoming Negativity Bias with Students, Parents, and Colleagues
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] At the end of a week, why do we focus on one difficult…
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Understanding Perfectionism: How To Make It Work For, Not Against, You and Your Kids
Honestly, it’s tough to be a perfectionist writing about perfectionism. Wait, let me rephrase that: a recovering perfectionist writing about perfectionism. See, there it is—correcting myself to get it right. I like accuracy, accountability, and setting high standards for myself. These traits can be motivating and help me accomplish my goals. But sometimes, these same…
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Struggling with body image, then and now
Content warning: This article discusses disordered eating and eating disorders. I always thought it made sense to obsess over how my body looked. It just seemed irresponsible not to. To be an elite athlete is to strive for perfection— toward an ideal standard of performance and a standard idea of excellence. It is an…
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The Myth of Multitasking: How to Reduce Stress and Improve Productivity
It’s one o’clock on a Tuesday and I’m wrapping up three hours of therapy. In the next 90 minutes, I have to do my notes, check my emails, eat my lunch and leave enough time to get my beloved afternoon coffee before starting up again. It’s a tall order. Do I walk away from my…
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Red leather pants. . .
I wear them every year on my birthday and have since I turned 40 (this year I turn 62, so it’s been a bit!). Let me explain why this tradition is so important to me, even if it mortifies my own four kids. As a woman now in my 60s, I resent the image of…
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Teaching Consent About More Than Just Sex
Although we have heard more about “consent” recently, nearly every time it is in reference to some kind of sexual situation. Consent is vital to understand in terms of actually having sex; however, all children need to understand the concept of consent well before they reach the age of consent in order to truly make…
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Poison Ivy
For months, she struggled silently with a sense of worthlessness. She had panic attacks that left her trembling. Nightmares that made her cry. She’d told only a handful of friends about the sexual assault she endured while she was home the summer after her freshman year. Now, as she finished her sophomore year at Yale…
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On Edge
Transitions take our feet out from under us, make our knees weak, our hearts hurt, especially ones we don’t plan. The loss of a beloved teacher, the disappearance of a pet, grandparents saying goodbye before a flight home. Our boy, Elias, comes without filters, without the ability to express his feelings in words, and grief…
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Off To See the Wizard
On April 24, 1990, my father was killed in a Pennsylvania hospital. He was in the third day of recovery from elective reconstructive knee surgery when an error his doctors had made erupted somewhere in his abdomen. Most of his blood vessels ruptured and he bled to death. His doctors had prescribed too large a…
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Pull Those Damn Bootstraps!
“Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps!” This exclamation captures the prevailing attitude of many Americans, mostly conservatives, toward the least advantaged among us. The sentiment is accompanied by a belief that we live in a meritocracy, where one deserves what they get and get what they deserve. It is a silly admonition because, of…
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The Toxicity of “The Body Positivity Movement”
While scrolling through social media this past summer, I saw a lot of content surrounding the body positivity movement. Influencers were pushing their viewers to love their bodies, embrace fluctuations in body shape and weight, and reject the beauty standards imposed by society. While in theory, these ideals seek to empower and promote diversity and…
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How I used honesty and action to overcome my anxiety
I vividly remember my first-year panic episode. It occurred the night before I had to deliver a major speech for my communications seminar. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, drenched in sweat, shivering, struggling to catch my breath. After realizing this was a panic attack, I began performing breathing exercises in an attempt…
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Faculty and Student Wellness: Embracing the Interdependence
Earlier this summer, during an online discussion about grading practices, a teacher made a familiar, yet rarely challenged assertion: “When a student gets a D/F—or even an A—in my class, that’s the grade they earned.” My translation: “I provide opportunities for students to succeed. Their failure is on them, not me. It’s their choice.” In…
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Unique Challenges for Black Individuals with Mental Health Conditions
According to a 2018 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 16% of African American adults reported having a mental illness in the previous year, and 22.4% of that group reported a serious mental illness. The same survey showed that, of the nearly 5 million African Americans with a mental illness, close to 70% hadn’t received treatment (Williams, 2020). Still…
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The reign of influencers needs to end
“I was excited to connect the Harvard community.” That’s how Mark Zuckerberg recalled the night he started Facebook during his 2017 commencement speech at Harvard University. He went on to tell the graduating students that “to keep our society moving forward, we have a generational challenge — to not only create new jobs, but create…
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Let’s not conflate white supremacy with white people
I never thought I’d hear a U.S. president explicitly call out white supremacy in an inauguration address. For President Joe Biden to follow it up a week later with a slate of executive orders aimed at pursuing a racial equity agenda offers an encouraging start to the much more difficult project of healing the divisions…
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Creating Environments Where Black Students Can Thrive
As white adoptive parents raising a biracial son, my husband and I set out to equip him and ourselves with the tools to navigate an experience far more complex than our own. Long before he was born, we tried to prepare, educating ourselves by devouring research and resources about race and racism and talking to…
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How high schools failed victims of sexual assault
Sexual assault may seem like a distant fear for some, but on college campuses, it is an everyday reality. Of course, the combination of freedom and alcohol creates a dangerous environment and enhances teens’ raging hormones, thus increasing the likelihood of assault occurring. But the problem does not entirely arise from students seeking to indulge…
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Oh to Be a Girl
To be unaware of the broken glass at your feet, to leap straight through historic shards, bare, bold, free. To hail from sugar, cayenne, and so much more than nice. To envision a future beyond a shower of rice, to be shown you can be anything, to believe it, well beyond childhood dreams, to not…
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Voices from the Invisible: The Reality of Black Lives in Our Schools
School people, especially boards and heads, are really good at spinning words into fluffy fantasies of utopian worlds where they have “created diverse, inclusive communities,” “protected and empowered the most vulnerable” and “cultivated environments to unlock the richness of diversity.” Lofty sentences appear in glossy catalogs and websites and swaddle prospective parents and students of…
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Mother of Black Sons
Last Memorial Day, while most were celebrating the holiday with a well-needed break from COVID-confinement, I announced to my children that they would be catching up on all the assignments that remained missing on their Google classroom logs. After some complaining, they each picked the easiest assignment they could find and went to work. My…
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Humility: We Need It Now More Than Ever
When was the last time your child sulked when you asked her to take out the garbage? How loudly did your son complain when his sibling took the last cookie? Does your daughter regularly ignore your pleas to get in the car as she and her friends giggle and stare at their phones? Or how…
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An Open Letter to Queer Freshmen Considering Rush
Growing up gay in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio, I got used to figuring things out on my own. Though I watched my peers follow all the same well-traveled paths as their friends and mentors, it didn’t occur to me that I deserved guidance as well. In hindsight, the impact of this lack became more clear…
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Reflecting on Peggy Orenstein’s New Book about Boys and Sex
Peggy Orenstein’s latest book, Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity, responds to reader demand, as well as the #MeToo movement. Her new book is based on two years of in-depth interviews with 100 high school and college students, many of whom attend or have graduated from…
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Students should take some personal responsibility, stop vaping
The reality is that most people don’t know what they’re putting into their bodies when they vape. Teen and young adult vaping is an epidemic that needs urgent attention. On and around college campuses, it’s common to see people holding e-cigarettes. You might even own one. If you do, you should throw it out. You…
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She lost her dad when she was 14. Now, she’s helping kids learn how to mourn.
CNN HEROES Mountainside, New Jersey (CNN) When Tracy Crosby’s husband died unexpectedly, she suddenly became a single mom to four young children. “The hardest thing in the world is to tell your children that they’re never going to see their other parent again,” she said. Her children would cry a lot at bedtime because they…
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Hookup culture hasn’t liberated us — yet
Apps are free to facilitate easy hooking up, but they should encourage users to respect and engage their sexual partners, not disregard them, and they need to take a stand against discrimination. “Hookup culture” is a term that gets tossed around by everyone from the bitterest baby boomers to the most progressive Generation Z kids.…
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Announcement from Families for Depression Awareness
Families for Depression Awareness is releasing its free “What Families Need to Know About Mental Health and Insurance” webinar on Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 12pm ET. In this webinar, you’ll learn ways to help your loved one navigate insurance and pay for mental health treatment. Family caregivers and expert presenters will discuss important considerations…
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Free Webinar from Families for Depression Awareness
Families for Depression Awareness is presenting a free Recognizing and Managing Teen Anxiety webinar on Wednesday, September 25 from 7:00 to 8:15 PM ET/ 4:00 to 5:15 PM PT. In this webinar, Lisa M. Schab, LCSW, a practicing psychotherapist and international best-selling author, will discuss the symptoms of an anxiety disorder, anxiety management skills adults…
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Tips for Parents: Setting Your Child on a Path for Success in the New School Year
The first day of school is already upon us. After a long summer of extreme weather and, perhaps, extreme boredom and moods by our teens, it’s critical to start thinking of ways to set them on a path of success for the new school year. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the top four drivers of…
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Requiring sex education in college can change lives
A lack of sex education leaves students unprepared and at risk in their sex lives. Of all the subjects we learn in college, sex education is one of the more complex and crucial topics that we should leave college understanding. Of all the required classes that the UW has set out for us, sex education…
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Why reunions?
This Memorial Day weekend, I return to New Haven for the Class of 1989’s 30th reunion. This will be my sixth class reunion. And because my wife is a member of the Class of 1988 and I have accompanied her to several reunions, I can safely say that I have been to at least ten…
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ANNOUNCEMENT FROM FAMILIES FOR DEPRESSION AWARENESS
Families for Depression Awareness is now offering the second webinar in our Coping with Stress and Depression in the Workplace series. You can watch our free webinar How Workplace Can Support Mental Wellness and Prevent Suicides on demand at your convenience. We would love your help sharing this resource! During this free 1-hour webinar, featured…
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The idea of love is great and all, but…
Since coming to Columbia, I have been in far too many romantic entanglements. But once I realized that I was actually unhappy with myself as a person, I finally gave up on love. It wasn’t just my personal experiences that led me to this conclusion, though. After seeing a friend of mine leave an abusive…
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Perks of being sober
Staying sober might be the best part of a drunken Saturday night The music is too loud. The room is too crowded. The people are drunk. Believe it or not, bars are not all they’re cracked up to be — at least if you’re sober. I came to college knowing I wouldn’t drink. When family…
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I’m worried about a teen in my life.
One out of every five teenagers struggles with depression. Depression can interfere with everyday life for teens and can lead to academic failure, substance abuse, bullying or being bullied, eating disorders, and suicide. Teen depression is often mistaken for normal teen angst. Many of the behaviors associated with adolescence — moodiness, anger, social withdrawal —…
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Helping My Son To Plan Ahead
My teenage son has bipolar disorder. My husband and I want him to be ready to manage his care and treatment decisions, so we’re engaging him now. I try to be well-rounded and active about mental health. I engage with my elected representatives to try to affect policy; I speak out to combat the stigma of…
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Let’s Tackle Teen Depression
ParentsAssociation.com has recently partnered with Families for Depression Awareness (FDA) to help spread the word about this resource. FDA provides a useful website containing advice, programs, guidance and free webinars. Below, you will find a couple of examples of what FDA offers. Here is a webinar that aired in October and that you can listen…
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The Sins of Us Fathers
Not much has changed in the world of booze and young people over the centuries. In the fall that I helped my daughter move into her room at college, I noticed a young man in the driveway of the house next door wrestling an empty beer keg into the back seat of his car, and,…
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Back to School Anxiety…the good, the bad, and what a parent can do
Losing sleep before school starts? This may describe both you and your kids. You may be counting off the things you still have left to do, the items you still have to get organized or purchased, the tutors lined up, the rides, the after-school programs, oh, yes—the rides back from those, the lunches, the forms,…
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The effect of Adderall on abusers is staggering
With the quiet start of finals week settling over countless college campuses across the country, the even quieter exchange between buyer and seller of mixed amphetamine salts resounds with an estimated 6.5 million non-medical users of prescription drugs, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health — including college students, who use one…
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The endless uphill of social media
Stanford’s beautiful campus and close access to open spaces were a huge draw for me. Growing up in the mountains of Colorado caused me to appreciate the value of nature. I knew that I needed places to escape campus, to hike and to run. Open space brings vitality to my soul and helps me mentally reset…
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Juuling: An Alarming Trend Reversing Decades of Health Gains
Cigarette smoking has been on a steady decline among teens for the past decade. That’s good news … but, a new craze called “Juuling” is threatening to reverse that. A Juul is a brand of e-cigarette that has become popular among middle and high schoolers, at least in part because of youth-friendly flavors and a…
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Resilience gets personal…
My best friend’s daughter killed herself last spring. Our families had grown up together. We were on vacation with her parents when it happened and got the news together. And no, we didn’t see it coming. I know we can’t stop kids from killing themselves, but I feel compelled to try, no doubt like every…
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Combating sexual harassment in middle schools
Despite every middle school’s valiant efforts, cramming hundreds of pubescent kids into a building is an uncomfortable experience for everyone involved. Yet the most uncomfortable issue that emerges with the onset of puberty is also the one least discussed: sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is appallingly common in middle school, and unfortunately the incomplete education students…
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Teaching Boys to Become Compassionate Men — On and Off the Athletic Field
The hit in the corner was colossal. Boards and glass shook as the two ice hockey players peeled themselves away from the collision site. One player in a green-and-white jersey glided uneasily toward the bench. His moans of pain suggested he had sustained an injury. He held his right arm close to his body as…
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Hooking up ousts firm relationships
Teenage relationships commonly consist of casual hookups or long-term couplings. To say this generation is inadequate in forming emotionally intimate relationships is probably the understatement of the century. Instead, we seem to be creating non-relationship relationships. Just the other day, while walking through the hallowed halls of Brookline High School, mindlessly eavesdropping and people-watching per…
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How to resist the pressure to buy young children a smartphone
The holidays are upon us–the season of giving gifts, a time when it’s especially difficult for parents to resist the clamor of children begging for a smartphone. Research into cellphone use among young children suggests that this technology is doing real damage. Smartphone use by the young has been linked to increasing depression, sense of…
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Making A Splash
(Note: This is a talk given at an academic awards ceremony to students, parents and teachers.) In the ‘60s during the flowering of the hippie generation, young people didn’t trust anyone over 30. We didn’t like adults, didn’t want to become one. I recall vividly vowing that I would be dead before I turned 30,…
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Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Skills Are Inseparable
Every school has its own unique culture. It is made up of all the ways in which students relate to one another and their teachers. In today’s world, digital devices in particular (and technology in general) have a huge effect on these relationships. For better or worse, communication is different now, and it has the…
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A Guide to Youth Smoking Prevention Policies and Programs
Social problems in many urban areas often lead to smoking by teenagers. They believe — wrongly — that tobacco will help reduce their stress and make them look “cool” instead of insecure. Many pressures for smoking are discussed, as well as countermeasures. The number of young people who smoke is decreasing, but one third of…
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Smoking Prevention Strategies for Urban and Minority Youth
Smoking is declining among many teenagers,but one-third of high schoolers still use tobacco. This article explores the risks of smoking and campaigns to prevent it. Overall, the number of adolescents who smoke and use smokeless tobacco is decreasing, and the decrease is sharpest among minority youth. Still, about one-third of high school students use tobacco…
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Reducing Injury and Death in Teen Drivers
Given that automobile crashes are the leading cause of injury and death in teens, you can pretty much say that teens drive themselves to trauma centers. And, they do this in record numbers. Car crashes account for approximately 6,000 deaths annually of American teens. While 15 to 20 year olds only account for 6.7%…
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Divorce Source
Divorce Source — Information from every state for divorcees, and their children. www.divorcesource.com
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Go Ask Alice
— Ask about sex, drugs, health, and relationships, from Columbia University Health Services www.goaskalice.columbia.edu
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Marriage Builders
Marriage Builders — A large site helping couples understand how to fall in love and stay in love. Marriage Builders offers a wealth of articles, an active discussion board, personal coaching services, and much more. www.marriagebuilders.com
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