Question: Our 17 year old may have tried marijuana once. But he seems to be very interested in it. He's for instance googling on what campuses have a "good weed scene". He's chatting with others and expresses admiration for older kids who are able to party with marijuana. We have talked to him about the dangers of marijuana on the teenage brain, discussed the recent book (from UPenn Neuro chair) on it. But nothing seems to have diminished his interest. What should we do? He won't listen to us parents.

David Johnson Says...:

I feel for you. You are left with few choices. Soon he will be 18 and he will be able to make his choices without your
interference. And marijuana is now legal for recreational use in a
growing number of states.

I would encourage you to let your son know your opinion, and be sure he has access to reliable information about the drug. Other than that your options are limited. I would advise against lecturing or making a big deal out of his choices. That may push him further down the path to regular use.

Tell him you disagree, express your concern, love and support. Then let him learn on his own.

Question: My daughter is 14 and she is overweight. It breaks my heart to see her struggle with this and I know it affects her deeply. I have tried to model healthy eating and no one else in the family is overweight so I do not really understand where it comes from other than the fact that even from a young age she always liked reading and coloring and watching movies more than she liked sports or playing outside. I am trying to help her lose weight. Sometimes she seems to be on board with what I am trying to do for her but about half the time she is resistant and she will purposefully eat more junk food right in front of me just to provoke me. I am not pressuring her and we are only talking about healthy exercise habits and nutrition. I am intentionally not talking about calories or looks. Although sometimes it feels like there is a big pink elephant in the room when I omit these subjects from the discussion. How can I help her without having her turn this into a power struggle where she uses food and her health against me – and by definition, against herself as well?

David Johnson Says...:

I'm impressed you've asked the question. Many parents muddle through this difficult topic without help and a wide range of outcomes.

By the age of 14, your daughter is her own person. She has learned most every basic coping mechanism. She relies on you primarily for economic and emotional support. She will decide on her own what her goals are, and work at them on her own, seeking support and help as needed. If it all goes wrong, she will seek emotional support somewhere. That is your role, the safe, non-judgmental adult she can talk to. She needs you to be someone who will listen, respect her opinions and only tentatively offer their own.

You see, you can't set a goal for her to lose weight. She has to do that herself. She has to decide that she's going to do the work. Within the next couple of years with all the peer pressures and unfolding puberty, she will likely do so. You can offer her your opinion on rare occasions, offer supportive comments, express interest and curiosity in her life, and be the safe source of support when it all seems to go wrong. Then you can encourage, nurture, and tentatively express an opinion. "Could it be?" "Maybe..." "I had that trouble once..." NOT "when I was your age...." That always feels like a putdown. Be gentle, respect that her opinions, priorities and goals are hers. Never try to impose your perspective, just respectfully disagree and let it go. Suggest she see a doctor to get started. Let her shop around for a doctor she likes.

Of course you will need to set age appropriate limits for her freedom and privileges. But do so in a nurturing way, never with anger or the dreaded "disappointment". Save that for the really big issues and pray that never happens.

But no, you really can help her lose weight. Not unless it's her goal and she manages how you help.

Question: My daughter has very poor impulse control. I believe that her impulse control is not developmentally appropriate and her inability to reign in her emotions causes her constant social problems. She is 17. I have talked to her about whether she would want to work with a professional and she says that she does. She is frustrated by her problems and says she wants to try to be better. This is a major breakthrough so I want to capitalize on her willingness right away. What type of therapist should I seek out for her? How long should it take for her to get some benefit?

David Johnson Says...:

I congratulate you on helping your daughter face her issues. I'm going to make the assumption that her social issues have less than severe consequences in that she is not about confined by authorities. If that were the case having her evaluated in an psychiatric emergency department would be the first step. 
Given the complexity of her issues, I recommend you find her a clinic where she can see a team of mental health professionals to enable a full range evaluation. It generally makes sense for her to see a therapist to start. Then if psychological testing or psychiatric consultation is in order, it is readily available on the team. This sort of setting can be found in most multidisciplinary mental health clinics.
The other rule of thumb I often use is that therapy or all forms of treatment should have had some effect after 6 sessions. That could mean 6-12 weeks. Your daughter should feel it's been helpful. You may not see that help except in her comfort level and evidence of new skills she's trying out.
If the time investment seems too risky in that there could be more serious consequences, I'd suggest seeking a partial hospital program to get a jump start on treatment with an intensive program. Such programs operate daily, all day, and she would be seen by a psychiatrist at least 3 times a week. An intensive program allows a complete evaluation and time to try a number of treatment approaches so as to ensure some quick progress and a good aftercare plan.
I wish you and your daughter the very best.

Question: My daughter is very shy. She is 12. As an example she does not like to talk to strangers or order her own food in a restaurant. She begs me to order for her and she gets really upset if I try to make her do herself. Her teacher says she is shy but OK in school and has friends so the problem is mostly with adult strangers. Does this sound like an anxiety disease? Should she see a psychologist for this or should we just keep encouraging her to take baby steps. I think we have not been proactive enough because it has always been easier and less distressing for everyone involved to just do things for her so she wouldn’t have to talk to strangers. Now she is getting to an age where this is becoming a problem.

David Johnson Says...:

Your instincts are good! Doing things for a 12 year old who finds anxiety provoking sets up a learned dependency. It doesn't sound like that problem has reached beyond what could be normal shyness. Your daughter may be somewhat introverted. Estimates vary from 16 to 50% of the population that some people are more socially inhibited (introverted) that others. Introverts have a lower tolerance for social stimulation, thus would prefer a handful of people to talk to rather than a roomful. A 12 year old with an anxiety disorder has trouble with age appropriate behavior, grades, relationships with friends, teachers and parents.
Your daughter's teacher says she may be a little shy. She may well have a clearer perspective given her view of many children in varying social situations including your daughter. I have to wonder: what is different about the situation when you are out with your daughter? What else is making her anxious? What could be happening is a product of that difference and without a thorough evaluation, I can only guess.
I do have to wonder if your anxiety about your daughter's struggle is
feeding into her anxiety. She was already worried about talking to strangers, but now she senses your worry and her worry is made worse! How that might be manifesting in the
relationship could be quite subtle. Ask your daughter about it. See if
she can give you feedback about your attempts to coach her into speaking
up for herself. Ask her how it makes her feel when you encourage her. Her feedback should be considered seriously. She is old enough to know what she likes and makes her feel comfortable. See if you can negotiate an approach that makes her feel more comfortable.
If she has trouble talking to you about it, take a good look in the mirror. Ask yourself: are you making her more anxious? If so, I suggest that you and your daughter go to see a counselor. There could be an issue in the relationship between you and your daughter with which a trained professional could help.
I wish you and your daughter the very best!

Question: I don’t really have extra money for counseling but I have a problem with my 15 year old daughter. She lies to me so much and I am always lecturing her for something she did wrong. It feels like even when one of us tries to say something nicely the other person is suspicious and acts bitchy or distrustful and it just goes downhill. We cant even have a nice conversation any more. I miss my daughter we used to be very close and now I don’t know how to get things back so we can laugh and have fun together like we used to.

David Johnson Says...:

I can feel the pain in your words. What courage you have to face this issue and recognize that you are a part of the problem! So few parents can do that. Recognition of the problem is the first step to solving it.

It's apparent from what you say, you will need some help to get through this. The distrust and misinterpretation is a major barrier to effective parenting. Have you told your daughter that you miss the relationship you had at one time? Try telling her and ask her what she thinks you and she can do to get back to that point again. That may give you enough rapport to get her cooperation to find some help.

I understand paying for counseling is a barrier. Check out your church and see if there is a qualified counselor offering free service. Other alternatives are your daughter's school, a local family service agencies, runaway youth programs, mental health centers, and training programs for counselors attached to local university graduate psychology or social work programs. There you will find at least sliding scale fee or even free service thought that may be limited. If you have health insurance, you may have coverage for counseling you don't know about.

Question: For a teen with ADD how do you deal with rule breaking? My son is 15 and he has ADD that was recently diagnosed and I know that this limits his ability to make good choices and he is prone to make stupid impulsive decisions. Last night he snuck out of the house and he and his friend drove the family car around, neither had a license, just for fun and just because his friend called him up late and asked him to do it. He knows now that it was a stupid and dangerous thing to do but at the moment he just does it without thinking it through. Do I punish him as severely as I would punish any of his siblings for the same offense or do I take it a little easier on him because of his diminished capacities? He is my youngest of 5 and I thought I knew how to parent adolescents but he is challenging.

David Johnson Says...:

I congratulate you on asking such a great question! Raising adolescents is not easy and as you have found, having experience doesn't necessarily make parenting easier or more successful.

While it maybe true that your son's ADD limits his ability to focus and therefore make decisions, it is counter productive to treat him as if he has diminished capacity. Your son has to learn how to deal with this world without special favors from anyone. He may have to work harder, he may have to endure more mistakes and pain. That school of hard knocks will teach him all he needs to know to survive. So no, don't treat him differently.

Teach him skills to compensate for his ADD. There are many online sources of exercises to increase his working memory. Concentration and focus is what is impaired in ADD. Working memory is a temporary storage system while we solve the immediate problem. Strong working memory helps to compensate for distractions.

Contrary to our cultural beliefs, punishment is not an effective method for disciplining children. While it may control a child's behavior while you are supervising them, it motivates children to disobey again when you are not around and they think they can't be caught. Worse, children can become resentful, damaging the parent-child relationship. The best method is positive reinforcement or rewarding good behavior.

But of course a parent needs a method to deal with misbehavior. Withholding reward or negative reinforcement is the best option. There are two basic kinds of negative reinforcers, natural consequences and logical consequences. Natural consequences are preferred but they are difficult to arrange. Natural consequences occur whether we are around or not. For example, driving without a license and training may lead to an accident, a ticket, perhaps even losing the privilege of qualifying for a drivers license at age 16 in some states. Sometimes, natural consequences are all that is necessary for a child to learn.

But parents are pretty good at protecting their children from undesirable natural consequences, and sometimes children are lucky enough to avoid them. Then it's up to parents to impose logical consequences. Logical consequences resemble natural consequences in that they logically follow from the misbehavior. They are imposed by the parents and so a bit of finesse is helpful to avoid building resentment like punishment does. Thus it is important to explain the logical connection of the consequence to the misbehavior.

Withholding privileges is commonly used. Grounding can be interpreted as logical because the child has demonstrated he makes poor choices when he is on his own in the community. Loss of the use of a bike or access to parent's rides might limit access to his friends. Loss of the use of a phone will also limit access to his friends. On a more creative vane, asking your son to research the legal consequences of driving without a license and perhaps even finding the public record of a teen who faced legal consequences may bring home an important lesson. Drivers training often includes rather graphic videos of car accidents to teach respect for care behind the wheel.

Of course, you can withhold privileges that are not necessarily logical. But be aware that the purpose of the consequence is to send a message. You want to build closeness with your son while you impose the consequence. Do not use your attention or time as a consequence. Love is not conditional on a child being obedient. You want to avoid giving the message that might means right by using physical punishment. Similarly, avoid consequences that leave the impression that your power as a parent is to withhold important things that hurt, even though it makes no sense or is disproportionate to the misbehavior and so appears arbitrary.

Question: I have a drinking problem and when I get drunk I tend to do stupid stuff. I am not sure if I am an alcoholic but I have come to a point where I can’t let myself act stupid and get in trouble when drunk any longer. I am going to try to stop and if I cannot I am going to go to AA. My current issue is that last night my 13 year old daughter saw me drunk and making out in a parked car with a woman I know from the bar. I would never have done it if I was sober because I love my wife but when I am drunk I sometimes slip up. My daughter said she won’t tell her mom but I feel like such a horrible father for putting her in this position. And it also hurts the way she looks at me now. Is it going to be damaging to her to ask her to keep this secret for me?

David Johnson Says...:

I admire you for facing your difficulty and support you in your decision to stop drinking. Now that you have stood up and took responsibility for your drinking, now you need to stand up and be a good father.
Asking your daughter to keep this secret does indeed do harm. Your daughter needs you as a responsible father. Keeping your secret will stress her, permanently change your relationship with her, and set her up to enable a future alcoholic, herself or her significant other. It will also taint her understanding about what it means to be a good parent and partner.
You need to talk to your wife, tell her of your decision to quit drinking, of your indiscretion and your initial decision to ask your daughter to keep the secret. Then get into counseling with your wife and daughter. The counselor should be able to screen you for alcoholism. AA for you and Alanon for your wife and Alateen for your daughter would
be good options. If you are still unable to quit, chemical dependency
treatment is necessary.
Your honesty will repair much of the damage with your daughter. Your wife will be angry, but your decision to come forward to save your daughter the pain of keeping a secret should get her attention that you are serious about making changes.
The repair will be long and painful. But it is well worth what it will do for your daughter. I wish you the very best.

Question: If my daughter won’t respect my authority or the rules of the house, what can I do? She is 16 and she is not really doing anything that bad. I don’t think she drinks or does drugs or anything like that. I think she is sexually active and she has a boyfriend but I know this is ‘normal’ at her age these days. The problem is when she wants to go out she will just go, even if I tell her not to. She just basically laughs at my authority. The only thing I can think of to do is to send her to live with her grandmother. But my wife’s mother lives in an area that is rife with drugs and the school in that area is very poor/dangerous. I feel like that punishment is too harsh to put her into that situation but I am at a loss to think of another better option. We cannot afford a boarding school. Is there anything else I can do, other than just letting her do as she pleases, which is not an option my wife or I am willing to live with.

David Johnson Says...:

A teenager who scoffs at authority is indeed difficult to tolerate and confusing for a parent who wants to retain influence. The important question is what sort of problems is this causing. You don't say how she is doing in school, so I assume she is doing as well as you expect. You say, "she is not really doing anything that bad," so I'll assume the only problem is that she is being disrespectful.

If that is indeed the case, then I advise you to assume she is also feeling disrespected. If she has generally stayed out of trouble, she has learned good judgment from you and makes generally good choices. She may expect that be recognized with a corresponding increase in freedom and responsibility. From her perspective, the question is whether the rules you attempt to impose seem to serve only the purpose of establishing who is in control. She likely feels her needs and wants are not being considered. So she shows her feelings by being disrespectful.

I congratulate you for not turning this common situation into a huge power struggle with negative outcomes for everyone. I think you have an option available to you that may well solve the problem. Parenting a teenager sometimes means swallowing some pride and surrendering some control. Sit down with your daughter, ask about her feelings that leads to her disrespectful behavior. Negotiate some freedom and/or loosening of rules in exchange for more respectful behavior. In other words, discuss how you might be more mutually respectful and adult-like in your relationship.

Encourage her to bring her concerns to you in the future about your restrictions to renegotiate terms. She is 16, generally making good choices and should be getting gradually less restrictions as she approaches her 18th birthday. Seek help from a counselor if you are having trouble sitting down with her and getting her to talk. But I suspect if you surprise her with a highly respectful approach to negotiate terms, she may notice your change in attitude and work with you.

If she is indeed sexually active, then be sure that part of your discussion is about preventing pregnancy.

Question: My 14 year old daughter lies all the time, even for things that do not require her to lie at all. Like I will ask what she had for lunch and she will say a sandwich and then I will see the burrito package in the garbage...why bother to lie about something like that for no reason? I would say that about half of the things she says to me are lies. I am not joking. I do not know how to stop her and she can’t or won’t tell me why she lies all the time. She just says she doesn’t know why. It is not only at home either. She gets in trouble at school for her lying as well. I am worried that this is a sign of something bigger that is going wrong with her. Is this kind of lying a symptom of some sort of mental problem? Does she need to see a therapist?

David Johnson Says...:

I'm so sorry that you are struggling. Some lying from children is normal as they learn their behavioral limits and begin to understand the value of trustworthiness. But a child who lies a lot is telling you something, in essence letting you know that there is a problem she is dealing with she can't handle alone.

Children communicate through their behavior. As they work their way through adolescence, they struggle to learn how to communicate their thoughts and emotions and assume responsibility as an adult. They learn expectations and how to negotiate compromise. By age 14, most teens are just beginning to learn they have a voice in their own affairs. At the very least, a 14 year old who lies a lot is telling you she doesn't feel that she can be honest with you. And she may not have an understandable explanation for this. She may not know why.

That is because we have two brains in our heads. One is based on feelings and emotions and is active in young children and slowly recedes into the background as we grow up, learn to talk, express our feelings and negotiate our boundaries and limits. By the time we get to adulthood, our thinking brain based largely on language has taken over.

One of the tasks of late adolescence and adulthood, is to learn the wisdom of our emotional brain. Our emotional brain was fully developed when we were very young, memories are recorded in the form of emotions and perhaps some vague images. That's why, through adolescence, we are often confused by our own feelings. We haven't made sense about what they mean. But emotions are compelling and difficult to ignore. Many of us grow up believing that our emotions can take control of us. Some adults never learn this is not true. Our thinking brain is mostly in control of our emotions with the practice we hopefully get during adolescence.

The work of feelings and thoughts together is to make decisions, judgments, especially social judgments, and to negotiate relationship boundaries, starting with one's parents. One way we begin to learn is by testing limits. That's why every child can tell which parent she can manipulate the most.

So your daughter is expressing her emotions when she lies, and even she may not know what it means or why. Your relationship with her is damaged, and her discouragement is spreading into her life outside of the family. You both need to see an therapist together and figure out what is going on. Bring her father and any other family members who live in the house, including her siblings. They may know something you don't or have a part in this of which you are not aware. Do not delay. What damage has been done is likely fixable now, but consequences get worse as she gets further into high school. I wish you the very best.

Question: My dad is always drunk and he uses a lot of drugs. Now he sells drugs in our house. I hate him so much but my mom won't kick him out and now I think she is using drugs also. If I call the police and tell them where he keeps his drugs will he go to jail and will he know that I told on him or can that be a secret. I am scared that if I call my mom will get in trouble also.

David Johnson Says...:

How frightening this must be to find yourself in this situation! How sad you seem to be the only responsible person in your household. You are left in an impossible situation with neglect and potential danger from the illegal drug business. You don't say how old you are. I'm guessing you are under 18. You not responsible for what happens in your parents house. You need a safe and supportive home to live in.

The fact you are asking these questions says a lot about your good judgment and your sense of desperation reflecting your need to act. Give this issue to a trusted and responsible adult in your life. A close relative or family friend may intervene with your mom and give her one more chance to do the right thing.  If that doesn't help or you can't identify a family member or family friend, go to a school teacher, coach, counselor, or social worker.

After you have given this responsibility to an adult, get back to focusing on learning in school and growing up. Regardless to how your parents might react initially, you will have done the right thing and its up to them to demonstrate their worth as a responsible parent. They need help and they will have a chance to straighten their life out when another responsible adult intervenes.