Articles on Teens & Young Adults

By Dr. Lynn Margolies

In This Section

The characters from the vignettes in Dr. Margolies’ articles are fictitious and designed to be relatable to many people and common themes. They are not based on any patient’s individual situation or disclosure but were derived from a composite of people and events for the purpose of representing real-life situations and psychological dilemmas. Terms of Use.

10 Easy Ways to Get Along With Your Teen

Practical tips for dealing with teenagers to build trust, respect, and better communication.

3 Easy Ways to Get Your Teen to Talk and Listen

Parents get intimidated when their teenager refuses to talk or shuts down conversations. Here are 3 simple tricks to get your teenager to talk, listen, and engage in a two-way conversation.

6 Proven Ways to Help Teens Make Safe Choices

Helping teens make good choices. Reduce risky behavior. Proven strategies for teaching how to make the right decisions and better decision making.

A Counterintuitive Approach to Your Irritable Teens

In order to help teens, we must accurately diagnose why a particular teen in a particular context is irritable or reactive – rather than respond in a reflexive way.

A Guide to Sending Your Teenager Off to College: Overcoming Common Challenges

With the arrival of summer, many teenagers will be preparing to go off to college and leaving home for the first time. In this final leg of the race, families face many challenges navigating this transition.

A Quiz on Teens: 5 Common Misconceptions Even You Might Still Believe

Learn the facts about the teenage brain. Take this short quiz to see if you still harbor common stereotypes about teens.

Being a Grownup When Your Kid Hates You

This column tells a story based on a composite of real-life situations in therapy, depicting both the teen and parent’s viewpoints in divorce when the parent child relationship is affected by anger and guilt. The stories are followed by the therapist’s psychological analysis and guidance.

Being a Wise Ally for Your Kids

How do we deal with getting our loved ones to do what we want them to do? In all relationships we feel the tension created by this dilemma. The subtext of interactions between parents and children facing conflict shapes the template kids develop and carry with them.

Binge Drinking During Adolescence Primes the Brain for Alcohol Use Disorder in Adulthood

Teen drinking alters brain development, increasing anxiety and cravings, and heightens risk for adult alcohol use disorder and addiction.

Bonding With Your Teen: A Hidden Opportunity

This column tells a story based on a composite of real-life situations in families, depicting both the teenager’s and parent’s perspective, followed by the therapist’s psychological analysis and guidance.

Breaking Up With Your College-Bound Teen

Feeling rejected, worried, or fed up with your college-bound teen? You are not alone. Here’s what to do.

Courage & Limits With Your Teen

This column tells a story based on a composite of real-life situations in families, depicting both the parent’s and teenager’s perspective, with teens who are too good to be true. The story helps teach parents what to look for with seemingly perfect, often high-achieving teens, and how to interpret when a child’s behavior is a disguised way to ask for help.

Crisis of Confidence in a Teen Athlete: It’s a Family Matter

This story is about a teenager who undergoes a crisis of confidence, after her identity was challenged by a sports injury. Her resulting difficulties challenged the well-being and stability of the whole family.

Does Your Teenager Want to Get Caught?

This is the story of a kid who feels propelled to act out – yet equally powerful is his unconscious need to get caught. The essence of what’s needed is to listen and respond to danger in a firm and caring way. Protection occurs through interested, open, informed, pro-active, non-judgmental conversation – and appropriate limits delivered in a non-punitive way. The research finding that a close, supportive relationship with parents (as perceived by teenagers) is the most protective measure against underage drinking, sexual activity and violence is good news for us and no surprise.

Dr. Margolies’ Commentary on Why Rebellion Is Subordination in Disguise

Dr. Margolies’ Commentary on A New York Times Column: How college-educated Republicans learned to love Trump again (Michael Bender, January 14)

Executive Function Problem or Just a Lazy Kid: Part 1

A common denominator and basis of all executive functioning is the ability to hold things in mind, step back and reflect. Without this capacity, it is difficult to have perspective, judgment, or emotional control. Therefore, admonishing or punishing children who are not following the rules because of limited executive function is not only ineffective, but leads children who are already frustrated and discouraged to feel bad about themselves and unsupported.

Executive Function Problem or Just a Lazy Kid? Part 2 — Parent Tips and Guidance

Without accurately understanding children’s behavior, parents and teachers may intervene in ways that compound the situation, creating a control struggle on top of the original problem. To be effective in helping children, we must accurately diagnose the problem and be curious about what is happening: What is causing this behavior? Though defiance and executive function deficits can look the same on the surface, a problem of defiance is handled differently than a problem of limited capacity.

How Communication Breakdowns Between Parents & Teens Can Affect Health, Well-Being, and Safety

Communicating with teens is key—poor communication can make them feel invalidated, raising risk of self-harm. Validating feelings supports safety.

How Parents Can Help Teens Under Academic Pressure (and 5 Common Traps)

When grades are slipping and teens don’t seem to be taking action, it’s easy for parents to react from frustration and helplessness. Under pressure, we can fall into common traps without realizing it. These common instinctive reactions, even if they feel justified, add to a child’s anxiety and discouragement, destabilizing them and further reducing motivaton.

How Parents & Teachers Can Help Prevent Suicide in Teens

Although we don’t usually think of suicide as contagious, one of the strongest predictors of suicide in youth is the suicide or suicide attempt of a friend or family member.

How to Be Protective When Your Son Thinks He Is Gay

Parents don’t have the power to influence whether their child is gay or not, but do have the power to influence how their child feels about themselves. A close relationship with parents has been found to provide the best insulation from dangers in the outside world.

How to Get People to Make Good Decisions (and Not Cause Them to Do the Opposite)

When we witness people in our lives headed down the wrong path – it’s a natural instinct to correct them, educate them about what’s wrong with what they’re doing, and argue the merits of our position. But this approach, rather than helping people change their ways, can rope us into a frustrating and exhausting struggle. Worse, though we may be “right”, this logical strategy frequently backfires and, unbeknownst to the helper, ends up reinforcing the other person’s will to do the opposite – on top of creating conflict in the relationship.

How to Influence Teens Who Cover Up

What to say to teens who think everything is none of your business or other porcupine tactics that shut parents out.

How to Live With Your (Newly Returned) “Grown-up” Child

Families are in transition now as college age kids that used to be living at school are returning home. Many parents are struggling with how to live with their kids who are often bolder now and have new ways of living and acting that pose a problem for parents. This column is a response to many parents requesting help with how to approach and word unwelcome conversations with their.

How to Overcome Obstacles to Change

We all are faced at times with trying to persuade other people, or ourselves, to change a behavior. BUt our efforts and good intentions can leave us feeling frustrated and helpless. Why is it that people don’t just do what is needed to change unhelpful patterns, even when they promise to do so and it’s obviously in their best interest?

How to Resist Temptation & Be More in Control

There are two states of mind we can be in when it comes to temptation: zooming in and fantasizing about the rush, or zooming out and seeing the broader picture of how things will play out if we act on our impulses. Knowing where our actions will lead before a tempting situation takes hold gives us a chance to make an informed decision.

Is Perfectionism on the Rise in Teenagers? The Startling News About It’s Impact on Mental Health

Perfectionism in teens fuels anxiety and increases suicide risks. Learn how family and community pressure can silently affect teen mental health.

Online Risks & Stressors: What Teens Tell Their Parents

Online behaviors that can put teens at risk—why they hide cyberbullying, sexting, and social pressure, plus parenting tips to guide and protect them.

Parent Anxiety Over Kids’ Perceived Failures (Part 1)

One of the most common difficulties for parents is how to contain their reactions and not make things worse when children don’t do well or fail to measure up to their expectations. Families with kids who are not high achievers, or who have academic or psychological challenges, are most vulnerable.

Parent Guilt Over Kids’ Perceived Failures (Part 2)

When parents feel guilty or excessively bad for children, it’s harder to set limits, be truthful and direct, and challenge kids within their zone of capability. This inhibits opportunities for children to develop self-control, confidence and realistic expectations of themselves and others, perpetuating the cycle of underachievement.

Parenting Teens: 7 Important Questions With Answers That Sort Truth From Fiction

Parents of teens can use answers. But it’s not so easy to stay updated. This questionnaire highlights common questions and popular confusions to help parents sort out truth from fiction.

Preventing the Spread of Suicide in Teens

Teens don’t feel safe talking to adults about suicide. Some suicidal teens may be good actors – showing us what we want to see. Learn how to make it safe for your teen to talk to you and trust you, and what not to do. This article offers practical advice about how to recognize vulneralbe teens, the warning signs that they may be at risk, and how to help.

Protecting Teens From Danger: Tips & Advice for Parents – Part 2

​The teenage brain has been compared to a car with a powerful gas pedal and weak brakes when stimulated by the presence, or even anticipated witnessing, of other teens. Drawn to their peers, teens pull away from us – and then rev each other up into risky experimenting and sensation​-seeking. Parents can help teens stay safer and develop the skills to make better decisions by using approaches informed by the teenage mindset. An effective and empowering strategy with teens involves being mindful of their limitations and intrinsic motivations/drives, using their biases to our (and their) advantage​ – and in the service of positive choices.​.

Reactive Parenting with Teens – A Common Cause of Broken Connections

This column tells a story based on a composite of real-life situations in families, depicting both the teenager’s and parent’s perspective.

Seduced by Risk & Danger: Inside the Teenage Mind

Research suggests that adolescence may represent a “critical period” in which the brain is particularly sensitive to being shaped by experiences – creating both vulnerability and opportunity depending on what behaviors are practiced during this time. Teens who take the most risks have relatively poorer outcomes in adulthood in relationships and work. But, interestingly, teens who are risk averse have equally poor outcomes as those who are the riskiest.

6 Ways You May Be Misguiding Your Teen

Check out Dr. Margolies’ new article on PsychologyToday about what really predicts lifelong success for teenagers and what parents can do to help them develop into healthy, competent adults.

Teenagers Behaving Badly? A Closer Look at the Complex Drivers of Recklessness in Youth

This blog discusses recent research on teen recklessness and how it’s not what you think.

The Danger of Hidden Pain In High Achieving Teens

This column tells a story based on a composite of real-life situations in families, depicting both the teenager’s and parent’s perspective with children who are high achievers and “too good” to be true, while dangerously suffering in silence. The story is followed by the therapist’s psychological analysis and guidance, teaching parents what to look for with seemingly perfect teens, how to interpret when a child’s behavior is a disguised way to ask for help, and what to do.

The Epidemic of Sexual Violence on Campus

This blog discusses important findings on sexual assault on campus.

The Impact of Cannabis Use on Bipolar Disorder Symptoms

Cannabis use is linked to an increase in mania, depression, and poor clinical outcomes for those with bipolar disorder.

The Paradox of Pushing Kids to Succeed

Our teens are embedded in a culture driven by competition and perfectionism, where success is defined by status, performance and appearance. These values are transmitted to our children nonverbally through our emotional state and through what we notice, are impressed with, and praise or discourage in them.

The Paths to Progress for Our Graduates

Perfectionism in teens is rising with pressure to succeed. Learn how parental expectations impact mental health and shape success beyond high school.

The Pressure Cooker Before College: How to Actually Help Your Teen

The senior year countdown to college brings out parents’ worries and fears, which increases teens’ own anxieties and self-doubt. During this time of escalating pressure and stress in families, parents can fall into common traps that defeat their intention to help and interfere with teens developing capacities. This article helps parents recognize the traps and use positive strategies to actually help their teen.

The Startling Data on College-Age Binge Drinking

Binge drinking in college age youth and on college campuses is an alarming, prevalent problem that has been normalized in the college culture among those involved in it.

The Truth About Teenagers That Most Adults Get Wrong

Are teenagers immune to their parents’ influence? Find out how to break through.

What Parents Don’t Know About Internet Porn: a Parent Guide

Parents can mediate the negative effects of internet porn on teens.

What Teens Are Doing Online (and Don’t Tell Their Parents)

Why do teens watch porn? How it impacts their views on sex, consent, and relationships—and what parents can do to effectively address these issues.

What to Say About Drinking: How to Tell if Your Teen Needs Limits

This column depicts the challenges parents face when trying to protect their teen. The story is told from the separate viewpoints of Dylan, 17, and his parents in a situation involving unproductive conversations about drinking. The story is followed by the therapist’s psychological analysis and guidance to the family.

When Teens (or 20 Somethings) Think You’re Bugging Them – but Really They’re Bugging You

This article is about a common dynamic in families in which parents feel controlled by their teenage or adult child’s anger, irritability, and/or fragility and, as a result, avoid approaching certain topics or setting needed limits. Tiptoeing and avoiding instead of taking charge leads people who need boundaries to become more out of control and too powerful. The article discusses this dynamic, common obstacles to giving truthful feedback and setting boundaries, and lists practical steps for how to overcome them.

Why Appeasing or Being Silent Attracts Aggression in Bullies

Dr. Margolies’ Commentary on A New York Times Column: Trump Is Playing Rope-a-Dope With Elite Law Firms (Jeffrey Toobin, March 5)

Why is Weed Use A Problem for Youth?

Youth ages 18-25 have the highest rate of weed use, and this is increasing (SAMSA, 2025). But why does using weed really matter? Older generations may have used weed too and found it harmless. Who is impacted negatively by weed and why? What are the short- and long-term dangers?

Why Teens Ignore Warnings & What Actually Works

Psychologically informed approaches motivate teens to make thoughtful decisions.