Radical Positivity: A Parenting Tool to Inspire Lasting Change in Your Teens
Here’s a tidbit, a powerful tidbit I might add, that will be key to your successful journey of helping your youth back on a healthy path forward. I’m calling it Radical Positivity. A Brief Explanation If we want our youth to change their behavior; limit their time on devices, work harder in school, join in...Continue reading→
Memorial Day Tribute and the Beginning of Summer
Memorial Day is really a celebration with one purpose and two meanings. It was established as Decoration Day in 1868 to honor Union Soldiers who died in the Civil War and eventually came to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. Many of us have relatives and friends who died in wars and this...Continue reading→
Dealing With Our Challenging Times
Lately it seems staying in my lane and focusing on the challenges of family life with teenagers and young adults is difficult with all the disruption in our country and related to that, the disruption around the world. For many parents, the importance and challenges of raising their families takes up 80% of their brain...Continue reading→
Spring Cleaning and Benevolent Parental Authority
When we were a more primitive society, a hunting and gathering society, kids and teens participated with the adults in various community activities and that way learned adult functions. In our more “advanced” society today, kids and teens do activities very separately from the adults. The result is that kids and teens end up not...Continue reading→
Meet Neil D Brown
Watch my introductory YouTube video. Transcript: As a boy, I looked up to my dad. He engineered what others said couldn’t be done. And that’s always inspired me. As the middle of three kids, I played peacemaker in a household with some spectacular blow ups. Our family was great. Yet the chronic tension and violence...Continue reading→
Parenting Teenagers Course Online
Eliminate the Control Battle and Empower your Teen to Grow their Full Potential Learn More About the Brand New Parenting Course Are you frustrated with constant arguments, power struggles, feeling stuck and not seeing your teen move forward? Neil D. Brown, LCSW, is excited to announce his brand-new online course: Ending the Parent-Teen Control Battle Based...Continue reading→
The Presidential Election and Mental Health
I read a commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle recently chastising the therapy community for not bringing our voices to address the destructive impact of our national discourse on the mental health of our clients and the nation as a whole. I can’t speak for any mental health association, but rather than sit on my...Continue reading→
Parenting Tip: Ask More Questions, Give Less Advice
Gramps was having trouble with his 16 year old grandson. “Here’s the situation. Willy’s working on his car in the driveway. He’s fixing up an old Chevy Nova. The problem is, he takes my tools out and leaves them out afterward. I’ve told him it’s fine to use them, but getting him to put them...Continue reading→
Brain Development in Teenagers: What Parents Need to Know
Adolescent brains are going through a monumental transformational process, which actually accounts for more behavioral changes than any other factor. Research over the last twenty years has given us a much more sophisticated understanding of adolescent brain development. Like other organs, the human brain goes through an amazing period of growth until around age twenty-five,...Continue reading→
Parenting Tip: Help Your Child Learn from What They Discover
I was talking with a mom struggling with her 12-year-old son who seemed to avoid any and every parental request, requirement, or school responsibility. The idea that cooperating would be in his best interest seemed to escape him entirely. The family had moved to a new neighborhood, so this 12-year-old had no friends to go...Continue reading→