Debra Beck's Blog

At some point, the door starts closing a little more often…and the voice changes. The kid who used to tell you everything starts keeping a few things to themselves. And most of us just… let that moment pass. There’s a cake on the birthday. Maybe a learner’s permit a few years later. But nobody sits […]

The post Your Teen Is Growing Up. Who’s Telling Them What That Means? appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

Exclusion and Shunning: Is That Considered Bullying?​ She walks into the cafeteria with her tray, scanning the table she’s sat at every day. Nobody moves over. They don’t say anything cruel. Nobody pushes her or calls her a name. One girl just mentions, almost too casually, that there’s another table open. And that’s it. She […]

The post Exclusion and Shunning: Is That Considered Bullying?​ appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

A mom in my community emailed me last week. Her 14-year-old had been on social media for three hours straight. She asked her, gently at first, to wrap it up. By the third ask, her daughter was yelling, and my client was standing in the kitchen wondering how a phone had become the center of […]

The post Whose Voice is Loudest In Your Teen’s Head: Yours, or Their Feed? appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

Mother-Daughter Retreats: The One Thing Most Moms Haven’t Tried “We’ve tried everything, except a mother-daughter retreat with my teen.” I hear that a lot. Usually from a mom who has already done the hard work. She’s been to therapy with her daughter; read the books; had the late-night talks that go nowhere and the silent […]

The post Mother-Daughter Retreats: The One Thing Most Moms Haven’t Tried appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

ADHD in Teenage Girls: What It Really Looks Like Picture the ADHD kid everyone imagines. He’s bouncing in his chair. He can’t sit still. His teacher catches him staring out the window for the third time before lunch. Now picture your daughter. She turns in her homework, most of the time, three days late and […]

The post ADHD in Teenage Girls: What It Really Looks Like appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

How to Help Your Teen Quit Vaping You found it in her backpack. Or maybe it was the smell — something sweet and synthetic, drifting out from under a closed door. Either way, your stomach dropped, and your mind started running through every worst-case scenario you’ve ever read about. If that’s you right now, I […]

The post How to Help Your Teen Quit Vaping appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

How to Talk to Your Teenager So They Open Up “She used to tell me everything. Now I get one-word answers and a closed door or complete disrespect.” I hear some version of that sentence almost every week. And every time, the parent asks me the same question: how do I get her to talk […]

The post How to Talk to Your Teenager So They Actually Open Up appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

My Daughter Changed Overnight: What Now? “My daughter changed overnight.” If I had a dollar for every time I heard those words from a mother, I’d probably be retired by now. One day your daughter is affectionate. She wants to spend time with you and tells you everything. Then suddenly she’s spending hours in her […]

The post My Daughter Changed Overnight: What Now? appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

Teen anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, and suicide rates have reached alarming levels. Parents everywhere are asking the same question: “What is happening to our kids?” Today’s tweens and teens are growing up in a world filled with stress, uncertainty, comparison, social pressure, and emotional overload. Between social media, school pressure, family stress, isolation, world events, […]

The post Childhood Trauma, Teen Anxiety, and the Mental Health Crisis Facing Our Kids appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.

Mother-Daughter Retreats: Can They Improve Communication and Strengthen Your Relationship? Mother-daughter relationships are powerful, emotional, loving, and sometimes incredibly challenging. Even the closest mothers and daughters can struggle with communication, emotional triggers, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings. During the tween and teen years especially, many moms feel confused about why communication suddenly feels strained or emotionally […]

The post Mother-Daughter Retreats: Can They Improve Communication and Strengthen Your Relationship? appeared first on Empowered Teens And Parents.