2 . Josie, who is 17 years old, said, “Why do my parents do the same things they tell me not to do? For example, my mum stops me from shouting through the walls and asks me to go and speak to her face-to-face, but she always shouts through the walls to me. What can I do?”

That is a very good point. Parents can be completely inconsistent (不一致), and usually they don’t realize it. You see this a lot in many things like smartphones. Parents always say to their kids, “Oh, you can’t use that. That device (设备) is bad for you, so stop using it at the table. It’s harmful.” But then they are on theirs continually. So what do you expect teenagers to do?

The whole “Do as I say, not as I do” thing is an annoyance, especially for a teenager who is dying for independence and respect but isn’t getting them.

What can teenagers do with it? I would say you should point it out by calmly saying something like “You tell me not to scream through the walls, but you do it to me, so you can understand where I’m coming from. That’s not ideal.” They might object to it, but I think most parents who care about being parents would logically say, “That’s a reasonable point.”

There are a lot of conflicts (矛盾) going on between teenagers and their parents, but a lot of studies show that the conflicts are resolved a lot more when they turn into a dialogue.

If you can talk at a time when you’re both feeling a bit calmer, like just in the kitchen or doing something unimportant, then go in and say, “Can I just mention it? You tell me not to do this, but you do it too.” If you can approach it in a more calm and stress-free manner, most parents will respond positively.

4 . I am an art-on-the-cart teacher for now. My 8th-grade boys don’t open doors for me. The girls do, however. So do the Gth,7th, and 9th-grade boys, but not those 8th-grade boys. It’s a strange phenomenon that I’m sure is explained by science somewhere. But when I’m walking through campus with my rolling cart filled to the brim (边沿), my hands full, my backpack on,and the wind blowing the door, it’s hard to pull it open for me. The boys just go on through without stopping to offer help. What these boys need is some empathy (同理心)! Looking at art can help with that.

Last semester in a photography unit for my 8th-graders, I brought out the “I am”character poem activity from my pack of printable worksheets to study the work of Dorothea Lange, the mastermind behind the Migrant Mother and other powerful photographs from the Great Depression.

As an art teacher, it is important for me to give my students experience connecting with works of art, which includes connecting with the characters and people in the artworks. Dorothea Lange was a photographer hired by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration to document the lives of migrant workers, and displaced families. Because her photographs were government-funded, they were offered for free to newspapers across the country, and her photographs were seen nationwide.

She had a masterful way of capturing emotion in her subjects, so her photographs are an excellent way for students to practice empathy while also connecting with the art, the past,and the people in the photograph.

Once we finished with all of the group presentations, I asked what all of the photographs had in common and what we can learn about the photographer based on all of these photographs. This launched us into a lesson on Dorothea Lange, art during the Great Depression,and a debate over whether or not the camera has the ability to capture the essence (精髓) of a person.

5 . It’s a beautiful fall day. Before we camp near the river, the children dashed along the water’s edge, leaping off the bank into the slow current, pushing through the mud. The scene is happily familiar. We’ve been coming to rivers since our daughters were babies. In the beginning we went to the wilderness because my husband and I loved it and selfishly wanted them to love it, too. Now we go because we can’t live without it.

According to a report released in February, teenagers in the U.S. are in the midst of an alarming mental health crisis. A survey conducted in fall 2021 found that 30% of teen girls have seriously considered suicide, a jump of 60% in the past decade. Boys are struggling, too. The CDC report calls for greater school involvement in supporting at-risk kids, better access to mental-health services and higher standards for health education. As the mother of two teenage girls, these statistics are terrifying. What can we as parents do?

For our family, the answer has always been nature. After they started school, wilderness trips became our way of disconnecting from our digitized lives, and reconnecting with each other ourselves and the natural world. What began as a family experiment was now a cornerstone in our parenting philosophy: a way of raising healthy, curious, kind, resilient (对困境有承受力的) kids in an increasingly messy world.

I’ve seen firsthand how even a few nights out a few times a year have taught our daughter valuable life skills like cooperation, compassion, resilience, problem-solving and adaptability, which is relevant to everything we do in life.

Will our strategy work? We’re still in the thick of the experiment, so it’s too soon to tell. All we can do is pay attention, keep talking, keep trying and keep going.

9 . Everyone has “down days”. Maybe it’s because of the bad weather, or the disappointing grades on a difficult test, and some days teenagers just act uninterested in life or school. But these symptoms(症状) often pass quickly, as teens move on to new school subjects, or meet with friends to prevent themselves from thinking what troubles them at the moment. But if a teenager displays symptoms of sadness for more than two lasting weeks, it might point to something serious.

As teenagers develop, they push new boundaries(边界), complain about rules and look for more free rights from their parents. According to the online Health Guide on Adolescent Development, parents must be lasting figures in their teenagers’ life, providing safe boundaries for teens to grow, even if the teenagers act like these boundaries are unwanted.

Parents need to provide rules, while also remaining flexible(灵活的) and respectful of the growing teens’ need for freedom. For example, teenagers will often feel frustrated, embarrassed, and even angry that thought they want freedom, they still need to ask their parents for an agreement to go to a friend’s house, or need their mothers to take them to school.

The US Department of Education says that parents should respect and support their teen’s choices as long as those choices won’t have long-term harmful effects. For example, even if a parent doesn’t enjoy the music his or her teen listens to, it’s unlikely that the choice of music will prevent that teen from entering a good college, or lead to health problems. However, if that teen is drinking alcohol and driving, parents must get through strict punishments to teach that there are bad results for poor choices that come with increased freedom.

10 . More schools around the USA are using online classes when communities run into troubles like wildfires, storms or water shortages.

In Jackson, Mississippi, a problem with the public water system left the city without safe water for several days. As a result, schools had to go online for one week in May. The time in online learning did not last long for the 20, 000 students in Jackson. Earlier this month, children went back to in-person learning when the city said water was safe for normal use.

However, online learning caused problems for children and teachers. At home, children attending online classes often had their whole family in the house. Early in 2020, school officials had high hopes for online learning. Since then, the problems with it have become clearer. The change to online learning has caused many students to fall behind where they should be in their studies. And it has added to new worries about students’ health.

In 2018, two powerful storms hit the same area, causing schools in some places to close. Some students were out of school for weeks. There were attempts(尝试) at online learning, but many children did not have laptop computers or other technology. For this reason, most schools tried to move students to other in-person buildings.

“Schools now will look first to online learning,” said Gary Henry. He is head of the University of Delaware and has been part of a research team studying online learning. For a period of a few weeks, he said it could be a step to keep students on schedule. But the pandemic(疫情) showed that it was not a good way over a long period of time. “It’s a difficult start,” said Henry. “It’s better to have the kids in the classroom so you can see how they are doing, and provide timely support to them.”