Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it's teeming with energy and fraught with danger.

One important reason to stay calm is that calm parents hear more. Low-key, accepting parents are the ones whose children keep talking.

If there's a therapist who wants a writing project, I think there's a need for a book about how the culture affects the mental health of boys.

Teenage girls are extremists who see the world in black-and- white terms, missing shades of gray. Life is either marvelous or notworth living. School is either pure torment or is going fantastically. Other people are either great or horrible, and they themselves are wonderful or pathetic failures. One day a girl will refer to herself as "the goddess of social life" and the next day she'll regret that she's the "ultimate in nerdosity.

It's important for parents to watch for trouble and convey to their daughters that, if it comes, they are strong enough to deal with it. Parents who send their [adolescent] daughters the message that they'll be overwhelmed by problems aren't likely to hear what's really happening.

Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves.

Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.