Articles by Mireya Nadal-Vicens, M.D., Ph.D. and Gene Beresin

September 23, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

The Adolescent Brain: Primed for Thrills and High On Life

Teenagers are convinced they are ready to take the reins, no longer wanting to be held back by overly-cautious adults who don’t really ‘get it,’ who don’t understand the urgency of whatever situation is brewing at that moment. Most teenagers have learned the mechanics of the adult world (driving, using credit cards, living a life […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

My Child Is Being Bullied Because Of Religion

There is a saying with regard to prejudice and human behavior.  It’s a shrinky phrase (by that, I mean that it’s loaded with jargon), so I’m going to tell it first, and then we’ll translate it through, sadly, an increasingly common example. Here’s the phrase: “The narcissism of small differences.” Sigmund Freud himself coined this […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Are Teenagers Responsible?

Ask any parent of a teen whether his or her child is responsible, and a wry smile will appear. If you could see the internal images and memories behind that smile, they would look like this: wet towels on the floor, a car left without gas on a workday morning, a forgotten homework assignment, a […]

September 20, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Grounding Your Teen For a Month for Missing Curfew

Chloe just got her driver’s license.  With this, her father tells her, comes great responsibility.  She will be expected to run errands. She will be expected to take her little brother to karate class. And, though she can now drive herself to her friends’ houses on the weekend, her curfew still stands—be home at 11:30pm […]

September 19, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

What Is Resilience?

Although resilience is not a new subject, it has recently enjoyed renewed attention as clinicians work to understand how children and adolescents remain whole in the face of difficult times.  Even The Wall Street Journal, hardly a periodical that one would normally associate with child emotional health, ran an entire op-ed earlier this year that […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Can My Teen Be My Confidant?

It’s awfully hard to figure out if your teenager is grown up.  That’s largely because it’s awfully hard for your teen to decide.  Is your high school junior old enough to know about family finances?  Is your 15-year-old mature enough to understand difficulties that you’re having with your boss at work?  These questions come up […]

September 18, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

When Parents Have an Argument

My parents argued with each other. Most parents do. In fact, we worry more about the parents who never argue. If parents don’t argue, we worry that they’ve lost some of the passion to discuss (albeit vociferously!) the difficulties in raising a family.  If nothing else, know that raising a family is perhaps the most […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

The Pre-School Is Worried About My Child’s Oppositionality

OK, let’s talk about oppositional behavior in young kids. Here’s a particularly unpleasant scenario. You go to pick little Timmy up from preschool, and the teacher asks to have a word with you.  Uh-oh. Feels like being called to meet with the principal. It turns out that Timmy is getting more oppositional. When it comes […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

My Child Hates The Thought Of Having A New Sibling

I recall sort of blowing off my concerns that my older daughter wouldn’t welcome her soon-to-be-born sibling.  After all, I have a sister, and we get along OK. Lots of people have siblings.  How bad can it be? One of my mentors helped me to think about this using a simple and telling thought experiment. […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Mental Illness And Society: Prisons, Rehabilitation And Prevention

Our prisons are loaded with teenagers and adults who suffer from psychiatric disorders. Kids who are incarcerated have a 60% or higher rate of psychiatric syndromes according to most studies—this is roughly three times higher than the 20% of kids with psychiatric illness who are currently not incarcerated. How can we understand these numbers? Psychiatrists, […]