Michael Thompson, Ph.D.

An op-ed article by Michael Thompson, originally written for the Boston Globe was republished in the New York Times on January 3, 2006. The article covers sensitive issues that parents of teenagers face. Here’s an excerpt:

The show-stopper was a 42-year-old man, the father of two elementary school children. “My mother thought I was really a responsible boy,” he reported. “She would have been shocked to know that I was on the roof of the school, prying off the skylights with friends so we could drop 65 feet into the school pool … in the dark.”

Well, there it was, every parent’s deepest fear: that our children will do something risky and we won’t be able to stop them, we won’t even know. We’re terrified that even a responsible boy could lie to his mother and drop from a roof-top skylight, in the dark, 65 feet into a school pool. And how did he feel at the time? “Great!” he said.

You can read the full article here.