Author

Stephen has published hundreds of articles, columns, and opinion-editorials on youth development and decision-making. He is a regular contributor to Camping Magazine, HuffPost, kidsinthehouse.com, LinkedIn, NBC Learn, Psychology Today, and TeenLife Media. His columns and opinion-editorials have also appeared in newspapers across the country. Stephen’s new book, IMPACT, was published by Healthy Learning. Prior to that Stephen wrote a critically acclaimed book, Reality Gap, which was published as a lead title by Sterling Publishing Company/Union Square Press in August 2008. Sterling is one of the world’s leading publishers of non-fiction titles. Reality Gap was named one of the top fifty books for parents of tweens and teens by two national parenting organizations. He has also contributed to several other books including Where Should I Sit at Lunch? The Ultimate 24/7 Guide to Surviving the High School Years, Child and Youth Development, and most recently Love That Boy which quickly became a New York Times and Washington Post best-seller.

Columns/Opinion-Editorials

Stephen’s columns and opinion-editorials appear below.

• Parenting Teens for Positive Risks and Resiliency
• Youth Navigating the American Mental Health Landscape
• The Power of Presence
• Unprepared: Why Kids are Anxious, Lonely, and Depressed
• America’s Ambivalence About Youth and Alcohol May Put Kids at Risk
• August and Everything After
• Scars, Too
• The Ongoing Epidemic of Youth Suicide in America
• Unhappy Campers?
• Post Pandemic: Why The Kids May Not Be OK
• Triple Threat
• The Long Arc of Misery
• Tangled up in Blue
• New Report Finds Positive Trends in Youth Substance Use
• The Crisis of Youth Mental Health
• What Aaron Rodgers Got Wrong
• Mayday!
• The Art and Science of Family Dinner
• How Teens Are Responding to Loosening COVID-19 Restrictions
• Déjà Vu All Over Again
• A Brave New World
• Summer Better Than Others
• America’s Ambivalence About Youth and Alcohol
• Boys of Summer
• Summer Camp 2021- Did It Really Need to Turn Out This Way?
• Students’ Mental Health is Not Alright
• Scars
• Rescued or Ready? Summer camps: Building resilience in America’s youth
• The Case for Kindness
• Santa Claus Is Missing
• Pitching Magic – When unresolved grief goes to summer camp
• A Long Way From Anywhere – College and the Coronavirus
• Where There’s a Will 
• In a Box Labeled Summer – The perfect storm at the end of a season
• In the Middle of September
• Empty Sky – Hope and a three step approach to improving youth mental health
• In a Mind’s Eye
• A Storm to Weather – Modeling self-care to youth during a pandemic
• Horseshoes – Summer camp 2020: Is close, close enough?
• How a Messy Desk Saved My Life
• The Promise – Rites of Passage in a Virtual Age
• Crisscross: We already had a youth mental health crisis – now what?
• Coronavirus and Summer Camp
• In the Light of Day – Springtime and youth mental health
• Better Love
• Kind Kids
• The Case for Kindness – A New Year’s Resolution
• And so this is … Pooh? – The truth behind holiday mental health
• Pride and Poignancy
• Lonely But (Almost) Never Alone
• Maybe I’m Amazed – What happened at summer camp
• The Shallows – Youth mental health and suicide in America
• The Audacity of Leadership
• Camp Kindness Day, 2019
• Hold on Loosely – A parent’s guide to college transition
• The Main Thing – Summer camp can help youth feel lovable and capable
• Love and Leadership
• The Last Batch of Muffins
• Let’s Be Friends – Celebrating National Mentoring Month
• Let the Kids Sleep, Part III – 34 Minutes bring a world of good
• Character Does Count
• When I’m With You – Addressing an epidemic of youth suicide
• My Better Self
• Good News, Bad News – An inventory of youth risk behavior in America
• Unpacking Summer
• What We Can Do to Help Teens Face Mental Health Issues
• Warm Fuzzies – Camp Kindness Day, 2018
• Love Is Louder – Celebrating Mental Health Awareness Month
• Pay The Price – An epidemic of youth prescription drug use
• The Shelf Life of a College Application
• Hop, Skip and Jump – April marks Stress Awareness Month
• The Content of Their Character – Youth activism in America and beyond
• 10 Reasons Why High School Students Will Get A Lot From Summer Camp
• A User’s Guide to the First Year of College – Navigating transition
• All This Darkness Past
• No Doubt – One choice for youth
• Is It Time, Again?
• Failing Forward – Resiliency and a message to youth
• Summer Camp: A Good Idea For Teens
• Big Little Lies – Character, culture and American Youth
• When High School Happened
• The Art of Change
• Misdirection – The transition to college: a brave and startling truth
• Nice Kids
• Waitin’ on a Sunny Day – September’s suicide prevention push
• Door Number Three
• Inflection Points – On changing schools and climbing mountains
• Redemption Road
• Camp, Interrupted – What I learned about caring communities (the hard way)
• Creating the Exceptional
• Hauntingly Familiar
• Thick and Thin – Summer camps are essential organizations for moral growth
• Hidden Faces – The science behind springtime sadness
• 3 Reasons Why Not
• Reality Check – Underage Drinking in America
• Love’s Debris
• Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines
• Glory Days?
• Let the Kids Sleep, Part II – The demons and delights of daylight saving time
• Stretching Toward Manhood – Self-agency and the march to maturity
• Days Like These
• False News … From College
• Brain on Fire – ADHD: Diagnosis, accommodation and resilience
• Miles of Smiles
• Falling to Pieces – Putting youth back together again
• Why Summer Camp Remains Relevant for Teens
• Best Summer Ever
• Love and Light
• A Moment in Time – Leading the way to the future for America’s youth
• Naughty or Nice?
• Language of Love – The season and science of loneliness
• Present Tense
• New Kid in Town – Resiliency, reflection and reason for hope
• The Space Between
• Ports of Indecision
• On Grit and Gratitude
• Midnight in Manhattan
• Goals to Be Greater – Youth Mentoring Youth
• Born to Run – The good, the bad and the ugly of youth sports
• In the Middle of September
• All the Light They Cannot See
• I Know I Said I’m Sorry … – A rebel in Rio sent the wrong message to youth
• Serious Learning Happens at Summer Camp – Without Technology #thestruggleisreal
• Never Say Goodbye
• One Call Away – Summertime and the Powerful Presence of Peers
• An Untethered Mind
• Loving The Children You Have, Not The Ones You Thought You’d Have
• The Empty Classroom
• Imagine Me Gone – The mental health of children, adolescents and emerging adults
• Brilliant Disguise
• In the Ballpark of Perfect – Expectations of Parenting and Parents
• Being Jordan Spieth
• Love Actually – Parenting in the age of expectations
• The Hubris of Owen Labrie – Sex, lies and lessons to be learned
• Dancing in the Dark
• Who I Am – Identity and adolescence
• A Matter of Mentors
• Let the Kids Sleep – School, sports, sleep and the survival of the fittest
• Tides, Timing and the College Admissions Process
• Reality Gap Redux
• Storm Rising – Adolescents stand as harbingers of hope amid times of trouble
• Why CARE?
• Tired Eyes (kidsinthehouse.com)
• Tired Eyes (The Huffington Post)
• Driven – “Always on” lifestyle may hold hidden dangers
• Young People, Not Alone in Their Despair – A lack of life experience may fuel youth suicide
• Used to Be
• Got Camp?
• Sibling Revelry – The new science of brothers and sisters … at home and at summer camp
• The Inevitable Entrepreneur
• A Point of Privilege
• A Little Unwell
• There Is No One Size Fits All Approach to Allowance
• End Game – A different path to workforce development
• Character Education – What We Can Learn From the Atlanta Public Schools
• Much Ado About Nothing? – Stress and the College Search Sweepstakes
• Troubled Waters – Stemming the rising tide of youth suicides
• Rain Before Rainbows
• Ebb and Flow – Are we raising generation distracted?
• Blinded by the Light
• Girlhood
• About a Boy
• Cutting Their Losses, Raising the Stakes – A way forward on college sexual assaults
• They Will Follow
• Any Given Day
• Mean Kids
• Running On – Improving physical, emotional and social lives
• Thanks for Thanksgiving – Making a case for gratitude and forgiveness
• Cool Kids – Popularity may not be all it’s cracked up to be
• House of Lies
• Minor Infraction
• Gone Girl
• Beautiful Boys – Addiction, recovery, and what can be learned at summer camp
• Boys 2 Men
• Better Days
• On Becoming – Passage into womanhood
• The Afterglow – How summer camp accelerates positive youth development
• A User’s Guide to Surviving Boarding School – Words of wisdom from a rising sophomore
• No Retreat, No Surrender
• Land of Hopes and Dreams – Parents and teens renegotiating roles as college begins
• A Happy Camper
• Summer Solstice – Reducing stress among America’s teens
• Killing Zwaldon – The Benefits of Mindfulness
• Falling Up
• Good Will Hunting – Families key to youth entrepreneurship
• Truth or Consequences?
• Say What?
• A Perfect Storm – Marijuana use linked to loss of motivation, intellect, mental health and safety
• A Consequence of Character
• Hocus Pocus – Knowledge of driving dangers vanishes among teens
• Worlds Colliding – Communities grapple with youth suicide
• LOL (Love Out Loud)
• What Boys Need
• When The Circus Came to Town –  Bieber’s Miami Beach meltdown:  just in time or too little, too late?
• Lonely Street of Dreams – Holiday break may help students adjust to college
• Up in Smoke – Marijuana use rising among American teens
• Comfortably Numb – Affluence, Alcohol and Adolescent Development
• Leading From Behind – Mandela’s lesson to youth on a healthy disregard for the impossible
• Message in a Bottle – Sounding the alarm on youth prescription drug abuse
• When That Teen ‘Mayday’ Call Comes, Try to Support and Coach
• Fear Itself – Addiction, recovery and a path to prevention
• An Intentional Thread – As a new school year begins, so do important mentoring relationships
• Gone Baby Gone – The risks of early sexual behavior (and how to talk to your teen about them)
• Car Talk – Negotiating the new normal as college begins
• Quietly Making Noise – Character, Contribution, and the Social Entrepreneur
• Flip – Changing Gender Roles in Youth Risk Behavior
• Shattered – Impaired Driving By Millions of Teens Contributes to Crash Deaths
• A Time Too Short – Helping Youth With Loss and Grief
• The Fierce Urgency of Now – A Nation’s Need to Protect Its Youth
• Tag Team – Research Guides Parents in Helping College Students Dodge Risks
• Naughty or Nice? – A Parents’ Holiday Guide to Teen Transgressions
• Does Character Count? – Student Scandals Raise New Doubt About Ethical Behavior
• Not As I Do – Dangerous Driving by Parents = Dangerous Driving by Teens
• Fifteen for a Moment – Critical Conversations With Kids About Sex
• The Happy Teen – A Primer on the Positives in Youth Development
• A Higher Education – The Long, Winding, and Potentially Dangerous Road to College Admission
• On the Bright Side
• See Something, Say Something – Disturbing Data Reveal Sensible Solutions
• Love and Legacy – Hope for What Yeardley Left Behind
• How to Save a Life – Countermeasures to Prevent Youth Suicide
• Reindeer Games – Holiday Hooliganism Determines Danger
• Promises to Keep – Honesty is Key to Teen Driving Safety
• Close Call – Why Driving Responsibly is a Two-Way Street for Teens and Parents
• Getting in the Game – Valentine Virgins and Rising Teen Pregnancy Rates
• Equivocation – Dithering on Drinking Puts Youth at Risk
• The Gift of a Lifetime – Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Dangerously
• What If … ? – Combating Complacency is Key to Keeping Kids Safe During the Summer Season
• Already Gone – A Parent’s Guide to Surviving Senior Spring
• The Elephant in the Room – Communicating With Kids About the Economy
• That Great Big Hill of Hope – An Era of Change for Youth, Too
• Cheating Sleep – Drowsy Driving by Teens Can Cause Holiday Heartache
• A Clear and Present Danger – Marijuana and the Marginalization of Prevention
• Chasing Cars – Teens Say Street Racing Poses Significant Risk
• An (other) Inconvenient Truth– The Backstory Behind the Drinking Age Debate
• Snap! – How Split-Second Decisions Imperil Youth
• Transformers – The Positive Presence of Teachers and Teens
• And a Happy New Year – Against All Odds, Many Teens Are Doing Just Fine
• Why Not 21? – The Renewed Debate Over Underage Drinking
• Last But Not Least – Going Back to School on Teen Driving
• Speaking Up – Teens Are Key to Reducing Automobile Crash Deaths
• The Bogeyman and the Bathwater – A Chilling Effect on Youth Mentoring
• Juggernaut – Empowered Youth Mark a Milestone
• Cyber-Shadows – Protecting Teens From the Dark Side of the Online World
• Anatomy of a Bust – Cops and Kids: Enforcing Zero Tolerance
• Holding On, Letting Go – Graduation Season Brings Risk and Reward
• Chopper Down – Parents Get Conflicting Signals About Nurturing Teens
• ‘Tis the Season – Allowing Holiday Drinking by Teens Sets Dangerous Precedent
• House Party – Graduation Celebrations Often Leave Teens at Risk
• Hooking Up, Losing Out – The New Culture of Teen Sex
• Get Real About Teenage Drinking Part Three: Truth and Consequences
• Meet the Snoopers – Parenting, Privacy, Common Sense, and Communication
• Holiday Cheer – Underage Drinking: Reality, Responsibility, and Accountability
• Storm and Stress? – It Turns Out That Teens Aren’t So Unhappy After All
• Too Little, Too Late – Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, and the College Education of High School Students
• Cat and Mouse – Trust, Truth and Drug Testing Teens
• Janet and Justin – The Wardrobe Malfunction Meltdown
• More Than a Village – Underage Drinking in America
• Triple Threat – Madness, Myths and Adolescent Risk-Taking
• Mixed Messages – Kids Need Straight Talk to Stay Safe at Prom, Graduation
• Running for Cover – Scarsdale High School’s Homecoming Scramble
• Shock and Awe – Media Target Teens With Weapons of Mass Persuasion
• Short Circuit- Hormones, Hobgoblins, and Adolescent Neurochemistry
• Helping Teens Through Turbulent Times – Continued Threats of Violence Disrupt Development

Articles
Stephen’s feature articles appear below. Make the World a Better Place

• A Time to Talk
• How to Run a Teen Program at a Summer Camp Wary of Teenagers
• Lost Boys – Finding Their Way at Summer Camp
• More Than a Village – Why Summer Camps are Key To Raising Kids Right
• Re-Thinking Risk: How to Build Resiliency and Reward
• A Safe Space – From Trauma Informed to Trauma Infused
• The Intentional Thread: A Conversation about Courage, Hope, Good Spirit, and Peace.
• Bad Blood? How to Succeed at Succession .. Who Wins and Who Loses
• A Different Kind of Mentor
• Inflection Points: Why Character Counts
• Unleashed: The Power of Them – Alignment and Engagement, Part 2
• A Through Line: Caring, Compassion, and Conflict Resolution
• Unleashed: The Power of You – Alignment and Engagement, Part 1
• Rethinking Summer: Why Camp Remains Relevant for Teens
• Internship, Test Prep or Camp: Summer Planning Amid the Noise and Haste
• No Retreat: Convening Communities of Caring During Times of Loss and Grief
• Happy Campers: A Counterintuitive Conversation About Youth Mental Health
• What Every Parent Needs to Know About Teen Addiction
• Hunters and Farmers: Why ADHDers Can Thrive at Summer Camp
• Adolescence, Identity, and Summer Camp
• Danger Zone: Teen Summer Substance Use and Treatment
• The Comeback Kid: Learning to Lead at Summer Camp
• It’s Time to Talk – Protecting Youth: The Power of Parenting
• Tears and Rain: Disciplinary Debacles at Summer Camp – Lessons Learned
• The Time of Our Lives: How Summer Camp Tames Transition Trouble
• Changing Places, Changing Paces: Recharging, Reconnecting, and Reflecting at Summer Camp
• Dear Parents: This is the Summer to “LET GO”
• Addiction, Recovery and a Path to Prevention: Stemming the Tide on Youth Substance Use
• A Cautionary Tale – How to Handle the Hookup Culture at Camp
• SOS – Youth at Risk and Seven Survival Skills from Summer Camp
• It’s Complicated – Beyond the Hookup Culture: Taking Initiative and Mitigating Risk
• A Consequence of Character – How Summer Camp Promotes Character, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship
• Beautiful Boys: Addiction, Recovery, and What They Learned at Summer Camp
• A Circle of Support – Restorative Justice  at Summer Camp
• Ready, Set, Go – CAMP e-News
• Oddly Hopeful – A Counterintuitive View of Modern-Day Adolescence
• Ready, Set, Go – How Camp Prepares Children for Lives of Success
• Let’s Talk About Sex – How to Approach Your Teen About the Topic
• Change Agents – Social Entrepreneurship and the Summer Camp Experience
• Let’s Be Friends – A Paradoxical Approach to Bullying Prevention
• Camp or College? – Families Face a Hobson’s Choice
• Indifferent Spectators – Leadership Lessons for Camp … and Beyond
• Unpacking Summer – Camp’s Lease Hath all Too Short a Date
• The Other Side of the Mountain – Views on Organized Camp for 2012
• The Other Side of the Mountain – Views on Camp for 2012 (Parent Article)
• Always Thank the Bus Driver – And Other Words of Wisdom for All the Kids I’ll Never Meet (Parent Article)
• Always Thank the Bus Driver – And Other Words of Wisdom for All the Campers I’ll Never Meet
• After the Deluge – Letters From My Campers (Parent Article)
• After the Deluge – Letters From My Campers, Part III
• Confessions of a Disciplinarian – How Managing Camper Behavior Can Save the Summer
• The Rearview Mirror – Driving Safely at Camp
• The Art of Camp (Indy’s Child)
• The Boy in the Boat – Life Lessons Learned at Camp (Parent Article)
• The Over/Under – A Back-Story Behind the Drinking Age Debate (CampLine)
• The Positive Impact of Youth Mentoring
• The Over/Under – A Back-Story Behind the Drinking Age Debate (Camping Magazine)
• The Art of Camp – How Arts Programs Fuel Self-Expression and Youth Development (Camping Magazine)
• The Art of Camp – How Arts Programs Fuel Self-Expression and Youth Development
• Camping Alone? – Connection, Consistency, and Contribution … How Summer Camps Build Social Capital
• Letters From My Campers – A Counselor’s Guide to Mentoring Youth
• Letters From My Campers – A Director’s Guide to Mentoring Youth
• Holding On, Letting Go – Graduation Season Brings Risks and Rewards
• A Lease on Life– Parents Play a Pivitol Role in Keeping Teens Safe During the Summer Driving Season
• Under the Influence – Respect, Responsibility, and the Conduct of Camp Counselors
• Hooking Up, Losing Out? – The New Culture of Teen Sex and How to Talk to Your Campers About It
• Epidemic – Translating Drug Prevention Principles to Camp
• More Than a Village – Fostering a Community Response to Underage Drinking
• Their Space or Yours? – Social Networking Sites Bring Risks and Rewards to the Camp Community
• Rites of Passage – Camp Pays Off in Youth Development, Happiness, Health, and Safety
• Their Space or Yours? – Internet Issues Come to Camp (Camping Magazine)
• The Myth of Risk – Promoting Healthy Behavior by Challenging Teens
• The Boy in the Boat – Life Lessons Learned at Camp (Camping Magazine)