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Maryjopodgurski

Teens share gratitude for Teen Center, community Last week, the teens at our Common Ground Teen Center held their monthly Teen Executive Board meeting. The center is staffed by teens and our alumni supervisor, Landan Weakland. The executive board plans activities and monitors our guidelines of ...

How to talk about self-harm

Q: I have a dilemma. As a senior, I'm a leader in my sport (I don't want to share which one). Our coach says I should be a role model for the younger players. I do try. I love the sport, and I enjoy looking after and helping to orient new teammates. Here's my problem. I noticed scars from ...

Friendship challenges affect adults too

Q. I read your column about friendship last week and wished so much I’d had you to talk with when I was 13. No one seemed to understand how devastated I was when my longest and best friend simply dropped out of my life. I was brokenhearted. I’m a mom now and my children are small – I know ...

Q. My best friend since kindergarten is no longer my friend. I don’t know what I did. She won’t talk to me. What do I do? –13-year-old Mary Jo’s Response: I do wish this wasn’t ...

Coping with the loss of a loved one

Q. My gram died. This is the first death I’ve understood. My pap died when I was four, but I don’t really remember it. My gram meant a great deal to me. I would go to her house when I didn’t get along with my sisters. I’m the middle child and the only boy, so that happened a lot. She ...

Teen questions book banning

In honor of Banned Book Week 2024 (Sept. 22-28), I’m looking back at a poignant question posed to me two years ago by a 16-year-old. A Tennessee school district had just voted to ban Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” about the Holocaust due to “inappropriate ...