QUESTION: My thirteen-year-old daughter has become increasingly lazy in the past couple of years. She lies around the house and will sleep half a day on Saturday. She complains about being tired a lot. Is this typical of early adolescence? How should I deal with it?

DR. DOBSON: It is not uncommon for boys and girls to experience fatigue during the years of puberty. Their physical resources are being invested in a rapid growth process during that time, leaving less energy for other activities. This period doesn't last very long and is usually followed by the most energetic time of life.

I would suggest, first, that you schedule your daughter for a routine physical examination to rule out the possibility of a more serious explanation for her fatigue. If it does turn out to be a phenomenon of puberty, as I suspect, you should "go with the flow." See that she gets plenty of rest and sleep. This need is often not met because teenagers feel that they shouldn't have to go to bed as early as they did when they were children. Therefore, they stay up too late and then drag through the next day in a state of exhaustion. Surprisingly, a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old actually needs more rest than when he or she was nine or ten, simply because of the acceleration in growth.

In summary, your daughter is turning overnight from a girl into a woman. Some of the physical characteristics you are observing are part of the transformation. Do everything you can to facilitate it.

QUESTION: How can parents prepare their younger children for the assault on self-esteem that is almost certain to come in adolescence? That was a tough time for me, and I want it to be easier for my kids.

DR. DOBSON: Well, one important approach is to teach boys and girls valuable skills with which they can compensate in years to come. They can benefit from learning something that will serve as the centerpiece of their self-concept during the difficult years. This would include learning about basketball, tennis, electronics, art, music or even raising rabbits for fun and profit. It's not so much what you teach your child. The key is that he or she learns something with which to feel good when the whole world seems to be saying, "Who are you and what is your significance as a human being?"

The teenager who has no answer to those questions is left unprotected at a very vulnerable time of life. Developing and honing skills with which to compensate may be one of the most valuable contributions parents can make during the elementary school years. It may even be worth requiring your carefree kid to take lessons, practice, compete and learn something he or she will not fully appreciate for a few more years.

QUESTION: Should school children be required to wear clothes that they dislike?

DR. DOBSON: Generally not. Children are very concerned about the threat of being laughed at by their friends and will sometimes go to great lengths to avoid that danger. Conformity is fueled by the fear of ridicule. Teens, particularly, seem to feel, "The group can't laugh at me if I am identical to them." From this perspective, it's unwise to make a child endure unnecessary social humiliation. Children should be allowed to select their own clothes, within certain limits of budget and good taste.

QUESTION: Having a child diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can paint a pretty bleak picture. Is there anything good you can tell us?

DR. DOBSON: There are some advantages to having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In a sense, even the word disorder is misleading because the syndrome has many positive features. As Time reported, "(ADHD adults) see themselves as creative; their impulsiveness can be viewed as spontaneity; hyperactivity gives them enormous energy and drive; even their distractibility has the virtue of making them alert to changes in the environment. Kids with ADHD are wild, funny, effervescent. They have lots of life."

QUESTION: My sister's daughter went off to college at eighteen and immediately went a little crazy. She had always been a good kid, but when she was on her own, she drank like a lush, was sexually promiscuous, and flunked three of her classes. My daughter is only twelve, but I don't want her to make the same mistakes when she is beyond our grasp. How can I get her ready to handle freedom and independence?

DR. DOBSON: Well, you may already be twelve years late in beginning to prepare your daughter for that moment of release. The key is to transfer freedom and responsibility to her little by little from early childhood so she won't need your supervision when she is beyond it. To move suddenly from tight control to utter liberty is an invitation to disaster.

I learned this principle from my own mother, who made a calculated effort to teach me independence and responsibility. After laying a foundation during the younger years, she gave me a "final examination" when I was seventeen years old. Mom and Dad went on a two-week trip and left me at home with the family car and permission to have my buddies stay at the house. Wow! Fourteen slumber parties in a row! I couldn't believe it. We could have torn the place apart -- but we didn't. We behaved rather responsibly.

I always wondered why my mother took such a risk, and after I was grown, I asked her about it. She just smiled and said, "I knew in one year you would be leaving for college, where you would have complete freedom with no one watching over you. I wanted to expose you to that independence while you were still under my influence."

I suggest that you let your daughter test the waters of freedom occasionally as she's growing up, rather than tossing her into the big wide ocean all at once. It takes wisdom and tact to pull that off, but it can be done. If you do the job properly, the time of release in six or seven years will be a gentle transition rather than a cataclysmic event.

QUESTION: My two kids are as different as night and day. You'd never even know they were born to the same parents. One of them is having trouble in school, and the other is something of a superstar. I'm very worried about the one boy. Do some kids start out doing poorly and then catch fire?

DR. DOBSON: Thank goodness they often do. Let me give you an encouraging illustration. Several years ago I attended a wedding ceremony in a beautiful garden setting, and I came away with some thoughts about parents who are raising a child like yours.

After the minister had instructed the groom to kiss the bride on that day, approximately 150 colorful, helium-filled balloons were released into the blue California sky. Within a few seconds the balloons were just scattered all across the heavens, some of them rising hundreds of feet overhead and others cruising toward the horizon. A few balloons struggled to clear the upper branches of the trees while the show-offs became mere pinpoints of color on their journey to the sky.

How interesting, I thought, and how symbolic of children. Let's face it. Some boys and girls seem to be born with more helium than others. They catch all the right breezes, and they soar effortlessly to the heights, while others wobble dangerously close to the trees. Their frantic folks run along underneath, huffing and puffing to keep them airborne. It is an exhausting experience.

QUESTION: You've been somewhat critical of America's public schools in recent years. Who do you hold accountable for what has gone wrong?

DR. DOBSON: I share the concern of many others about falling test scores, increasing violence on campuses, and the high illiteracy rate, among other serious problems with today's schools. But I am not quick to blame educators for everything that has gone wrong. The teachers and school administrators who guide our children have been among the most maligned and underappreciated people in our society. They are an easy target for abuse. They are asked to do a terribly difficult job, and yet they are criticized almost daily for circumstances beyond their control. Some of their critics act as though educators are deliberately failing our kids. I strongly disagree. We would still be having serious difficulties in our schools if the professionals did everything right. Why? Because what goes on in the classroom cannot be separated from the problems occurring in culture at large.

Educators are not responsible for the condition our kids are in when they arrive at school each day. It's not the teachers' fault that families are unraveling and that large numbers of their students have been sexually and/or physically abused, neglected and undernourished. They can't keep kids from watching mindless television or R-rated DVDs until midnight, or from using illegal substances or alcohol. In essence, when the culture begins to crumble, the schools will also look bad. That's why even though I disagree with many of the trends in modern education, I sympathize with the dedicated teachers and principals out there who are doing their best on behalf of our youngsters. They are discouraged today, and they need our support.

QUESTION: You've said that schools need to have enough structure and discipline to require certain behavior from children whether or not they have a natural interest in the subject being taught. Then you must favor a very structured, teacher-led program, where student behavior is rather tightly controlled. Why?

DR. DOBSON: One of the purposes of education is to prepare a young person for later life. To survive as an adult in this society, one needs to know how to work, how to get there on time, how to get along with others, how to stay with a task until it's completed, and, yes, how to submit to authority.

In short, it takes a good measure of self-discipline and control to cope with the demands of modern living. Maybe one of the greatest gifts a loving teacher can contribute to an immature child, therefore, is to help her learn to sit when she feels like running, to raise her hand when she feels like talking, to be polite to her neighbor, to stand in line without smacking the kid in front, and to do English when she feels like doing soccer. I would also like to see our schools readopt reasonable dress codes, eliminating suggestive clothing, T-shirts with profanity, etc. Guidelines concerning good grooming and cleanliness should also be enforced.

I know! I know! These notions are so alien to us now that we can hardly imagine such a thing. But the benefits would be apparent immediately. Admittedly, hairstyles and matters of momentary fashion are of no particular significance, but adherence to a standard is an important element of discipline. The military has understood that for five thousand years! If one examines the secret behind a championship football team, a magnificent orchestra or a successful business, the principal ingredient is invariably discipline. Preparation for this disciplinary lifestyle should begin in childhood.