Many kids won’t say they’re struggling—they’ll show it in subtle ways. This article outlines 7 behaviours that could signal emotional distress in teens, even if they say everything is “fine.” Learn how to recognize these red flags early, respond with compassion, and take action that could make all the difference.

Committed is a word for choices. You commit a crime. You commit to a mortgage. Suicide is not one of those, and the word makes a claim about what happened that is simply wrong. Chris Coulter on the phrase people still use, the fence it builds around other families, what to say to a grieving parent instead, and why correcting somebody only works when it hands them information rather than a test they can fail.

A heartfelt reflection on why photos and memories matter so deeply to grieving parents. This piece reframes loss into gentle foresight, reminding readers that simple gestures—sharing a photo, a moment, a memory—offer profound connection. A warm, hopeful invitation to reach out, honour, and keep loved ones present in small, meaningful ways.

Almost every company has an EAP and almost nobody uses it. Typical utilization sits somewhere between three and eight per cent, and low uptake keeps getting read as low need. Chris Coulter on the 500-parent experiment that removed every barrier and produced the same number anyway, what utilization is actually measuring, and what reaches the ninety-five per cent an EAP was never designed to find.

After my 14-year-old daughter Maddie died by suicide, I created a talk called "Wake Up: You Could Lose Your Teen to Suicide." Four parents signed up. The school cancelled. Most parents believe "that would never happen in our family." But 40% of teens experience significant mental health changes during adolescence—and many won't tell their parents. The warning signs were there. I just didn't know what I was looking at.

You did the hard part. You noticed, you had the conversation, your teenager agreed. Then you called, and somebody gave you a number of months. Chris Coulter on the teen mental health waitlist nobody prepares Canadian families for: the two queues nobody explains, the wait that happens before the wait, what the months cost with a kid who just took a risk on you, and what can happen in the gap.

I checked my net worth the way other people check the weather. It was in the millions, on paper, and it wasn't pride so much as proof. Then a business failed, a marriage ended, and Maddie died. Chris Coulter on what he'd confused with his own worth, why teenagers are learning the same habit faster than we did, and the one question worth asking a fourteen-year-old instead of asking what's next.

I believed my daughter would tell me if something was wrong. Not confidence. Something closer to how you believe the floor will hold. Every quiet week, every look I couldn't read, went through that filter and came back fine. Chris Coulter on why teenagers often hide more from the parents they're closest to, what that belief was really doing, and the question to ask when your teenager won't talk to you.

While my daughter was in a psychiatric unit, I felt something close to safe. There was a building with staff in it. When she came home, the fear arrived properly, and my sons were in that house for every hour of it. What the reversal does to the other children, why nobody catches it, and what helps more than a big conversation. (

My daughter told me the truest thing she ever said while we were driving home from swim practice. Nothing about that conversation was planned, and that was the point. Sitting across a desk and asking someone to be honest puts them on a stage. Teenagers read it instantly and so do employees. This is about why the check-in fails, and where real answers actually happen.

When an employee breaks down in your office, your instinct is to fix it, hand over a resource, or route them to HR. In the first moment, each one makes it worse. This is a manager's guide to what to actually say when someone shares a personal struggle at work: the first line that keeps them in the room, the small choices to offer, the follow-up three days later, and the two instincts to kill on the spot. No clinical skill required.

Chris Coulter thought his daughter Maddie was just being a teenager. Eye rolls, silence, withdrawal. He told himself it was a phase. One night he found her at a party in distress. He told her tomorrow would be a new day. That night she attempted suicide. This article is about what he missed, what he's learned since, and why he built The Mentor Well — a mentorship platform for teens and families navigating mental health challenges. Includes free tools and resources for parents.

An employee breaks down in a manager's office, and the manager's instinct is to reach for HR. It feels responsible. It's often the worst thing you can do in that moment. This is about the difference between routing someone and staying with them, why "that's HR's job" produces the crises it's meant to prevent, and why noticing your people early is a management skill, not a clinical one.

I run a mental health company, and some days I think we talk about mental health too much. Not for the reason you'd expect. The phrase itself has gone abstract. "We all have mental health" is as useful as "we're all animals," true and inert. This is about why awareness stopped working, why vague conversation feels like too much conversation, and what changes when you get specific.

Someone who mattered to me said I built my audience on the back of my daughter's death. I remember it word for word. Instead of firing back, I took the accusation apart honestly. Yes, Maddie's story reaches people, and I've watched it happen. What the accusation misses is the story I refuse to tell and the families I've never charged. This is about the line between advocacy and exploitation, and who gets to decide where it sits.

People wonder why I still talk about my daughter. She died in 2015, she was fourteen, and there's a quiet expectation that a dead child gets a shorter runway than a living one. This is my answer. It's about who Maddie actually was, the videos she left behind without meaning to, what it costs me to tell her story, and why the silence people offer out of kindness is the hardest part.

Four parents signed up for my teen suicide prevention talk. The school cancelled it, and I spent six months deciding the parents who stayed home were in denial. I was wrong. A sign-up sheet is a public act. You can be deeply worried about your teenager and still not want your name on a list in the school office. Here is what I learned running these sessions since, and what to do when you are quietly worried.

Most teenagers come through the teenage years. That statistic means nothing to the parent checking their child is breathing before work. This is what a teenage mental health crisis looks like from the parent's side: the bracing, the silence, the fear they cannot say out loud. Written by a father who lost his daughter, for parents living it and the people who love them.

Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace reports engagement at a record low, with managers declining fastest. Most wellbeing vendors respond with another engagement initiative. Chris Coulter argues the real driver sits outside the survey's reach: the struggling teen, the aging parent, the divorce, the debt, the unspoken grief your people carry to work and never mention. Here is what employers miss, why managers are breaking, and what asking actually looks like.

After losing his daughter, Chris Coulter watched his psychological profile become obsolete overnight. The decisive, driven results were gone. He blamed adult ADHD, his medication, early dementia, even mould in his coffee, before his doctor named the real cause. This post covers what grief does to memory, concentration and motivation, and why forgetting a passcode does not mean you are losing your mind.