I Had Maddie for Fourteen Years
Chris Coulter lost his daughter Maddie in 2015, when she was 14. For about ten years he carried one sentence: her life was taken from him. Anger and guilt came with it. What loosened it were the stories other kids told him about Maddie, including how she stood up for a swim teammate. A father’s honest account of anger, gratitude after losing a child, and why the anger still visits.
I Made the Rules. My Kids Lived With Them
Chris Coulter, founder of The MentorWell, looks back on five parenting mistakes he'd take back. He made house rules alone, broke his own phone rules and fixed problems his kids only wanted heard. He also reacted to what his teenager told him before he reacted to her. For parents of teens wondering how to talk to a teenager without them shutting down, and how to share the rule-making without giving up the final say.
The Photo That Never Changes
In January 2017, twenty-one months after my daughter Maddie died at fourteen, I wrote about the photos on my fridge. Everyone else's get swapped out at the end of the school year. Hers does not. Nine years on, I'm putting the piece back up unchanged, with one correction: I was wrong about what her brothers were carrying, and wrong about why.
We Told Everyone It Was Her Stomach
Maddie was in the youth psychiatric ward in North York. Twice. Her friends would call the house and I'd tell them she had a stomach thing and would be home soon. She asked me to keep it quiet and I did. Chris Coulter on the two months nobody visited, why a broken back fills a room and this doesn't, and the decision he never realised he was making.
The Kids Who Never Cause Problems Worry Me the Most
Every parent keeps a mental list of the kid they worry about. The kid who never causes problems isn't on it. Chris Coulter on why high achievers, helpers, and conflict-avoiders are the hardest to read, how to know when to worry about teenage behaviour that looks perfect from the outside, and four questions that help you get your teenager to open up before "fine" becomes a wall.
Grief Doesn’t Follow a Schedule
Grief does not arrive on anniversaries and leave the rest of the year alone. It arrives in aisle seven. Eleven years after losing his daughter Maddie, Chris Coulter writes about what it means to stop being surprised by it.