As parents of teens and young adults, we’ve witnessed countless trends come and go. But the latest phenomenon sweeping through college campuses and high schools is something we never expected: ...

You might think that since I’m a dean of admissions at a university, that my kids’ experience of applying to college would have been friction free. No. Teenage development includes a predictable ...

A popular meme gushes that mothers sleep better when all the teens are back home under one roof. I bet that meme was created the day those children arrived, or even days before. Because the reality of ...

Grown and Flown was where I first saw the advice about how often to communicate with my college freshman. It was 2018, and we were just about to send the guinea pig off to a university three hours ...

I am standing firmly on the bridge. Not approaching it, not seeing the end of it, but rather right smack in the middle of the bridge and it is agony. I don’t know when I first heard the phrase “Bridge ...

Year after year young voters (18-29) cast ballots in lower numbers than their older counterparts. According to Sunshine Hillygus, a professor at Duke University, despite their high interest in civic ...

After several years of parenting teens and many emotional conflicts along the way, I made a decision. I would no longer argue with my teens. Why? Because, they would always win. Arguments were once ...

On your 18th birthday, I wrote you a love letter that contained all the most important life lessons I knew at the time. Five years later, we have both grown and learned, sometimes the hard way. As you ...

My children (ages 19 and 21) get to make their own decisions—as long as I agree with them. Yes, I said it, and I’m not proud of it. I never intended to be the pushy mom stifling my children’s ...

I gave up asking my almost 15-year-old daughter what she wanted to do for her birthday. After years of her begging me to plan the next party as soon as the other one ended and me assuring her that we ...

When teens and young adults picture social settings, most of them envision physical spaces with their peers, online communication, or possibly family gatherings. Most don’t think about the social ...

When I was fourteen and a freshman in high school, a senior named Danny invited me to his prom. Danny was one of the “cool” kids at Norwalk High; he drove to school (in a Camaro!), smoked in the ...