Welcome back to feeding the mouth that bites you, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world.

I'm Cynthia Yanov, and as always, I'm joined by psychologist and author Dr. Ken Wilgus.

Dr. Ken. Cynthia. Dr. Ken.

Cynthia. Hi. We're back. How are you? Are you good? Yeah, I think I'm good. It's been a couple of months. We've been doing this, right? Like, we haven't been shut down from the airwaves. No, there was that one threat, but that turned out to be mostly okay. Turned out that was my husband. Those happen a lot.

It doesn't happen a lot, no.

You know what we're talking about today is adult friendship and you know, mostly okay. Turned out that was my husband. Those happen a lot. It doesn't happen a lot.

No. You know what we're talking about today is adult friendship and you know how you always introduce me?

Yes, your new best friend. If you just met her, Cynthia is going to be your best friend.

Jessica and I both were just like after we first interviewed you, we're like, that girl is the funest girl ever. She's everyone's best friend. Well, that is so nice and gracious. I believe that my actual real good friends probably would not agree that I'm always that much fun. But since we're talking about adult friendship, I just wanted to know if you wanted to mute your mic and I would just take, just kidding, I would just take this one over. Just take this one. Yeah, no. It is true. This is the thing you're good at. Well, thank you at times. Adult friendship. And we're just going to kick it off with this. And I want to, I want to tell you about an article I read, but before we even get even get there why does it matter people are listening to this for like help with their young adults

and teens like who cares about my own friends it doesn't matter I don't who cares about friends

two major reasons I'm glad you asked the first one if you're raising a teenager and certainly

if you're getting anywhere close to your last teenager,

you really need to be prepared for when they're gone.

And you cannot do that by just saying, I'll be fine, you go ahead.

This is particularly true for single moms, that just saying I'm okay, a teenager can sense where your emotional needs are coming from. And if you're married, I certainly, and that's a whole different thing we go around about and need to go around about. Your marriage needs to be fulfilling and you don't wait until the kids are gone.

But marriage has never been a complete source of companionship.

So to prepare yourself, this is a time to for sure when you have teenage kids, really reinforce

your friendships because you need to be prepared for your teenagers leaving.

You know, parents will say it's so great, my teenager is my best friend.

And I'll even say, not their only best friend.

And they're like, no, oh, good.

And by the way, is your teenager your best friend?

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