Welcome back to Feeding the Mouth to Bight 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, how are you? Hi, Cynthia. How are you? All is well over here. You know what? My cup is full, and I'm going to say this because it will lead into what we're going to talk about today. But you recall, I have one kiddo that just graduated from college. It's starting law school. You know, yep. Okay. And then I I have redshirted for a fine law school. Like, please come to us next year. This is a winner. She's a winner. Come to us next year. She'll be taking NIL money for her red shirt year. And yeah. And then I have one that just started college. And then I have my little one. And my oldest is a girl and everybody, gosh, thank goodness for firstborn girls. And she says, will you come meet me for lunch? I'd love to see y'all. I'll be in Temple. Now, if you're in Texas, you realize Temple isn't really close to where I am. That's not close. You must be a wonderful mother that she wants to be with you all the time. Heavens, no. But so we said, let's do this. And then we said to our son, hey, we're going to go meet your sister. Why don't you come from your college and meet us too? To which got an immediate, why? I have a favorite. Oh, I'm sorry. You must be a terrible mother. Right. Which is it? I know. It's the tale of two children is what I'd like to share with everyone. And eventually that one did come. I think he got bribed or threatened by a sister. I'm not sure. But I don't think you're above either of those. Right. Oh, I do either. I don't. Yeah. But I was thinking about this because it was such a moment. Like, I was like so thrilled to get to spend time with everybody in one spot. And we got a listener question that kind of speaks to this too. And I'm going to read it and then I'll and then I'll give, I'll make my point. You can then tell me I'm wrong. So the listener said, hi, Dr. Ken and Cynthia. I've been a fan and listened to both your podcasts for many years and now I'm thrilled that you're joining forces to help us with our teens. I'm struggling a lot lately with my high school senior and the amount of time he actually spends at home. By the way, I wanted to interject he. I thought that was interesting. I'm like, mm-hmm. I know that he needs time away and that is normal for him to want to be with his friends,

but it's still hard. I can go days without seeing him for more than five minutes at a time because

of school, sports, a job, and a girlfriend. He definitely spends more time at her house, the girlfriend,

than he does at his own. He has a lot of freedoms and we only require him to be home on Sunday nights

for family dinner and family time. It breaks my heart when he acts like it's asking too much and then he's grumpy when he's around our family. Overall, great kid. Doing well in school, still going to church even though we've told him that's his choice now. There are many things to be proud of. I guess I just want to know this is normal,

right? Why doesn't anyone tell you that this can be so heartbreaking? And I read that and I thought,

yes and yes, and yes. And the other day when I got to be with both my kids and they were fairly

voluntarily with us, I thought, okay, now some of this comes back around and it is so heartbreaking

in the moment, but I do think it's been my experience and it's limited, albeit, but the way

they are, their senior year in high school is not indicative of anything of what's to come.

So talk to us about that.

Would you agree with that?

I would agree.

Plus, you know, when you read that question, you're talking about a mom, and I think she knows this, you're winning.

You have a senior that is out there.

You know, I'm sure she knows, our listeners know, of seniors that are going nowhere on the weekends and staying in and they think their social

media life is a social life. So, you know, this is the better problem to have comparatively.

Work, school, social life, you know, isn't around much. Yeah. And I think she knows that. The other thing that I think

you're right is I'm not surprised that it's a boy because with girls that are doing well,

it's more likely that she will at least maintain connection more, especially with her mother.

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