Prioritizing listening to their child or adolescent is extremely important. It can be very hard to listen to someone who is upset or troubled without offering advice or suggestions or otherwise telling him or her what to do.

Accessing a "professional listener" such as a psychologist or counselor can be useful if the loved one wants to use this form of support.

Demonstrating faith and optimism in the child or adolescent's ability to work things out in their own time and in their own way can be very difficult but it is possible to do this while also offering assistance.

Parents should be able to develop goals about the type of parents they want to be.

One of the most important goals to have may well be the goal to create the life you want without preventing other people from creating the life they want.

Any statements from the parents may seem like criticism or judgment by the child or adolescent. It's very important that the child or adolescent does most of the talking and the parent asks questions curiously to understand the perspective of the child or adolescent.

One of the premises of parenting might be that the job of parents is to teach their kids to get along without them.