This article follows the Direct Message methodology, designed to cut through the noise and reveal the deeper truths behind the stories we live. Navigating the parent-adult child relationship can be ...

The night before my 12-year-old daughter’s first overnight camping trip, I desperately wanted to unzip her suitcase to count how many socks she had packed. My kid showed me the packing list with every ...

If a child never has any clear boundaries and no one guides them toward understanding what being respectful looks like.

Enmeshment is a very complicated dynamic. Let's face it. Being a parent is a complicated job, and nobody does it perfectly. Yet some mistakes are harder to see than others. What's one of them? When ...

Dear Eric: “Jane” and I have been friends since elementary school and were even college roommates for a year. Her parents treated me as part of their family throughout our childhood, teens and ...