Practices

Support does not have to stop at eighteen. Plan for it to thin out gradually through the twenties, at a level everyone has agreed rather than one that gets argued over every month.

A workable version names three things: what is still being helped with, how much, and when you will look at it again. Every six months is usually…

A bridge year can be a deferred place, a course at the local college, a job, or a stretch of genuinely doing very little. That last one is a real option and not a refusal to choose.

For someone who has just come apart, a fresh demand can restart the same collapse, so a few months with nothing scheduled is sometimes the…

Skipping weekends, holidays and summers is a common suggestion and mostly it is the wrong call. The difficulty does not take a holiday when school does.

Unstructured time asks more of planning and self-regulation rather than less: whole days to fill, everyone at home, no timetable holding the shape of…

Stopping medication rises sharply in the early teenage years. If that is where you are, it helps to know this is the usual pattern rather than a sign that something has gone wrong with your child.

The pull is understandable: wanting to be in charge of your own body, hating being the one who is different, and a parent no longer standing over the…