You know that look.

School has not fully started, or it just did, and your teen or young adult already looks like they ran a marathon in their head. Quieter at dinner. Weirdly snippy about the schedule. “I’m fine,” delivered with the energy of someone who is very much not fine.

If that is your house right now, you are not crazy. And they are not being dramatic for sport.

The pressure got here early. Rude of it, honestly.

what parents are actually seeing

It does not always look like a meltdown. Meltdowns would at least come with a clear plot.

It looks like:

- Big feelings about small things (the wrong cereal becomes a whole event)

- Scrolling that is somehow both rest and not rest

- “I don’t know” on loop when you ask about the year

- A beautiful plan on paper and zero spark behind the eyes

- A kid who is physically on the couch and mentally already in third period

A country song, a car ride, and the moment I realized my kids had actually launched.

I have heard Jordan Davis's "The Next Thing You Know" more times than I can count. It is a great song. One of those that plays in the background of a summer afternoon and makes you feel warm and a little nostalgic without really stopping you in your tracks.

Until this summer. Until it came on in the car and I felt the tears coming before I even knew why.

Why now?

Maybe because it is summer — my favorite time of year — and for the first time, everyone is off doing their thing. No one took a collective pause. No big family dinners, no lazy mornings, no kids wandering in and out of the kitchen.

This summer, my kids are living.

One is at an internship, diving headfirst into ten weeks of work he has no roadmap for, just drive and willingness to figure it out. One flew to London all alone and found his way to the Airbnb, and is taking a class abroad. And my youngest, my baby, chose to spend nine days at a nursing leadership conference at Duke, staying in a dorm full of strangers, nervous about her roommate, moving forward anyway.

All of them, stepping out. All of them, thriving.

And I am sitting in the car crying to a country song, wondering: how did we get here?

It started with a text from my daughter. "Mom, want to come to the beach with us?"

Did I have things to do? Absolutely. Did I drop all of them? Without hesitation.

This has been a dream of mine! To be the kind of person who says yes first and figures the rest out later. And summer, with its long days and loose schedule, feels like the universe's invitation to actually live that way.

So off we went. Me, my daughter, and her friends. That car ride alone was worth it!! Being included in their conversations, their laughter, their world for just a little while. Watching those girls at the ocean, giggling and daring each other to cold plunge into absolutely freezing water? My heart was so full. My daughter is getting older. She could have driven herself and her friends. Maybe she was being lazy. Or maybe — just maybe — she wanted me there. Either way, I showed up and I will take it.

I came home sunburned in exactly the spots I always miss. Without fail. Every single time.

And before I could even sit down, my son asked if I wanted to play tennis.

Yes. Obviously yes.

This week, I had a  session with a client that I'm still thinking about. One of those conversations that reminds you why this work matters so much.

She came in talking about her friends. Lots of them. Group chats, weekend plans, people who knew her name and the whole thing looked like connection on the outside. But when I asked her how she felt in those friendships, she paused. And in that pause, everything shifted.

"I have so many friends," she said, "but none of them really know me."

That's a heavy thing to carry. Surrounded by people and still lonely. It's more common than we talk about,  especially for teens, and honestly, for a lot of adults too.

So we started asking some questions. Not questions I had the answers to, but questions she needed to sit with:

What do you think is holding you back from the connections you actually want?

Why do you keep people at arm's length?

What would it mean to let someone get close?

Something cracked open. She started to see it,  that she wasn't just lacking deep friendships. She was blocking them. Energetically, unconsciously, she was keeping the very thing she wanted at a distance.

Your teen is glued to their phone — so why won't they text you back?

They are attached to their phone. Seriously — they cannot put it down. You watch them snapping, scrolling, liking, laughing. And then you send a simple text and get... nothing. Nada. Silence.

So what do you do with that? Do you feel disrespected? Do you assume they're actively ignoring you? Does the frustration quietly build until you're texting again, and again — just to get a single reply?

Believe me, I totally get it.

Just the other day, my husband texted our boys asking one of them to pick him up at the train station at 6:40 pm. No response. He's on the train wondering: Are they coming? Did they even see this? Am I about to be standing on hot blacktop in 90-degree heat?

So he did what any reasonable husband would do, he texted me. I checked in with our son, who already had the keys in his hand and heading out to pick up my husband. When I asked Luke why he hadn't responded to his dad, his answer stopped me in my tracks:

"I read the text and I am taking care of it."

No disrespect. No ignoring. Just done. He read it, he handled it, he moved on. The response was the action.

And our daughter has officially lost her only-child era.

They're home. The bags are dropped, the fridge is already half gone, and there is a smell coming from those dorm bins that I cannot fully describe but will say this — it has personality. A whole lot of it. Welcome back, boys.

My daughter, bless her heart, had a full year of being the only kid in the house. She had our undivided attention, the remote control, full access to the car, and a level of peace and quiet she has never in her life experienced before. And now she is watching two brothers barrel back through the front door with questionable laundry, zero concept of personal space, and the audacity to act like they never left — and she is adjusting like a champ!

In all seriousness, watching all three of them find their footing in this new version of our family has been one of the unexpected joys of this season. The dynamic shifts. The house gets louder. Somebody is always in somebody else's way. And honestly? I missed every single bit of it.

Now, this first year of college was something else. Both of them grew in ways I genuinely couldn't have predicted. Different schools, different experiences, totally different paths, and yet they both came home standing a little taller. They studied hard, played hard, and collected some life lessons along the way that no parent could have taught them from the kitchen table. Those lessons only come from being on your own, living inside your own choices, and figuring out who you are when nobody who loves you is watching.

— And How It Can Change Everything —

Parenting a teenager or young adult can feel like navigating uncharted waters. One day they seem confident and ready to take on the world and the next, they are stuck, overwhelmed, or pulling away. If you've been noticing a shift and wondering whether something more is going on, you're not alone.

A life coach isn't a therapist, a tutor, or a replacement for you as a parent. Think of it as adding a powerful ally to your teen's success team. Someone who meets them where they are, without judgment, and helps them build the skills, clarity, and confidence they need to truly flourish.

7 Signs Your Teen Might Be Ready for a Life Coach

These aren't red flags, they're growth opportunities waiting to happen.