Ask Amy: Friend worries about best friend’s isolation

Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on May 18, 2021

I have three daughters also, and have always made sure everybody knows boundaries with respect to their bodies. How can I argue with him?

How can I make an 18-year-old boy understand it's not all about him?

– Bullet-proof's Mom

Dear Mom: Your 18-year-old’s behavior is typical of an older adolescent: conveying his immaturity and poor judgment through arrogance.

This is what compels young people to drink and drive, engage in risky sex, and ignore common sense and their parents’ entreaties.

Unfortunately, the more you focus on him — talking, bribing, and begging – the more you convey that it really IS all about him.

Stop.

At some point, he’ll likely try to join a university or workplace that will require proof of vaccination. And then he’ll come running to you to hold his hand while he gets his “ouchy.”

Dear Amy: I am responding to "Frustrated" who wondered why so many middle-age folks/baby boomers are resistant to mental healthcare, while millennials are open to it.

I am a baby boomer and I just lost my beautiful, kind, millennial nephew to suicide. No one, except perhaps his mother, knew of his mental illness.

I've also read statistics that show suicide rates among millennials are rising. Mental health is a crisis in this country and needs to be addressed.

– Sad Aunt

Dear Aunt: I agree with you. I let “Frustrated” express his point of view without challenging them appropriately. In fact, recent research shows that millennials—people born from roughly 1981 to 1996—are more likely to die prematurely from suicide and drug overdoses than previous generations were.

========

(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)