<p>Oh one thing I saw and can share from my son. Of his "group’ of closest friends, kids that were friends from the elementary years, the junior and senior year were years where the differences between the boys starting spilling over into their personal relationships. From the weathy friend who slid through high school and into college with high test scores and abysmal grades greased by his well known parents, the friend who went to work doing shift work at a factory to earn enough money to go to college “someday”, to the boy who is going off to the local State U, to the boy who managed to get several MIPs and a DUI and spent a couple weeks in jail, to the senior scholar whose divorced parents are so embattled that neither will pay for the public Ivy he got into and he has no idea what he is going to do…there was so much angst, drama, sulleness, depression, happy times and sad times emotionally this year. These boys grew a lifetime emotionally while they really learned about class differences, what being an adult in the eyes of the law really meant, and learned that your friends may be embarking on different paths and while they began to understand that parents really can move mountains…or not. Pretty heavy stuff to cram into a year or two. My son barely talks to his dad although I know he loves him, they just are coming from different places right now, but he talks to me and my heart has been bleeding as I watched him and his friends struggle this year. Do something alone with your boy - go to the mall and buy him clothes or go to dinner just the two of you and see if you can get him to talk…then just listen… you may be able to help him see a path he just can’t see right now. My son tells me to back off plenty and there are days when all he can manage verbally are grunts, but every once in a while the crack opens abit and the very real thoughts spill and those moments are priceless and reassuring that while everything is in turmoil everything is going to be OK.</p>