Ask Amy: Don't expect teen to expand their perspective

Dear Amy: Last year one of my sister's children came out to me as trans. "S" asked to stay with me because of the trauma of being around their mostly conservative and media-illiterate family.

S has been living with my husband and me for a year. In many ways having S stay with us has been an amazing opportunity for growth, but I continually run afoul of S by talking about commonalities in our experiences.

S rebuffs me when I try to communicate about my own experiences. As someone on my own mental health journey, I find this incredibly hurtful.

I get that I have never experienced what it is to be trans, but I do understand various other aspects of trauma, and I want to talk about it. I know I need to be "the adult" in the situation, but it's painful when my experiences aren't accepted as valid.

I've found S a therapist, while I am still looking for one myself. My husband and I have invested so much it trying to get S to a stable and healthy place, but interactions often leave me feeling regressed to previous levels of self-doubt and frustration.

I am trying to treat S the way I would want to be treated. How do I get through to S that I need to be treated the same?

Amy says: First of all, thank you for being a hero to this young person. What you are doing is huge.

You are expecting to have a series of rich and rewarding dialogues with S in which you relate by sharing your own experiences and where you both benefit from a deep and enlightening relationship. But a typical 18-year-old mainly wants to narrate their own life. When they talk (and it's great when they talk), they're monologuing more than dialoguing.

People at this age are at the cusp of emerging fully in the world, and before they do so, they want to get their story straight. This helps them settle into their identity while they're still safe. This would be especially important to a trans person.

You should continue to provide a loving, safe and stable home. Listen with patience and compassion, without insisting (or expecting) that S should relate to you on your level.

Dear Amy: Our daughter in college has let us know that she has a "serious" boyfriend she would like us to meet. He is coming to visit over the holiday break.

We are, of course, eager to meet him, but my wife and I are very nervous about this. What if we don't like him?

Your daughter has chosen him. Don't grill him. Don't test him. Understand that he will be nervous, too. And afterward, do not make any negative comments about him to your daughter.

Dear Amy: I can't believe that you neglected to tell the teacher who was trying to identify a child who left a valuable collection in her classroom a few years ago that she should consult the school's yearbooks. It was so obvious!

Amy says: I agree that it was obvious. That's why I didn't suggest it.