One of the conversations that has become very familiar to me over the summer is how different our teenagers can be when their friends are around. Their friends come to stay for a few days and suddenly the house is not good enough, the food is not good enough, where we live is boring. It can come across as ungrateful, or spoiled, which feels really hard when we have put in the effort and the money to give them a good experience. As a parent it is really easy to take this personally so it helps to know what’s going on underneath it. Lisa Damour talks about teenagers building a brand. A big part of being a teenager is working out who you are with your friends, separate from who you are with your family. That version of themselves is something they care about and want to protect. So, when their friends are in our house, they start seeing their home life the way their friends might see it, and noticing the bits that don’t fit the version of themselves they want to be. It ...