After talking with adolescents for many years, I’ve noticed that one of the biggest differences between children isn’t simply what they struggle with, it’s where they instinctively turn when they need guidance.

With younger children, usually through about age 10 or 11, the default is simple: Mom and Dad. If something comes up, they tell their parents. They ask their teacher. They trust the principal. Adults are the experts, and these young children are generally very open to guidance and advice.

On the other end of the spectrum are high school students. By then, they’re developing a much stronger sense of independence. They feel capable of making many decisions on their own. Friends often become their primary sounding board, and many topics never make it to their parents. They still need adult guidance, but they’re far more selective about when they’ll seek it.

What has become increasingly striking to me over the years is how unique the middle school years are. The span from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade – roughly ages 12 to 14 – is a remarkable developmental window. Children are beginning to think independently. They’re asking bigger questions, forming their own opinions, and realizing they don’t have to simply accept everything they’ve been told. Some psychologists refer to this shift as the “Santa Claus moment,” the moment when children realize that the Santa they believed came down the chimney doesn’t exist.

I’ve been working with adolescents and parents for over 20 years. Through my work, my own experiences with my parents, and my experiences raising my own children, I’ve noticed something that comes up again and again.

Most parents are trying incredibly hard. They love their children. They sacrifice for their children. They read parenting books. They attend parenting classes. They listen to podcasts. They ask questions. Some of them are so invested in parenting that they even write parenting books.

The challenge is that, like many areas in life, studying something is often much easier than implementing it when the pressure is on. It’s one thing to read about staying calm, validating feelings, and preserving relationships. It’s another thing entirely when the challenge lands in your lap and every emotion inside of you is screaming to react.

Bullying is a complicated topic, but since this is a parenting column, I’d like to focus on how parents can better understand these dynamics and raise children with greater sensitivity and awareness.

The default explanation people often give, one I’ve seen in recent articles, is that a bully is simply an insecure kid who, in order to make himself feel better, puts someone else down. There is definitely some truth to that, but I want to share another very important idea about bullying.

Many years ago, I was driving in the car listening to sports radio. The sportscaster said that he had been heavily bullied by “Michael” in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, all through middle school, and that he was going to call the actual bully live on the air and confront him.

So he calls him and says, “Michael, this is Dave. I’m a sportscaster now, and I just want to let you know that I’ve been carrying this for many years. You bullied me throughout middle school. You ruined my middle school years and really traumatized me.”

I often hear a common story when parents call me to discuss a child they are struggling with. They can usually reminisce and think back to fifth or sixth grade, when the relationship was less challenging and more positive. Now the child is in ninth or tenth grade, and the relationship has regressed. It feels distant, complicated, and tense.

When things are difficult, we need to look at our options. We need to take a breath and give ourselves a sense of empowerment. We are better than our child at complex thinking and problem solving, better at compartmentalizing, and better at navigating what it might take to repair the relationship. Our kids, as much as they crave a good relationship – and I promise you they do – don’t have the bandwidth or the tools to piece it back together and lead the way. As parents, we need to embrace the responsibility that we are the ones who can help move the relationship back to a healthier direction.

The typical situation may look familiar. You have a child you are struggling with. They are not getting up in the morning. They are not meeting expectations. They are not helping around the house. They do not get along with siblings. You are fighting with them. Once in a while, you try to talk and it goes well, but then everything blows up again. There may be consequences, threats, and frustration, and the child spends a lot of time alone in their room. It usually turns into a vicious cycle, and nothing seems to consistently help. At that point, we need to slow down and figure out what is going on and how to help.

From years of working with adolescents, one truth has become very clear to me: One of the most impactful factors in an adolescent’s life, mental health, values, and decisions is the relationship they have with their parents. That relationship can serve as an anchor in a very complicated adolescent world, something I have referenced many times throughout my book Parenting with a Plan, where I expand on the ideas of respect-based and relationship-based parenting.

At the same time, I want to make a point that I hope offers both chizuk and perspective. Even when a relationship with a child is genuinely strong, healthy, honest, respectful, and deeply woven into the parent-child dynamic, there are still other factors that can weaken that protective barrier the relationship has built.

After more than 20 years of living “out of town” and working closely with adolescents and their families, and after tens – if not hundreds of thousands – of conversations with teens and parents through school counseling, nationwide phone calls, and private practice, I can honestly say that I have encountered the full spectrum of mental health realities. But if I pinpoint what I have found to be the single biggest impact, the most important variable in the equation of adolescent mental health and adolescent thriving, it is the ever evolving and deeply unique parent-child relationship.

I am not trying to oversimplify complex situations. I am not trying to place a bandage on larger and broader realities. But I can say, with the full weight of my experience, that the parent-child relationship is the most impactful and meaningful relationship in a child’s life, and even in the most difficult times, it is the relationship children continue to crave.

This article is a brief summary of a few of the themes that I explore more deeply in my upcoming book, Parenting with a Plan, where I discuss the power of relationship- and respect-based parenting, and how the quality of the parent-child connection affects a wide cross section of adolescent life. I want to focus on the basics, and especially on how the parent-child relationship shapes two areas that come up again and again with teenagers: friends and peer pressure.