What do you do when you have spoken to your child about choosing their friends wisely, about making good decisions, and then you find out that they are hanging out with friends who are making bad decisions and very bad choices? Still worried about your teen's friends? Focus on your relationship with your teen and communicating your concerns directly. Chances are your teen is hanging out with these friends because they feel accepted and understood. Try listening rather than lecturing. Spend time with your son or daughter.

Aoife, now 20, remembers. So from age 13 to 15, you head for McDonalds and stand outside with your friends, meeting people, boys, from other schools, yap yap yap all afternoon. All you do is talk and listen to boys telling the same stories over and over again. It's a familiar scene, not just in Dublin, but in cities and bigger towns around the country. It's innocent, probably harmless enough, but - for parents - scary. Many parents have problems loosening the reins as children move to teenagerhood - Aoife's mother is much less strict with her 13 year old sister than she was with Aoife on the Grafton Street issue - and now they have fears about drugs and violence as well. Kathleen Kelleher, senior clinical psychologist with the Mater Dei Institute, says "hanging out" is much more an issue for parents than it was 10 years ago.

The parents of those other kids are probably saying the same thing about your child. The old saying is true: birds of a feather do flock together. When kids enter adolescence, they employ a way of looking at the world in which their friends are more important than anybody else. It adds to the flavor of the relationship.

We think he's still too young to be spending so much time with the young ladies. In his young teen years we would prefer him to be playing ball with guys his age. A: The response depends upon how your child fits in with other kids his age, especially at school. Your son may be more comfortable talking on the phone with girls as well as engaging in social activities, rather than playing ball or hanging out with guys his age. There's nothing wrong with this, especially if the young ladies are appropriate, good and loyal friends.