Q: My daughter is a senior and going to college in the fall. She is very sad and distressed about saying good-bye to her boyfriend of a year and a half. I’ve tried to make her feel better by reassuring her that she’ll find another great guy in college but that doesn’t seem to work. This is a part of life and she has to move on.

A: As someone who has had more experience, you know that she will meet another person at some point. With this said, conveying that “there are more fish in the sea” tends to minimize a year-and-a-half relationship, which for a teen feels like a lifetime. Saying anything that minimizes this relationship, such as, “you can’t fall in love when you are so young, you don’t know what love is; he was your first boyfriend, you’ll have many more, get over it already“ will only land you in hot water. Try your best to see this relationship as a meaningful, deep and defining experience for your teen. Don’t judge or compare it to an adult relationship. In addition, allow your teen to mourn the loss of this relationship rather than seek a replacement to get over the hurt and loneliness.