Grown & Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults

Research confirms that the role parents play in the later part of their children’s lives—from the final days of childhood to the threshold of adulthood—is as important as any other life stage. And this is precisely the time our parenting experts and community abandons us.

When our kids become teenagers, we no longer enter the pediatrician’s office with them. We don’t interact with their teachers as often. We’re not supposed to talk to their coaches or advisors—that’s up to them to do. Our parenting friends from elementary school and little league disband at this time. Once teens start driving, we don’t get to meet the parents of friends as we used to do so naturally. The problems teens and young adults may face require respecting their privacy, driving us further into isolation.

Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington started Grown and Flown seven years ago out of necessity. They were parenting teens themselves and often felt isolated with their problems. Unmoored from the close-knit baby and early childhood parenting groups and playdate interactions, they discovered the teen and young-adult parenting years were conspicuously devoid of resources and community.

Today Grown and Flown is recognized as the #1 website and online community for parents of teens, college students, and young adults. Featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Money, People, and Today, Grown and Flown’s content is updated daily with contributions from 500 writers that include parents, experts, physicians, student advisors, psychologists, and educators.

Lisa and Mary Dell’s new book, Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults, is a one-stop resource for parenting and launching teens and young adults. Organized by topic—family life; mental health; love and sex; academics; college admissions; separating and letting go; college life; and more— the book draws expert advice from physicians, psychologists, educators, and writers. The book features insights from FAN speakers Lisa Damour, Ph.D. (FAN ’19), Lori Gottlieb, (FAN ’19); Ken Ginsburg, MD (FAN ’11), Frank Bruni (FAN ’15), and Rachel Simmons (FAN ’18), among others.

In their past incarnations, Mary Dell worked on television and media, and Lisa had a career that included Wall Street, politics, and writing. Lisa is a New York Times bestselling author of three books, including Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success.