Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something interesting about teen relationships. They seem to have become, well, relationships again. Over the past several years, there has been a trend toward hanging out in packs, with allowances for occasional “hook-ups” within the group – typically not very serious stuff. In the past few months, however, I have heard the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” from teens more than I have in years.

I think I like this trend. It’s what I grew up with, and crushes and first loves were, in retrospect, such an important part of the teen years, and they often set the stage for future intimate relationships. Of course, the dynamics are so different today. In that far-off yester-year, our connections were semi-private and audible: we spent hours on the phone tending to these couplings. Today’s hang-out is uber-public and digital: our teens are texting, or staring at their partner’s Facebook page, waiting for the update that makes them feel loved and wanted: “Jason is AWESOME:)!!!!!.” Dozens of relationship updates might be posted publicly every day, a constant refresh on the on-line billboard announcing, and re-announcing, the supernatural power of the one perfect love that will never die.

Until it does.

We all remember that first break-up, don’t we? Perhaps you recall a gradual chill in the affect, fewer spontaneous calls, that nearly imperceptible breach in etiquette when he failed to walk you to class one day. Or maybe it was out of the blue. Or you found out he was into somebody else. Somehow, there was an undeniable shift.

That still happens today. The break-up is timeless.

The high school break-up is all-but-inevitable, by all accounts an important rite-of-passage. But man, it is also so very painful. I often hear how out-of-touch teens today are with their emotions. I’m so less concerned with that then I used to be. Because when they break up, they FEEL it.

So, what are parents supposed to do? I think we have a tendency to want to make our child feel better about break-ups immediately, the old: “You’re better off without him” or “I never really cared for her.” In a best effort to lift her son’s post-break-up blues, one mom offered simply, “She’s a slut.”

To their great credit, I’m finding many teens do not need their parent (or anyone else, for that matter), to “take down” their recent ex. In fact, most seem to harbor ongoing love and respect for said ex, along with some fairly sophisticated ambivalence about the break-up itself.

No, I find that most teens just need to talk it through, work it out. They need an ear. Solutions are not important, and may not exist. More often, teenagers need a venue to express their feelings fully and honestly. Herein lies a killer parenting opportunity!

Let her tell you how tough it is to be without him. Let him work through the fact that he both hates her, and wants her back. Let her cry on your shoulder, literally if need be. You don’t need to talk your teen out of any of this, and trying to talk them out of their feeling is worse than a waste of breath. It breaches the communication between you.

If your parent happened to have been available for you in this way, don’t you remember it fondly? If they did not, wouldn’t it have been nice for you if they had?

For we parents of teens, the break-up fallout provides the perfect opportunity for an “Ask, don’t tell” policy.