Stress has become a prominent factor in all of our lives due to the complications of living in a fast-paced society in which we are faced with a multitude of daily intrusions on our inner peace. "Inner peace?" you ask. "What's that?" Precisely. For parents, the stress is played out day after day as we struggle to meet economic demands (which often means that both parents work), find affordable day-care, deal with schools, teachers, our kids' homework and academic struggles, etc.

The "terrible twos" conjures up a picture of a raging toddler pitching a very loud tantrum in the seat of a shopping cart in the grocery store while her very distraught mother (or father) frantically tries to soothe or distract him (maybe shoving cookies in his mouth) as others look on disapprovingly with looks that say "Can't you control your child?" If you've been a parent of a young child, you have probably experienced something along these lines at some time or another when your child was in her second or third year.

The relationship between a mother and her son has supplied novelists and screenplay writers with subject material for many years. And as is often the case, fiction is based on situations that are true to life, which is why we can relate to them. The truth is, the relationship between mothers and their sons is a special one. Beginning in early childhood, a very strong bond is established in which the mother becomes the little boy's object of tremendous feelings of love and affection.

"The point of no return." That sounds a little ominous, but actually it's quite appropriate when we speak about the beginning of adolescence. It's not so much that we are moving into difficult territory, but more that the initiation of adolescence marks the beginning stages of the child's journey into adulthood, which once started, cannot really be halted or reversed. Once a child is beset with the physical changes of puberty, childhood as he or she knew it, and as you knew it, is gone.

A common myth about adolescence is that it is necessarily a very stormy period in one's development. Research has not verified this view for the majority of teens, but rather calls it a period of exploration and experimentation as one moves toward adulthood. Another myth to be dispelled is the belief that adolescents need to be detached from their parents in order to develop their own identities. This particular viewpoint leads parents to the conclusion that teenagers need to be left alone for the most part, and that peers should be the primary group to which they relate.