“When is the right time to introduce my girlfriend/boyfriend to my kids?” is a question single parents frequently ask.

Question: My 8-year-old son is the youngest in his third-grade class. Some students are more than a year older because most parents are holding back boys these days. I am concerned because he is really struggling socially. He says he has only one friend who is also younger and kind of immature. Should we consider holding him back a grade to see if that helps?

Question: Our 4-year old is fairly well behaved but her best friend is definitely not. We just got back from a weekend trip with that family, and I was constantly embarrassed at my daughter’s behavior. She did whatever her friend did, like running down the hall at the hotel, yelling and laughing all the while. Furthermore, because he doesn’t listen to his parents at all, she didn’t listen to us either. How would you handle that? We are really good friends with his parents, but they really don’t seem to parent the same we do or expect from their son what we expect of our daughter.

Question: Our 15-year-old son, a high-school sophomore, was an honor student until he got to high school and took up with a group of kids who think good grades are “uncool.” As a result, his grades have been in the tank all year (and most of last year). We put him on slight restriction after his first report card, but nothing changed. For the past three months, he’s been on full restriction: no social life, no outside activities (unless at our church), and no cell phone, television, computer (unless absolutely necessary for schoolwork), or video games. All the things he loves have been stripped. He now tells us that nothing he does ever satisfies us, our expectations are too high, and that he’s resigned to living like this forever. Have we gone overboard? Would restoring some of his privileges motivate him to do better?