DR. WALLACE: My husband and I are estranged from our 19-year-old son. He will turn 20 in June and that will mark two years of noncommunication between him and us. We got into a nasty argument with him when he was about 17 and a half. He literally counted the days down until he turned 18 so that he could move out of our house.

I remember he had a calendar up in his room and he would cross off the days as each went by. He had a big red circle around June 22, his birthday.

My husband told me to just let him go and perhaps someday he'll contact us. But recently I heard through the grapevine at my job that he's dating one of the daughters of one of my co-workers, and this co-worker tells me he's a perfect gentleman and gets along with her daughter and her family extremely well.

I'd like to reach out to my son, but I also want to respect my husband's wishes, so I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it surreptitiously. Do you feel enough time has passed for everyone to forgive each other? I'm very sad to have not talked with my son. — Sad Mother, via email

SAD MOTHER: First, I don't think there's any statute regarding the amount of time to wait to contact a family member who is estranged, and in fact, common sense tells me that anytime is a good time to reach out if said contact is done thoughtfully and respectfully.

You also have the advantage of being friendly with your co-worker and having some inside information, so I advise you to utilize that information to your advantage, and hopefully to the advantage of your entire family.

I agree with you that you should not contact your son behind your husband's back; my advice is to tell your husband in advance you plan to contact your son so that he will not be surprised when you do so. You have every right to be able to make your own decision regarding your own personal relationship with your son, irrespective of your husband's decision on what he wishes to do. You might ask him to join you in communicating with your son, but if he declines to do so, I advise you to follow through on your own desire to do so.

I'VE MADE SOME FRIENDS, BUT THEY SEEM HOLLOW

DR. WALLACE: I'm naturally shy, but lately I've decided that I'm going to try to be more sociable and make some friends. I'm a 16-year-old girl and my problem is that I've now made friends with four new girls, but all of these girls seem to be the types who aim to be friends with everyone. They literally join every club on our high school campus and they always talk about how many friends they have.

Even though I appreciate knowing these girls, I still come away feeling pretty hollow about the actual friendships. How can I meet better friends, or at least one or two other girls that might want to focus more on me rather than simply adding me to a list of 50 girls they know? — Seeking Quality Not Quantity, via email

SEEKING QUALITY NOT QUANTITY: Take out a piece of paper and write down everything you can think of about yourself. Write down your habits, your tendencies, your fashion style, your interests, your hobbies and any other thing that makes you the unique, special human being that you are.

Then seek to find others at your school that seem to match up to some of the items on your list. Often good friendships evolve after starting out from an overlap of common interests, tendencies or hobbies.

When you notice another potential new friend that has something in common with you, approach her with a question and be prepared to converse about that topic.

If you can repeat this idea with a handful of potential friends, it will likely not be too long until you find a friend that you can relate to in more depth, and one that can relate to you in the same way.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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