Tonight with your 13 to 17 year old

The prompt

“How do you stay close to a friend who moved away or switched schools?”

What to listen for

If they describe active effort, texting, planned calls, visits, they value that friendship enough to maintain it deliberately, which shows real commitment to people who matter to them.

If they say the friendship has faded despite effort, let them talk about that loss without minimizing it, distance genuinely changes friendships, and that's a real grief worth acknowledging.

A "we don't really talk much anymore" said without much emotion might just be an honest, neutral update, not something that needs fixing.

What this tells you

How they maintain, or let go of, a distant friendship shows you what loyalty and connection mean to them in practice, not just in theory.