My 18-year-old stepson frequently comes to our house for the weekend, and his father allows his girlfriend to come spend the night with him. My husband thinks it’s great that his son is having sex, but I keep thinking that the girl is 17, and therefore underage. I’m not sure his mother knows, and it feels like he’s staying here a lot more because his father allows him to bring his girlfriend along. Because it’s my stepson, I don’t feel that I can say anything. Should I? What should I do?

Is your stepson’s girlfriend letting her parents know that she is staying over? Or might they think she is staying at her girlfriend’s house during her sleepovers with your family? Is your stepson using condoms? Is his girlfriend using additional birth control in case the condom breaks? Are you hesitant to speak with your husband? Or your stepson? Or both? Stepparents often tread lightly and worry that their interventions and input may cross a line. But actions that are taking place in your home reflect on you, and you should feel comfortable with activities happening under your roof. I’m convinced there is a productive way to ask some important questions and share your concerns. You have an important role as a stepmother and may be able to help facilitate conversations about sex and relationships that will be therapeutic for everyone.

Read Deborah Roffman’s books “Sex and Sensibility” and “Talk to Me First” for strategies to facilitate open discussions about sex and sexuality with teenagers. “I’d Listen to My Parents if They’d Just Shut Up” by Dr. Anthony Wolf would also be a useful resource to prepare for what may be a series of overdue conversations. You don’t need to read any of these books cover-to-cover to prepare for your approach to a discussion; instead, think of the books as ongoing points of reference. It sounds like it will be important to speak first with your husband and then, together, with your stepson.

It is reasonable (and respectful) to raise concerns about behavior taking place without your stepson’s mother’s knowledge. If it turns out she is unaware that her teenage son is having sex, and you are accommodating your stepson’s sexual relationship behind her back, this secrecy could damage the dynamic between all of you for many years to come. There may be additional background that has informed your husband’s decision to keep her out of the loop, but it is worth gaining personal clarity on this topic. It is also reasonable to ask that you and your husband discuss your stepson’s sleepovers with his girlfriend’s parents. If they are not aware of the sleepovers, this may be quite complicated, but that’s all the more reason that an honest, respectful conversation is long overdue. If your husband has not talked directly with your stepson about his decision to enter a sexual relationship, that conversation is very important. He may prefer that certain facets of the discussion about his sexual activity take place between the two of them, and the books mentioned above can be wonderful resources to prepare for a meaningful conversation.

Each summer, Elio’s father (an archaeology professor) hires a research assistant to work and live with the family. When the dashing and entitled Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives on the scene, his American attitude clashes a bit with Elio’s family who seem charmed by his flamboyant looks but overwhelmed by his cavalier demeanor. Elio (Timothee Chalamet) is seventeen years-old and absolutely stunning. Elio and Oliver’s sexual chemistry sparks quickly but remains subtle and subdued, until it explodes. The Italian countryside in which the tale unfolds infuses an passionate clique of characters with joy and abandon.

The film’s title, Call Me By Your Name, alludes to how same-sex relationships involve special challenges with respect to identity and the emotional task of balancing separateness and togetherness. Romantic partners sharing the same gender can more easily blend into one. Nevertheless, this entrancing love story is ultimately more about individuality and coming of age than it is about separateness or togetherness.

The plot is not concerned with gender so much as it is with the passion and abandon of young, forbidden love. The scenes building up to Elio and Oliver’s affair are as sensual as the sparks that fly once the relationship becomes physical. Each scene is as visual and tactile as the next. But the film’s closing conversation between Elio and his father is especially memorable. As a therapist who works with many therapy clients who are eager to explore relationships with their parents or with their teenage children, the insight and honesty that flows between father and son is extraordinary. Elio’s father speaks to Elio with palpable respect, candor and honesty. His wisdom and perception stuns, as he offers a template for fatherly discourse that is as instructive as it is inspiring.

Elizabeth Olsen plays FBI agent Jane Banner, who is called to the Native American Wind River reservation in Wyoming following Cory Lambert’s (a respected local wildlife tracker played convincingly by Jeremy Renner) discovery of the dead body of a teenage girl. Lambert has quickly realized the dead girl is Natalie – his teenage daughter’s best friend. Lambert’s daughter had also mysteriously died a few years earlier.

Because murders on Native American land are federal crimes, the FBI dispatches Banner, who is woefully ill-equipped to navigate the terrain (she arrives, in the depth of winter, in a windbreaker). Banner makes up for her youth and naiveté through grit, bravery and determination. Her seriousness as a strong and believable character is compounded by the lack of romance between Banner and Lambert despite the intense circumstances of the terrain and the close proximity these characters enjoy throughout the investigation.

Wind River was therapeutic mother-daughter viewing for unexpected reasons beyond Olsen’s substantial role. I, like many of my therapy clients, struggle with my teenage daughters’ desire to feel trusted and with how this reasonable urge often leads to insistence on a degree of independence that can feel extreme or even reckless. “Don’t you trust me?!?” is a question I and so many of my therapy clients with teenage children are often asked. Without spoiling the gripping backstory that the murder investigation reveals, this film offers metaphorical lessons about trust, supervision and independence.

The entirely unexpected twists and turns of this gripping plot — set in the breathtaking backdrop of the Wyoming landscape – demonstrate how a grown-up situation that seems appealing and wonderful can quickly change and devolve into a dangerous and life-threatening chaos. If your teenagers are pressing for more autonomy than you feel they can handle, this compelling and memorable film has an important message.

Dear Evan Hansen is so quintessentially perfect that it is worth the trip to Broadway’s Music Box Theater to share this live experience with your teenagers. The plot may sound contrived – but it is based on a true event from writer and composer Benj Pasek’s Philadelphia high school. (The young writer and composer duo of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul also composed the score for La La Land!) The characters are believable, the conflicts are relatable and the resolution is therapeutic. Parents and teenagers have a wonderful opportunity to connect through a shared audience experience.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt aka Benji from Pitch Perfect) is a nervous, isolated outcast who writes himself a cheesy self-affirmation letter just as his therapist has instructed. Unfortunately, Evan’s rebellious classmate, Connor, intercepts the note at the printer. Connor mocks Evan and refuses to return the note. Connor then suicides and when his grieving parents find the note in Connor’s pocket, they think it is a letter written by their son TO Evan. They mistakenly analyze Evan’s forced praise of himself to be their dead son’s appreciative praise for his one and only true friend.

Connor’s parents are desperate to piece together the mystery of Connor’s suicide, and Evan’s letter represents a treasured piece of the unsolved puzzle. They welcome Evan into their home and their lives, which conveniently connects Evan with Zoe, Connor’s sister, who happens to be the object of Evan’s romantic infatuation. Evan discovers a sense of belonging in Connor and Zoe’s family that fills the void, as he digs himself deeper and deeper into an alternative version of the past that becomes exacerbated when his deceptive efforts to help go viral. Thanks to the internet, Evan’s falsehoods mislead both Connor’s grieving family AND the millions of followers moved by a story based in lies.

As Evan contemplates the deep and deceptive hole he digs for himself, parents can expect to feel humbled in the face of how vulnerable teenagers are to suffering in isolation. Meanwhile, teenagers will relate to the believable, brutal but hopeful portrait of adolescent struggles and strengths.

My mother likes to joke that a good mom always has a few spare tissues handy. For this play a full box could come in handy.