Updated October 2026
You’re a good parent. You ask about their day. You drive them to practice at hours that should probably be illegal. You sit across from them at dinner, at least on the nights nobody has a game.
And you’ve probably heard one word more than any other.
Fine.
How was school? Fine. How was the party? Fine. Are you okay? Fine. (Some nights, for variety, you get “good.” Which is also fine.)
Teenagers know thousands of words. With their parents, they seem to be saving most of them for later.
I’m poking fun at me here, not your kid. I took that word at face value for years.
What You’re Not Seeing Isn’t Your Fault. But It Is Your Responsibility.
I ran an office furniture company for eighteen years. I could look at a quarterly report and tell you which division was in trouble before the manager knew. I was good at spotting problems.
At home, I watched the things that were easy to measure. Marks. Curfew. Whether the dishwasher got emptied. (It did not.)
Here’s what I’ve learned since, some of it from the work I do now, and some of it from the life I lived before I started doing it.
A kid can laugh with friends and still be struggling.
The empathetic ones, the high performers, the people-pleasers, they get very good at looking okay. Looking okay is a skill. Being okay is something else.
The report card is a lousy mental health test.
It tells you whether your kid handed in the chemistry lab. That’s about it. Some of the kids working hardest to keep their marks up are doing it because good marks are the fastest way to get adults to stop asking questions.
I know. I was one of the adults who stopped asking.
“Fine” can mean fine. It can also mean “please don’t make me explain.”
Plenty of kids who are struggling keep it to themselves. Usually it has nothing to do with trust. They don’t want to be a burden. The sensitive ones especially. The helpers. The kids who check on everyone else and assume nobody needs to check on them.
You can be a great parent and still miss it.
Love isn’t the problem. Silence is. Sometimes your kid stays quiet because they love you too much to hand you what they’re carrying.
No family gets a pass.
Good homes, strong marriages, faith, open conversations at the dinner table. All of that helps. None of it makes a family exempt.
You Won’t Always Get a Second Chance to Ask the Hard Questions
Don’t wait until the time is right. In my experience the time is never right. It’s just your average weeknight..
Sometimes there are signs. Sometimes there aren’t. My daughter Maddie had both. She had joy and sadness. Light and darkness. We saw what we wanted to see.
That’s a very human thing to do. You look at your kid and you see the version of them you need to believe in. The happy one. The resilient one. The one who’ll be fine.
Most of the time, that instinct serves you well.
When it doesn’t, you don’t get a do-over.
This Isn’t About Fear. It’s About Paying Attention.
I’m not writing this to scare you. Scared parents tend to freeze or overreact, and neither one helps your kid.
What helps is noticing. Quiet, steady, ordinary noticing.
It looks like asking something better than “How was your day?” Try “What was the hardest part about being you today?” It gets you more than “fine” surprisingly often. It looks like getting curious before you get critical. It looks like sitting with your own discomfort long enough to notice what your kid might be hiding behind theirs.
If something in this piece made you uncomfortable, sit with that for a minute. That discomfort is information.
What 14,000 Parents Have Told Us
When I first wrote this in February, I didn’t have numbers. Now I do.
About 14,000 parents have completed the Teen Signal Check. Roughly half got a Green result. About three in ten got Yellow. About one in five got Red.
Every one of those parents took three minutes because something made them curious. Half of them got to exhale. The other half now know where to look.
It’s an awareness tool. It doesn’t diagnose anything. It just helps you sort what you’re already noticing.
One Thing I Know for Sure
Don’t assume it can’t be your child.
That assumption cost me mine.
You Don’t Have to Figure This Out Alone
The MentorWell exists because I didn’t have what I needed when it mattered most. I’d rather you did.
So here’s my small, very Canadian ask. Sorry to bother you.
Take the Teen Signal Check. Fourteen questions, about three minutes, free. No login, no email. Nobody sees your answers but you. It sorts what you’re noticing into Green, Yellow or Red and tells you what to do next. If you get Green, great. Go enjoy your evening. If you get something else, you’ll know more than you did this morning.
And if someone popped into your head while you read this, send it to them. You don’t need a reason. Earlier is easier on everybody.
FAQ
Is my teenager depressed or just moody?
Most of the time, it’s moody. Teenagers have bad weeks. The difference between teenage moodiness and depression usually shows up in how long it lasts and how far it spreads. A change that sticks around for more than a couple of weeks, shows up at home and at school and with friends, or pulls them away from things they used to love is worth a closer look. You don’t have to sort it out alone. A family doctor is a good first call.
My teenager won’t talk to me. What should I do?
Change the question before you change anything else. “How was your day?” gets you “fine.” “What was the worst part of today?” gets you more than you’d expect. Car rides help too, since nobody has to make eye contact. Keep showing up without pushing. The door usually opens on their schedule.
What is the Teen Signal Check?
It’s a free teen mental health assessment for parents. It takes about three minutes, there’s no login and no email, and nobody sees your answers but you. It sorts what you’ve already noticed into Green, Yellow or Red and gives you a next step. It’s an awareness tool. It doesn’t diagnose anything.
What do Green, Yellow and Red mean?
Green means things look okay for now, so keep paying attention. Yellow means something is worth a closer look, and extra support like mentorship can help. Red means it’s time to bring in a professional, starting with your family doctor. About half the parents who take it get Green.
What if I’m worried my teen is in crisis right now?
Don’t wait for a quiz. In Canada and the US, call or text 9-8-8 any time. Young people in Canada can reach Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 or by texting CONNECT to 686868. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
You May Also Like
‘Fine’ Is the Answer We Taught Our Kids to Give Us Why “How was your day?” almost never gets a real answer, and two questions that tend to work better.
6 Things Parents Mistake for Laziness That May Be Something Else Six everyday behaviours that are easy to wave off, what they can point to, and how to respond without overreacting.
You Got Green on the Teen Signal Check. Keep Paying Attention What a Green result means, what it doesn’t, and when it’s worth checking again.
Keep the “I Picked a Day” post and the other heavy grief pieces out of this block. They’re too heavy to stack under a parent-awareness post.
