Q: My question concerns my 19-year-old teenager who's being secretive and lying to us about various activities and the girl he's dating. He's a sophomore in college, and we've always been fairly open with him. He's had a few drinking episodes where we've picked him up so that he wouldn't have to drive. He was sent to college with condoms and his father's instructions on how to use them if need be. (Of course, we told him abstinence is best, but just in case.) We've handled these issues with common sense and no drama, and let him know that much of this is part of growing up.

This past year, our son began a long-distance relationship with a girl we don't consider appropriate. She's a year younger than he and from a dysfunctional family. While she seems to be bright and motivated, and is now in college on a scholarship, she's also controlling and very needy. We forbade him to see her, but she wouldn't let go of him, and we discovered he'd gone on a camping trip with her when we thought he was camping with male buddies.

Once we realized that we couldn't control his actions, we cut off financial support, saying you can see her, but you can't use our car. He secretly saw her all summer, using our car and gas money by saying he was with friends. He's now at college while she's at another college, and he will continue visiting her and lying to us until we confront him about it. How can we get him to be honest about it and have some character? Maybe he really is in love, but then he should admit it.

I realize I can't make him break up with her, but I worry that he'll waste his college years and our tuition money mooning over her. I just wish he could develop some character and decide what he wants in life. Your thoughts?

A: While you and your partner have calmly coped with your son's normal teenage, high school problems, you're overreacting to his young adult life now. While I do understand your legitimate concern, and it's certainly all right for you to tell your son that his present woman friend may not be your favorite, telling him who he can go out with at his age is beyond parental rights. Hopefully, he's far from ready for marriage, but there's every reason to believe he's as interested in this young woman as she is in him. He may not yet know whether it's love, so why make him 'fess up before he's ready? Tell him you're disappointed in his dishonesty and perhaps his taste as well, but you'll not stand in the way of his exploring his world.

Young people typically date many in the process of identifying the right lifelong partner for them. Your son's college environment is packed solid with a variety of young women, and it's unlikely he's made a final life decision. It's good, at least, that he and she aren't at the same college. That gives your son more freedom to look around. If you battle your son about this young woman, he might stay with her just to prove to you that you can't control him. Sponsor your son at college as long as he takes his classwork seriously and searches for a career for his lifetime. As to choosing his partner, that's not a parent's prerogative!

For a free newsletter about guidelines to success for new college students, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address below. Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.