DR. WALLACE: I'm a high school student, and I've been keeping very busy with my social life this summer. However, my father makes it really hard on me to be able to join my friends in the manner that everyone else typically does. My dad won't allow me to ride in a car with other teenagers driving, no matter who they are or how responsible they may be. There are a few people I know who have impeccable reputations and are far more responsible than most college students or even young adults that I know.

But his rules are ironclad, and this means I always have to get a ride from a family member or a relative whenever I want to meet my friends to hang out somewhere that's far enough away that it requires transportation. Despite our many discussions, my father has never budged on this issue, not even one inch. His response is always that once I turn 18, I can ride in any car I want at any time! How can I convince him that there should be exceptions to this rule? It's going to be a long 16 months until I turn 18 if I have to keep getting chauffeured around like I'm some sort of princess. — My Father Won't Budge, via email

MY FATHER WON'T BUDGE: Given the background of the situation you are explaining to me, I tend to agree that it's unlikely your father is going to change his position on this issue.

If you want to take a subtle shot at seeing if your father may grant you any leeway at all, there may be one idea I can think of worth trying. Take the absolutely most responsible friend that you have, one who you know to be an excellent driver and a very responsible person and bring that person around your family home regularly and be sure to introduce your father and involve him in several conversations with this friend about regular topics and items for a few weeks.

At some point when your father becomes very familiar with this person, their integrity, and their sense of responsibility, you may be able to create an opportunity where your friend could ask your father permission to take you for a ride to pick up some things from a grocery store, or something like that. Make it a round-trip back to your home all within an hour just to see if your father will allow you to be a passenger in that instance.

If that doesn't work, you're going to have to wait until you're 18. If that does work, you could carefully and gradually build upon this with only that same person, as your father's familiarity and comfort level may create a narrow path to allow you to be "chauffeured" occasionally by this one responsible person he knows personally and approves of.

THIS MEETING WAS INDEED LEGITIMATE

DR. WALLACE: I'm planning to enroll at a local community college, and I just went to a summer session where I met with a counselor there.

I explained that I'm not sure what field I want to study eventually, as I haven't given a lot of thought yet to my long-term care career path.

Because of this, I asked what classes this counselor would recommend that I take during my first one or two semesters at this college. I was really surprised to have the counselor tell me to take what I felt might be the easiest courses or to take courses that I felt like I had a little bit of background or understanding about already.

The counselor didn't do this in a condescending way or anything, but I was surprised to get that kind of advice. I was so stunned that I didn't ask any follow-up questions or make any specific comments. I just thanked the counselor for the meeting and headed out. Why do you think an entry-level community college counselor would make recommendations like that? Was this person being earnest with me or do you think maybe it was a subtle way of being condescending? — This Counselor Surprised Me, via email

THIS COUNSELOR SURPRISED ME: I don't believe a college counselor in the setting you described would be intentionally condescending or do anything to upset you or mislead you.

I kind of see this situation differently than you do, so please allow me to explain what I think may have happened here. My take is that the counselor noticed that you hadn't given a lot of thought to future careers and that you didn't have any specific game plan as you were about to enter a community college for the first time. So instead of recommending some specific course load in areas that you may not have been familiar with or that you may have found to be quite difficult right out of the shoot, the counselor instead recommended to you, almost certainly in earnest, that you take a few courses that you feel you may be interested in or already know something about. This is indeed a good recommendation for someone just entering college, especially when the person is unsure as to what their overall game plan may be.

To succeed in the long-term, you need to stick with it at the beginning, so this counselor likely wanted you to get off to a good start in a comfortable way. From there, assuming you take additional semesters of classes, you'll become more familiar with the school, the curriculum and the options available to you in terms of classes you may want to try or potential career paths you may be interested in learning about. Don't read too much into this meeting, as I do believe it was on the up and up!

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 [email protected]. 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.

Photo credit: Erik Mclean at Unsplash