A teenage girl waiting for her geometry tutor offered the most reassuring parenting commentary I've heard in a while.

I was also waiting for my child to finish her math session when Olivia Noel, 15, and I struck up a conversation about phone restrictions imposed by parents. I mentioned that I had turned off my child's data plan as a consequence for using the phone too late at night.

The girl looked at me like she just recognized an old enemy.

"Oh my God! I thought my parents were the only ones who did that!"

She said that whenever she gets in trouble, her parents take away her data plan, phone or computer -- or all of the above.

I decided I needed to check out my competition for Strictest Mother in the World.

"In this day and age, the only effective consequence is taking away their electronic devices, data plans, phones," said Olivia's mother, Tammy Noel. "That really seems to be the only thing that helps kids re-evaluate what they are doing because they dread that consequence so much."

She and her husband have the experience of raising their 19-year-old daughter to give them a sense of perspective with Olivia and her 12-year-old brother. They've been down this road.

When children are very young, parents wonder if they cognitively understand the connection between their behavior and the punishment. When they are older, we know they have the cognitive function to understand our words.

We just wonder if any of those words are sinking in.

There are structural issues compounding the typical tussles during the teen years: the rise of dual-working-parent families and the long hours Americans work compared to the rest of the world. Children are more heavily scheduled, requiring more parental management and transportation. Add to that the blurred boundary between family life and work, and the expectations of ever-greater parental vigilance to monitor virtual and real-life behavior.

The so-called helicopter parents must live in a world with a lot more leisure time to do all that helicoptering. Many parents are often too tired to deal with the backlash of enforcing and sticking to punishments they dispense in the heat of the moment. Consistent discipline requires more parental energy and effort at a time when the demands for those things are already very great.

Noel, for instance, works full-time as the owner of six Sylvan tutoring locations, but is able to interrupt her day to pick up and drop off her younger children at various activities. She's grateful for the flexibility that allows her to manage both, but the interruptions mean she is burning the midnight oil to keep up with her work.

"You get so worn down from trying to manage it all that you become an ineffective parent in holding your kids accountable," she said. "But that's our responsibility as parents."

Sticking to a punishment often creates more work and complications for the parent than it does for the child being disciplined. Often times, a parent needs to be able to contact an older child via phone, so turning off the data plan is the new grounding.

A friend raising a teenager prepared me when I told her about this disciplinary strategy: It won't be the last time you turn off the data, she said.

Olivia said she wishes her parents would be more willing to talk about issues that arise rather than "just taking my stuff away."

Her mother nodded.

"But we've talked about this before," she tells her daughter. "And you knew it would be a consequence if you chose not to follow the rules and live by the expectations. You can talk until you are blue in the face, but if the behaviors don't change, the consequence will occur."

Amen, sister.

When Olivia complained about strict parents ready to limit data and phone use, she had no idea the moral support she was giving her audience.

Each generation learns to navigate relationships in its own way.

Today's children understand friendship and social interactions mediated largely through technology.

We're not sure what this means for their long-term social development. Will they be less inclined to keep healthy, long-term relationships because it's easy to "ghost" someone from your life? Or will the ease of staying in touch through technology allow them to maintain lifelong connections despite diverging life paths?

No one really knows.

Perhaps relationships are more disposable when there's always someone else around the digital corner. Are we better off with the type of "friendship" social media fosters: a broad, shallow network? Or by having a small, close group with deeper ties?

Research suggests the number and depth of friendships depends on our mobility, social class and personal temperament.

Most Americans have just two close friends, according to a 2011 Cornell study. This is down from three close confidantes 25 years ago.

As the first generation of parents raising digitally socialized children, we have our own learning curve about the social mores and conventions they follow.

Friend is used in a loosey-goosey way in our language. A Facebook "friend" may or may not be a real "friend." A follower on Instagram may like all your posts and provide a sense of validation or community, but that's as deep as the relationship goes. Shared interests, common experiences and enjoyable company often spark a friendship, but those aren't the only criteria that elevate interaction to friendship.

Like the Eskimo words for snow, Generation Z, born after the Millennials, will understand the variation and subtleties of friendship differently than we do.

Some people have interests in common with you, such as yoga, running or having brunch. Others have a shared history, like childhoods, college years or workplaces. Some people challenge, motivate or inspire you. Others are hilarious and make you laugh.

But certain elements of friendship do not change. In Insta-speak, a young person can apply these filters to a relationship to get a clearer picture:

1. Can you be honest about yourself with this person? Do you feel safe saying what you think and feel? Are you able to disagree, even vehemently, and be OK? Friends are not there to affirm and agree with every single thing we say or do.

2. Do you feel heard in your conversations? Do interactions with this person leave you feeling uplifted, recharged, supported or cared for? Does the person help you see things in a new way or help you find solutions to your problems? The relationship should make you feel whole rather than less than.

3. Can you share the pain and ways of coping in life rather than just the polished, funny, edited parts? Can you share your struggles, beyond your accomplishments or highlight reel?

4. Is it a two-way street? Does the person share with and trust you the way you do with him or her?

5. Is the person available when needed, reliable and true to his or her word?

6. Does the person keep your confidences? Can he or she be trusted?

7. Is there mutual respect and admiration between the two of you? If you respect and admire someone, you value what they tell you. You listen to their advice.

8. Does the person pay attention when you talk? Does she remember what you've said?

9. Are you able to survive a fight? People make mistakes. They ask for forgiveness and try not to repeat them. Whether it's a miscommunication, a mean response or a breach of trust, does the person recognize his role and accept responsibility? Can you forgive and move on?

10. Do both of you make an effort to see each other in real life, face-to-face? Scientists note the primal importance of touch -- casual, platonic, nonsexual -- between people in creating bonds.

You should be able to answer yes to these if you're in the company of a true friend.

Maria Konnikova wrote an essay for The New Yorker exploring the human capacity for friendship. She writes that evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar claims we can only cope with about 150 casual friends at a given time, 15 of whom could be considered intimate. And only five of those might be trustworthy. That includes intimate partners and close family.

I refer to this core of five as my team. These are the MVPs among BFFs.

When you find friends like this, recognize how valuable they are. Make an effort. In a "friend"-saturated world, true friendship is rare.

I've survived hurricanes in the South and tornadoes in the Midwest.

I've witnessed that eerie sense of calm one moment, an ambush of fury the next, and wild temperatures swings within the same day.

You would think I'd be better prepared for the emotional storm that hits home with a preteen girl. You would be wrong.

There's an intensity in how quickly the climate in the home can change, leaving you searching for some kind of shelter. It's reminiscent of the turbulence of toddlerhood for good reason. Both are times of rapid physical and emotional development, boundary testing, separating and clinging.

It's an isolating and confusing time for children and their parents.

Now, along comes Pixar to make us feel all the feels we couldn't well explain before "Inside Out." The blockbuster movie is not just a feel-good flick; it's a feel-sad, feel-angry, feel-scared, feel-disgusted adventure inside a young girl's head.

The plot of the movie is deceptively simple: 11-year-old Riley and her family move from Minnesota to San Francisco, and the move is hard on her. That pretty much covers the external events. The major drama unfolds inside Riley's head, as her emotions struggle to deal with these new circumstances and her feelings of loss.

The personification of her emotions -- joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness -- and the way they work together and against one another resembles the mood swings and emotional turbulence of puberty.

I saw the movie with my 12-year-old daughter, one of her best friends and a 6-year-old and her mom. We each connected to it in our own way. The interplay of conflicting feelings, the cacophony of emotions sounded so familiar and felt authentic. The message -- that we often try too hard for happiness when we are struggling inside -- feels as true in middle age as it does in middle school. The reminder that sadness is also important, that it can guide us to seek comfort and help, is valuable.

But perhaps the most important takeaway from the film is the visually engaging way it helps us become aware of that connection between what we are feeling and how we respond to those emotions. Being able to identify and name your emotions when you might be feeling overwhelmed or upset is a component of emotional intelligence.

When we can identify something, we can begin to understand it better.

For a child to realize that it's normal to have competing, overwhelming, intense emotions is a developmental discovery that helps pave the way to being able to process them and deal with those feelings in a constructive way.

The medical experts who consulted with Pixar on the film wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, saying that emotions help organize our thoughts rather than disrupt rational thinking. They point us to what really matters. They provoke us to act.

Even when a child may recognize that she feels anxious or angry, she may not be able to make the connection to everything fueling those emotions. There's a learning curve to figuring out how your emotions are impacting your behavior and reactions. From there, you can begin to recognize your own power to gradually alter what you are feeling and how you are reacting.

Some adults never master these skills.

Both my daughter and I had the same thought after watching the movie: They should show this in every school.

She thought it was interesting that much of what happened in the movie happened inside someone's head, in that internal space it's often hard to make sense of.

"But what happened in the movie was happening to everyone in the theater," she said. "Everyone's emotions were working."

That's true.

Even the shared experience of a mother and daughter watching another tween's emotional upheaval felt hopeful and healing.

It suggested the tumultuous changes in our own relationship would one day also become more settled.

Skies do eventually clear.