For some teenagers, this stage of their lives is the tricky and sensitive one that parents have to live through with their youngsters.  Some of them are very eager to assert their independence, even though they are still financially dependent on their parents.

One of the ways to demonstrate their version of independence is refusing to listen to their parents, telling the parents to mind their own business. “It is my life,” my daughter’s favorite statement. They do something not because parents ask them to but because they want to. In fact, if parents ask them to do something, they would say NO simply because they do not want to be told. The tricky part is to create this situation where what they want to do is what parents want, without having parents telling them. Funny and twisted indeed.

I used to ask my children what kind of future that they would like to end up with and what kind of life they have in mind when they grow up. To be sure, they can depict nothing less than the most regal life that they have read of. What would you do for this? Kids are smart. At some point, they know what they should do for their own good. If not that smart, let them live according to their level of IQ.