Adolescents sometimes say..."My friends listen to me, but my parents only hear me talk." Often they are right. Familiarity breeds inattention.

Adolescents have the right to be themselves. The fact that you were the belle of the ball, the captain of the lacrosse team, the president of your senior class, Phi Beta Kappa, or a political activist doesn't mean that your teenager will be or should be the same....Likewise, the fact that you were a wallflower, uncoordinated, and a C student shouldn't mean that you push your child to be everything you were not.

Adolescents sometimes say..."My friends listen to me, but my parents only hear me talk." Often they are right. Familiarity breeds inattention.

Some adolescents are troubled and some get into trouble. But the great majority (almost nine out of ten) do not. . . . The bottomline is that good kids don't suddenly go bad in adolescence.

Adolescents need to be reassured that nothing-neither their growing maturity, their moods, their misbehavior, nor your anger at something they have done-can shake your basic commitment to them.

Parents sometimes feel that if they don't criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn't make people wantto change; it makes them defensive.

The public probably knows that teen drivers are at greater risk for fatal accidents. What the public doesn't know is what we ought to do about it.