Peer pressure is not a monolithic force that presses adolescents into the same mold. . . . Adolescents generally choose friend whose values, attitudes, tastes, and families are similar to their own. In short, good kids rarely go bad because of their friends.

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.

Most adults would not dream of belittling, humiliating, or bullying (verbally or physically) another adult. But many of the same adults think nothing of treating their adolescent child like a nonperson. . . . Adolescents deserve the same civility their parents routinely extend to total strangers.

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.

What causes adolescents to rebel is not the assertion of authority but the arbitrary use of power, with little explanation of the rules and no involvement in the decision-making.