To me, the most important thing a parent can do for his/her teen is provide a foundation for success. At our age, we’re independant enough to do our own laundry and cook our own food and such. When we were very little, we needed our parents to survive, then we needed our parents for comfort. Right now we need a chance to make it somewhere in the world. They provide us with a home and help put us through college/university so we can do something big with our lives.

  We also need our freedom. At our age we want to stay out late, and hang out with our friends, and all the other things us teenagers are doing nowadays. Lots of parents know better than this and want us to study or something. A good parent can find a balance. We need priviledges, but we need some restrictions too, or we’d end up dead in a gutter or something.

  And while not the most important, we also need our space. Right now, our harmones are all out of wack and we’re moody and hate everything. The last thing we want is our parents sticking their heads into everything. As a teenager myself I think I speak for all of us when I say parents need to mind their own business. Looking out for us for the greater good or not, it still makes us want to kick in a door and that’s just how it is.

Don’t do this. Seriously.

  A parent needs to teach their kid about life’s lessons, and how to live alone. They’ll sympathize with us over love, loss, and what is what like when they were our age. “When I was your age…”

  A great parent does all these things well, but is also there for the worst-case scenarios when we do resort to their oppinions (no offense, but talking with your parents is always awkward). They have to be all knowing- or at least as far as we can tell- give us plenty of priviledges as rewards for doing well, and privacy, then I’ll consider them a good parent and as such will respect them enough to listen to them.