Congratulations, Liz, upon entering the increasingly-weird land of parenting teens. It's almost bound, at some point, to get interestingly (and sometimes frustatingly) bumpy. But there's no reward in parenting like it-- this pre-launch phase we share with our young adults.

I find myself, with parents of teens, repeating a certain piece of advice I actually learned, first from Mudcat's own Barky-- and have since seen with many, many teens and their parents.

And that is:

.... the very best way to see how our teens are developing, in terms of their selfhood, is to look to their peer relationships-- not their relationships with us parental beings. If you can see health in the peer relationships, any at all-- even if it includes lying to parental beings for the sake of a friend's need-- there is a strong indication that they have actually soaked up the real lessons we have been trying to inculcate. It shows as rebellion to US, but it's not, when there is that health embedded in the peer thing. It's a sign that they are rejecting the tainted stuff we inadvertently passed on as "solid" which is actually just our own unhealed baggage-- which we would actually want them to eschew. It all comes together in their 20's... and if we support it we even get to hear about it when they come back, proud to show us their amazing adult selves.

They really have been listening and paying attention, all this time. They';re just too cool to let us see it till it bursts out. And then we ask ourselves, "How did my kid get THAT [smart, strong, wise, etc.]?" I hear it all the time.

Just something to keep in mind, for later. :~) When it gets bumpy.

~Susan