The most common mistake made by parents of older teenagers (16 to 19 years of age) is refusing to grant them the independence and maturity they require.
Our inclination as loving guardians is to hold our kids too tightly, despite their attempts to squirm free. We try to make all their decisions, keep them snugly beneath our wings, and prevent even the possibility of failure.
And in so doing, we force our young adults into one of two destructive patterns: Either they passively accept our overprotection and remain dependent "children" into adult life or they rise up in great wrath to reject our bondage and interference.
They lose on both counts. On the one hand they become emotional cripples who are incapable of independent thought, and on the other they grow into angry, guilt-ridden adults who have severed ties with the family they need.
Indeed, parents who refuse to grant appropriate independence to their older adolescents are courting disaster not only for their children but also for themselves.
-Excerpted from The New Strong-Willed Child (copyright © 1978, 2004 by Tyndale House Publishers) by James Dobson, PhD, FocusOnTheFamily.com
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