All they know is that their parents don't understand them, annoy them, and have unreasonable expectations from them. The fact is, most parents don't understand their teenagers. One day, their sons and daughters bring them flowers, the next day they are rolling their eyes and telling their parents they want to be left alone. The teenage social situation is a particularly difficult one, since they live simultaneously in two worlds, that of a child and that of an adult in a kind of marginal or overlapping status, not knowing where they belong. Furthermore, teenagers are more open to new experiences and ideas and more vulnerable in their thinking.
Adolescents have many opportunities to acquire new attitudes, customs, and value systems.
Consequently, during this time, adolescents have opinions, attitudes and values that may be radically different from those of their parents. Parents today tend to think that their teenagers are more advanced than adolescents were in the past because they have a lot more information available to them, but what they dont understand is that todays adolescents aren't any more mature emotionally. They are at the same emotional place their parents were when they were twelve or thirteen. One of the most important roles of parents during adolescence is to teach their children independence. But even as they are letting go of control, parents should know that adolescents need almost as much attention as any three-year old.