During their junior and high school years, youth, on average, experience the family as a safe and comfortable place but also kind of boring compared to their peers. Adolescents need someone to be available when they need to talk through issues, but not someone who is overly intrusive, which can deny them the privacy they need to think on their own. There are individual differences in the need for privacy and alone time too. Some parents are so busy with their own lives that they aren't available for their adolescents at all. Parents are no longer people to have fun with, but rather they become important as an impartial sounding board for thinking through ideas.
Parents have a role to play in setting limits and explaining limits to adolescents.
As the child gets older, he or she is capable of making more decisions. Effective discipline involves knowing when a child is capable of more independence. A characteristic of a troubled relationship, in addition to the issues of availability and discipline that I mentioned above, is poor communication. It is critical for parents to establish honest, open, and frequent communication early with their children, before adolescence. Once things get off track, it is very hard to reestablish lines of communication.