And if you are an atheist, you can be reasonably certain that your teen will find God. It is essential for a young person to question and often defy authority in order to make a successful break. Therefore, some degree of conflict with youngsters in this age group is inevitable and normal. How you manage this conflict has a lot to do with how far your teen has to go in order to break away and how much trouble you all get into in the process. You see, normal behavior in a teenager would be viewed as schizophrenia in an adult.
Teens are ambivalent about growing up and act like they have multiple personalities.
There is the teenager as a child, the teenager as an adult, and the teenager that acts his age. Woe be to the parent who mistakenly talks to the wrong one. Adolescents view responsibility as something imposed on them by adults, and therefore, as something degrading. They do however want all the privileges of being an adult. They want to be left alone, but mom has to cook and clean for them.