Looking back, many parents might say that their daughter or son was easier to govern as a child than as an adolescent.

They would not be misperceiving.

Detaching from parents and childhood for more independent action, and differentiating from parents and childhood for more individual expression, the adolescent is increasingly driven for separation, experimentation, and opposition to create more room to grow.

In this sense, an adolescent is no longer just a “child.” As one parent, invoking the Wizard of Oz, put it: “This isn’t Kansas anymore!”

So, consider one aspect of this difference. While a child grew up in the age of command, believing in the illusion that parents had sufficient power of authority to make her or stop him, the adolescent knows better.

She or he now realizes that parents do not control their decision-making: “My choices are up to me. They need my cooperation to do what they say.”........

© Psychology Today