The teenage years have a lot in common with the terrible twos. The major developmental task facing both age groups is also the same: kids must pull away from parents and begin to assert their own independence. This makes for complicated parenting, especially because teens are beginning to make decisions about things that that have real consequence, like school and friends and driving, not to speak of substance use and sex. This means that having a healthy and trusting parent-child relationship during the teenage years is more important than ever. A request that seemed reasonable to dad may be received as a grievous outrage.