Separating from Parents
Being a parent of a teen can cure a person of narcissism. When your child was born, you were the center of his/her universe. You were special . Now that you have an adolescent, you have become less central. No matter what you do, your teen continues to invest in the outside world more than at home.
This is how it should be. Teens slowly move away from their parents physically and emotionally. Over time, they change from being “family-centric” to being “friends-centric”. Their interests and activities revolve more and more around their friends. In addition, when children enter adolescence, they begin questioning their parents’ values, ideas and beliefs and begin formulating their own. This too is as it should be. The dependent nature of the parent-child relationship is designed to end at some point.
In order to become healthy, functioning adults, children must sever the ties to their parents, often transforming the relationship into a friendship. Children can’t enter the world if they have not separated from parents!
So the issue is not whether your teen should separate from you, but how, for there is a right way to separate and a wrong away way.