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much that many teens need to hear.
• Don't get me wrong.  I, too, remember thinking that my parents were too strict, a little weird, and woefully uninformed when I was a know-it-all teenager.  I thought they were from a different planet, but they didn't know it.  I remember thinking all that, but I would never have said that to anyone other than a family member.  Even then, only if I was feeling particularly snarky.  And Lord help anyone else who might say anything disrespectful about my parents.  I would have cleaned their clock.
• The problem seems to be that kids have trouble accepting that their parents are human.  Parents are not the superheroes of their children's elementary years any longer. By middle school, this fact is slowly asserting itself into their little brains.  Their parents have faults and issues like everyone else - surprise!  Because the idol worship is being replaced by reason, the parents inevitably fall off the pedestal they were unknowingly placed upon and become… ordinary.
• This process may be a shock to a kid.  Their parents aren't really all that amazing; the kid just thought they were.  Now the teen is suddenly angry at his parents for being ordinary.
• What teenagers never seem to grasp is that these ordinary people are, indeed, extraordinary in one very important way:  Their awesome love for their children.  This extraordinary love transcends every harsh word, every act of rebellion, and every stupid mistake their children make.  This extraordinary love is unconditional.  It will be there until the end of time, no matter how hateful the teenager decides to be.
• These ordinary parents have done extraordinary things for their children, over and over again, all in the name of love, and in spite of their child's behavior.  They do not ask for anything in return.  In fact, there are innumerable acts of love that

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