Teen Identity: Guiding Your Kids in Discovery

“Do you believe the search for identity is an important job for your teenager?”

This was a question posed to me recently in a small group setting among other parents of teens. The knee jerk response to this question varied among the crowd. And there were a lot of “yes, but” and “that depends” in each statement that followed. It seems like a basic question with an obvious answer, until you have to put it into practice. As kids mature into the teen years the job of a parent goes from guard to guide.