Parenting an adolescent is not the same as parenting a child, in part because now there is a growing authoritative shift as the teenager wants to be more in charge of who they are, how they are, and what they choose to do.

Because of this desire for increasing self-determination, a timely response to parental requests can become harder for parents to get. It’s not that youthful cooperation is denied by refusal, but it is more often contested by disagreement and (the topic of this post) by delay.

Growth has created a reversal. Whereas the child waited more for parents to do what she or he wanted, parents tend to wait more for the adolescent to do what they want.

Adult upset with this loss of more timely childhood compliance is a waste of energy. It’s better to learn to work with the youthful change you’ve got. To some degree, their child’s adolescence is a game-changer as gathering independence creates growing resistance to parental control.

Start by considering the developmental change. The more dependent-minded child grew up in the age of command, mostly believing........

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