When kids are born, the parents metaphorically are the manager of their life. They organized their life, they sign them up for classes, they take them to the playground, they set up play dates, and kids love us in this role, they love us as the manager, they look up to us. If you go into a kindergarten class and kids are clinging to their parents, they’re showing them off to other friends, it’s just a wonderful thing. Then somewhere late middle school, early high school, adolescence; they unceremoniously, without consulting with us, fire us as the manager of their life. They basically say, that’s it, I’ll take over from here. When this happens, parents do one of two things: They either abandon their kids, I got fired, okay well I’ll go with my life, good luck, I hope things work out, you know, first one who gets up in the morning let the cat out, if you’re the last one you make sure you lock the door and set the alarm; Or they end up fighting for control. They litigate for wrongful termination for next 3 years, in which case, nobody wins because you get into that battle about you wanting to stay the manager. When the reality is that when they fire you, that is what they’re supposed to do, that’s how they’re going to develop their independence. So the first thing we really have to do when they fire us is, grieve a little bit, get over it and then our job is to get re-hired as the consultant which is different than a manager. It’s not the face to face paradigm, it’s actually about a half step back, side by side relationship with them and from the consultant role, we can begin to think more about influence than control. Now you can have a healthy relationship with your teenagers as they go through adolescence.