Get back at your parents

The world is becoming complex and we are becoming jaded. Teenage rebellion is harder to do well. Teens and young adults may need help coming-up with things to do shock and confuse their parents. Clearly, a place to accumulate this information is needed.
Let's start with...
The Classics: will scare most parents
* Smoking, drinking and other drugs.
* Choose an unsuitable mate.
* Drop out of school.
* Unsafe driving.
The Wild Life: may only work on conservative parents
* Express yourself with anti-fashion, and with odd hair colors, lengths and styles.
* Experiment with homosexuality.
* Piercings.
* Stealing.
* Tattoos.
The Counter-Counter-Culture: may only work on liberal parents
* Support a Republican candidate.
* Be intolerant of smokers, etc.
* Eat chain-store junk food.
* Criticize hippie culture.
* Be anti-intellectual.
* Refuse to read.
Why this is important for parents
Teens are going through a time-honored passage into becoming their own person who is separate from their parents. Until they break away, they can't begin to function as adults, and see their parents as others do.
They should be allowed to experiment a bit (have fun, learn, and grow) but we all . Just try to get through this time with minimal damage to yourself or others.
At times, parents may mistake this teenage rebellion for a serious problem, but as the literature shows us, it is nothing new (e.g., "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child" ) and it is not the end of love between parent and child.
For writers and researchers
The ideas explored in this article are not new, they are covered
* in psychology: Dr. Haim G. Ginott (1969), Between Parent and Teenager , Teenage rebellion and Teen Anger)
* in classics of literature: Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Shakespeare's King Lear
* and in popular culture, such as the movie Rebel Without a Cause and the TV series Arrested Development .
What is missing is a comprehensive list of these behaviors that everyone can refer to and contribute to.
As people contribute to this article, we can have a authoritative list which may include additional breakdowns by cultures and other variables. This can be used for many purposes, not the least of which is composing fictional plots for comedies and dramas.

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