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Love/Hate Relationships
Loving Your Teen, Hating Their Romantic Relationship By Kelly Burgess
Susan Sanders* of Willisburg, Ky., had some excellent reasons for not liking her daughter's former boyfriend. He was a major freeloader, never paying or offering to drive. Then he got her started with drugs and with forging the checks he stole to support their drug habits. In spite of all that, Sanders was polite for the sake of family harmony. But her daughter, Brittany, 19, knew her mom didn't like the boy and eventually broke up with him and entered rehab. She's now dating someone Sanders approves of.
"He scored points with me when he immediately started wanting to go to church with her," says Sanders. "Also, she smiles more now and has said that he says things to her she's never heard from a guy before, such as her being beautiful, and he leaves her little notes everywhere."
"Your child is making a special bond with this person," says Crutcher. "Looked at from the parent's point of view, this relationship can threaten the relationship they have with their child. Even if you've raised your kids right, there's often anxiety about the level of commitment and intimacy, both physical and emotional, that your child is going to allow."
Crutcher says some part of that anxiety has to do with the parents own ego. "Parents tend to have a picture of what we want our kid's life to be like, and we want our kids to avoid the mistakes that we made," he says. "The 
fact is that no one learns from your experience but you. Parents need to let their children make their own mistakes and have their own experiences."
According to Michael J. Bradley, psychologist and author of Yes, Your Teen is Crazy
