Anger and Conflict Resolution

My friend Jonathan can watch as much TV as he wants. But I get an hour a night. I can't even watch a movie. And meanwhile they stay up and watch a movie after I'm in my room. Is that fair? No -- it's not. They treat me like it's the Dark Ages. They don't want me to read magazines, for God's sake, if they've got articles on sex in them. When my father gets mad at me, if I yell at him he kind of pushes me into my room. I want to push him right back. Mom never stops him.

I can certainly see Leon's point. He has me convinced that his parents are unreasonable tyrants. But, whoops, wait a minute. Maybe they aren't quite so bad? Leon's anger is understandable, and not unusual during the teenage years. Find me a teenager who gets along with his parents all the time.

Ever since the Columbine tragedy in Colorado the subject of teen anger out of control is on every parent's mind. How can the teenager be helped to express his or her emotions in a constructive way? Anger and aggression are a part of life but the hormonal edge of this age group may sometimes lead to forms of behavior that are scary at best, horrific at worst. Even when the emotional life of teenagers does not tend toward violence, parents often wonder how best to help their kids in this turbulent period.

What on earth is going on?! Violent and bloody acts have plagued U.S. schools in recent years. Teenagers in Junior High and High Schools have been lashing out at their peers and teachers, gunning down tens of people, injuring and killing them. Since 1992, there have been 220 violent deaths on school grounds, an average of 37 per year (there have been 34 this year so far).

We moved across country two years ago and our 16-year-old daughter still hasn't forgiven us for it. She blames us for uprooting her and she misses her friends terribly. Because she was very attached to her friends, we promised her before we came that she could go back summers. As the summer approaches and she prepares to leave, the pain of separation from her old friends seems to surface even more. She has good friends here but she seems fixated on the fact that we've uprooted her. I want to let her express her feelings, but I feel she becomes abusive. Is it a mistake to keep sending her back? How can we help her resolve this painful issue?