She sounds like a regular kid to me. Only a few teens are so motivated that they'll work hard at their lives. The rest laze around waiting for everything to turn out right. My son is the same but I decided already that I'm not going to fight with him. At least we'll have a decent relationship and he won't be able to blame me for his failures if he doesn't straighten himself up eventually.

What a cop out! You're not supposed to have a good relationship with your son - you need to be his friend not his parent. If he is going down the wrong road you need to help him get on the right one. How can you just stand by and watch him disintegrate? I think parents are just afraid of their kids' rejection these days and don't have the guts to parent.

Reprimanding, complaining and punishing just don't work. I don't think it's a matter of "guts." I think it's about the 90-10 Rule (see Radcliffe's book Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice). If you don't maintain a good relationship, you have no chance to influence your child. So parents have to think before they think. This doesn't mean they can't have any standards or expectations. If this parent doesn't give her kid the money she needs for the things she wants, that's a nice quiet way of saying "go get a job." There's no fighting, arguing or blaming - just boundaries. The kid probably knows her mom's values by now so what's the point in lecturing and threatening? I agree that keeping things positive is the way to go.

When parents provide a good model, lots of love and some reasonable limits, they're doing all they can do. They can't MAKE their kids see the light. Of course Mom should express her concerns ONCE to her daughter. Not every day. Not tens times a day. Just once. Then she should definitely not provide money that the job was supposed to supply. As for study habits, sixteen year olds are pretty established in their approach to school work so it's not necessary or helpful to try to teach them to study or work hard. They are either already doing that because they care to or they aren't because they can't or don't care to. I agree that using the 90-10 Rule will be the most helpful approach. Trying to supervise choice of friends is a frustrating exercise that generally fails. Rather, find ways to help build your daughter's self-esteem since her own opinion of herself will be what determines her choice of friends. Good luck,  Sarah Chana