Your kids sound just like mine! Mine used to be really good but now, at 16 and 19, they are really bad! They won't accept any instructions from me anymore because they think they know everything. I don't bother trying to help them now - I stopped waking them up in the morning, reminding them of their appointments or anything. They don't want to hear it so I let them miss it. At least we're not fighting all the time. I kind of think this is all about growing up. They don't want a "mommy" anymore. And maybe it has something to do with gender, because my friends with girls don't have the same problem. Their daughters are still really pleasant in the late teen years.

A agree about the boys thing. I think teenage boys start to resent their mothers trying to "control" them. My solution has been to give my young gentleman a lot more space. It's O.K. with me if they want to learn everything the hard way. I think the important thing is preserving the relationship. I try to follow the 90-10 Rule - keeping 9 out of 10 remarks pleasant and only 1 out of 10 critical or instructional. I'm not exactly 90-10 on this but I am conscious of making sure I sound pleasant most of the time and I think this is working well. My boys are definitely less defiant than they were when I wasn't careful about this.

I think parenting can be a thankless task so I understand what you're saying. But then again, I think it's up to the parent to teach the kids to express gratitude. If I do something for my kids (I have 3 teenagers), I insist that they say thank you. And if they give me hard time about something, I remind them that they owe me cooperation because I take darn good care of them. When they become uncooperative, I stop providing "services" like making them meals, doing their laundry, running their errands, taking them places, giving them my car and so on - they catch on real quick and start acting properly again. If I were you, I wouldn't put up with bad treatment from your kids!

Just because a teenager doesn't like to hear "no" is no reason not to say it. Even if they go and do what they want to do, a parent has to make his or her own wishes clear. My kids don't always listen to me but I expect that. I didn't do everything my parents wanted. In fact, I did a lot of sneaking around doing what I wanted to do. But I knew what my parents stood for. When I grew up a bit, I settled down and started to live more the way they wanted me to. I expect my kids will do the same.