Below is an excerpt from Steve Pavlina’s blog on personal development about coming of age youths and their relationship with their parents. It is an article worth reading.

A common complaint I hear from teens is that they’re being raised by parents who aren’t as smart as they are. Suffice it to say there are a lot of people in the world who just aren’t very bright, and there’s no IQ test required to raise kids.

did not suffer from that particular problem myself since my parents are both pretty bright intellectually. But I can still relate to the challenge of being raised by people with values that differ from your own.

I’ve also had some friends who were raised by — how can I say this tactfully? — intellectually challenged parents.

Some parents simply make some very dumb decisions and not just with respect to parenting. Some make dumb career choices and bad financial decisions. Some make poor health choices. Some are socially inept. And some are spiritually bankrupt. When parents make bad choices, their children are stuck going along for the ride.

In many cases, by the time the child is a teenager, they’re starting to realize that Mom and/or Dad are a few bits short of a byte. Then the kid is left wondering, “How the heck am I supposed to deal with these people?”

This situation can create a lot of conflict and stress during the teenage years. The teen is still dependent on the parents, but the parents aren’t doing a very good job as parents… or as human beings for that matter.

What do you do if you find yourself in such a position? How do you prevent dumb parents from making a mess of your life while you’re still dependent on them?

Read the rest of the article at Steve Pavlina’s site.