Here's my take on kids or parenting, its only my opinion but it is based on my experience as a kid and as a parent!
One thing I am sure we all agree on, is even though they try our patience when they are teenagers for all the reasons already mentioned in this thread we all love our kids and wouldn't give them up for the world........would we? LOL
I have 4 of the buggers, g22, b18, b15, g10, they are not bad kids really. They haven't given us any trouble through school, or with police and are generally pretty well behaved at home. But like everyone elses kids they can think the world owes them a favour, putting things away after they use them is a struggle, they cant be told anything because they know best, electricity and water and food is their right and their friends have everything handed to them on a silver platter so they should have everything they want when they want it also!
So Mark yep your kids are on par with most teenagers!
But what I wanted to really say is in our case we as parents have got better at it as we have learnt from our mistakes. I dont want to single out the older two kids but I pretty much blame us as parents for any downfalls they may have in life and likewise we pat ourselves on the back for how the younger two are turning out......I contribute this pretty much because of our parenting....or to be more precise our ability to learn from our mistakes as parents. Have others found this to be the case also or is it just coincidence that our kids have got better behaved the more we had?
Is it only us that probably spoilt their first born a bit too much so therefore the first born is a different creature to say the youngest who has been parented better? LOL
Anyway we wouldn't change a thing, we are lucky compared to many parents, even when they drive us mad I would still prefer that than not have them at all. No one said parenting was easy, the important thing is that we are around for our kids.
I also agree that they start coming back to being a human as they get into their 20's, my daughter even though she will never be a financial whiz has become a fine young lady and we are very proud of her. Unlike her teenage years, she is now respectful, polite, well spoken and highly regarded by everyone that she deals with......so there is hope for the rest of them