To cultivate mutual respect with your teenager and at the same time maintain your authority, it's important to keep in mind you want to be friendly but you don't want to be their buddy. Okay? You want to be aware. They want to be aware of who their friends are, know their friends, what their past times are, how they spend their time and their hobbies and you want to be able to support that. At the same time, you have the main control of your household because it's your home and they have to live by your rules and your policies. It's also fair to allow for a certain amount of negotiation. You want the child to be able to disagree because you do want to cultivate their ability to negotiate. You wanted to promote their skills in diplomacy but you don't want to allow for arguments. It's not a battle of who's in control. For example, I told my son I would allow him to agree but I gave him a standard phrase or if he doesn't agree with me, he says, "I disagree" and then that allows me to my ego out of it to hear what his side of it is and to see if there's room for negotiation. If there's not, you say, "Well, I understand your point but our policy is or in this household or I can allow you because..." So, that's the advice I would give for that.