Parenting Teen Girls 24/7

MISS DOOM & GLOOM. Pandemics are just a plane flight away; the threat of terrorism lurks in every parking lot or at every public event; global warming is destroying forests and melting icebergs; flotsam and jetsam are turning oceans into cesspools, and nuclear weaponry is increasing world-wide. You can't remember the last time you saw your daughter smile. Instead, she lurks about the house with the dourest of looks. The obvious disdain she feels for her elders for messing up the world clouds even the most joyful of events. She's just a pill to be around.

Your daughter has a point though--it's true that much of the world is in a sad state these days. However, if your daughter claims that her elders have screwed up the world irrevocably and thus she need not listen to you, do her homework, clean her room, whatever, because nothing matters anymore since we'll all die of radiation poisoning or be blown away a tornado or some such thing, tell her to get a life. Remind her that the earth's been around for zillions of years and even the dinosaurs didn't go extinct in a nanosecond. Thus, even if the end is coming, it'll take a while and she can either mope around for the next fifty years or so waiting for Armageddon or she can prepare herself so that when she's an adult, or even starting now, she can do her bit to make the world a better place. After all, little bits of betterment add up and she owes it to her friends and family, but mostly to herself, to do her part and not just complain and mope about.