Susan, I pray that it remains the way it is now with your children. I had the same kind of relationship with my daughter until two weeks before she turned 18 and was surrounded constantly by college students who, for all intents and purposes, have been on their own for many years. Within two weeks of college, everything I thought I taught her about morals and right and wrong appears to have been forgotten. I know from talking to her that she still knows what is right, she just thinks that doing what her new friends (friends you will never know like you did her high school friends) want to do is somehow exerting her "independence". She somehow feels that simply continuing to be true to herself does not allow her to be independent of me. Kind of a "your rules, your control". So, just when I thought I would get to enjoy her on a more mature level, I don't even know who she is. She is not alone as many of the friends she so carefully chose in high school have taken the same route. Those same kids, from homes with caring, involved parents are now kids that I would have cringed to see her with in high school...but right now the same can be said for her. God Bless. p