The long term effect of constantly trying to direct your child is that the teen/young adult is then forever looking for external sources of guidance -- parent, spouse, boss, friend -- rather than trusting his or her own inner voice. The effect is that other people wield an enormous amount of influence over the young person, even as they progress further into adulthood. That sense of dependency not only grows, but an inner weakness grows with it.

"Change will not occur, until the pain gets bad enough." For it is only pain that has the power to force a change in your core belief system. The old belief system -- about life, about yourself, about people, about God/deity, about family, about what is important, about the world, etc -- has to become so confining, so painful, so suffocating, so debilitating as to drive the person away from it, as to give the person the courage to both cut it away and pursue something new and terrifyingly unknown.