New book aims to help parents crack the teenage code

NEW YORK — This is straight from the mouth of two high-school girls: Parents should be flattered when their teenagers pick a fight. It's likely a sign of unconditional love, they say.

And it's out of concern that most parents sound their battle cry, usually relating to safety or sound judgment — and most kids know this — but grown-ups aren't very good at choosing what's worth going to the mat for so their good intentions get lost in the shuffle, says 18-year-old Lara Fox.

"Don't flip out about leaving Cheetos out and smoking. You've got to pick which issue is more important," she says.

Fox and Hilary Frankel try to explain other quirks of the teenage mind to clueless parents in a new book, "Breaking the Code" (New American Library). It comes with the subtitle, "Two teens reveal the secrets to better parent-child communication."

The girls are both seniors at Fieldston High School in the Bronx. In the fall Fox, from Manhattan, is heading to Brown University, and Frankel, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., is going to Yale. They wrote "Breaking the Code" when they were both 16, preparing for the SATs and learning to drive.

The book is broken down into chapters by — for example, "No trespassing!" and "But everyone else is going!" — and the girls simulate conversations between parents and children, and then translate them into "teen speak."

When a parent says, "We have dinner Friday night with the Smiths," teens hear, "I don't really care what you may have planned and I don't respect you enough to check with you before making plans." Fox and Frankel counsel parents to instead ask their children about their schedule before including them in any family obligations.

"This may sound extreme but we feel like we should be included in these decisions, even if we don't have that much of an influence," they write.

Personal privacy, which extends from their room to e-mail messages and their calendar, is probably the most important thing to teenagers, Fox says, and it's also the biggest source of frustration between the generations. "It's the stem of everything," she says.

It's natural for parents to be curious what their children are up to, especially when they start closing the door — literally and figuratively — but parents have to trust that they've done a good job in raising sensible kids and give them their space, Frankel adds.