So far she hasn't had the guts to really screw up, but she's laying the groundwork. We're hopeful she'll get a clue before she does something life-changing, in the meantime we exercise constant parental vigilence.
One funny note: yesterday my husband was driving her and her friend around and the friend remarked that her mother was "in her business". My husband inserted himself into their conversation and informed them both that as long as they were minors, everything was mom's "business". They were quiet after that. ;-)
You sound like exceptional parents. I routed through everything I could...backpacks, notebooks, pockets...to find out what they were 'thinking' and boy howdy was it ever revealing. The influences these days come from everywhere, and the battle against them is relentless.
I could never understand mothers who think because their kids are finally teenagers, they can go back to work and leave them on their own.
That's when kids crave structure the most. Unfortunately, too many parents want to be comforted by their kids and it should be the other way around.
There's a really cool children's book by Don and Audrey Wood called "Heggity Peg" about a witch who turns several siblings into food, and their mother who can only save them by identifying who's who. It's a brilliant tale of a mother who really knows her children.