Originally Posted by Socks

I was reading Nietzsche when I was 13, smoking weed, finger banging my girlfriend afterschool at her house - where I half lived... I had already done a co-op job placement, and started several small companies/projects. At 14 I helped start a series of websites that sold to Internet.com. I was calling public relations department at huge companies and convincing them to mail me their new products to my home address for free, so I could write about them. When I was 16 I secured a $250,000 venture capital investment in another company I helped start.

Kids grow up at different rates. I have a cousin of sorts from Mexico who is 14 now, and he's probably operating at about the level of a 10 year old. Everyone is different, and you can't baby kids. You have to allow them to earn your respect, and be damned sure they respect you.