Are our decisions really based on the influence of our parents?

As much as I agree that parent’s influence us with the decisions we make, I also disagree with that. Yes there is a stereotype that teenagers are “rebellious” and “defiant” but what if you looked at it differently. As teenagers, we experiment, we make mistakes, and we learn from them. As much as our parents give us advice and influence us on the important decisions that we make, such as school, work, etc. we also make a lot of our own decisions outside of our parent’s influence. Sometimes we even make decisions opposite of what our parents would’ve wanted, or opposite to their beliefs. And that’s okay because as young adults we need to make mistakes, and we need to learn to make decisions for ourselves because lets face it, our parent’s won’t always be the ones making decisions for us. By making our own decisions we learn from mistakes, and also have better insight for other situations we may come across later on in life. The point is that sure parents influence us a lot on what path we choose to take, but what about what we do everyday? I’m sure it’s not our parents who influenced us to go to that party and have a few drinks, or what about the things you’ve done that they don’t know about? They do their best to teach us what’s right and what’s wrong, and what decisions we should make. In the end, it’s up to us really to decide what we want to do. Take Trevor for example, he went and got his motorcycle licence even though his parent’s specifically told him not to. Sometimes we need to make decisions outside of our parent’s views and influences, in order to become more independent people. I’m sure everyone here has done something that their parents would not approve of, maybe it was a mistake? But who’s to say that as teenagers we don’t learn best from those decisions that ended up being mistakes and instead gain experience?