Most of us go into parenting completely oblivious to what is ahead. We think that we will be the best parents on the planet - the ones who always know where their children are and who they're with. We look at child abductions and crimes against children, drug and alcohol abuse by children, pregnant teens, eating disorders, and think, "Not MY child."

Unfortunately, those can sometimes be famous last words.

In continuing my discussion of Vicki Courtney's 5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter, we enter into Chapter 6, "The Friendship Factor."

We have three children - a 13-year-old daughter (Kaylee), a 4-year-old son (Scott), and a two-year-old son (Jeb). Within a few months of moving from Florida to Kentucky, I was pregnant with Jeb. It was a hard pregnancy that required bed rest and ultimately an emergency c-section. My husband has also either been away for Army training or in Afghanistan for the last 3 years. During this time, I got into some really bad habits with Kaylee that I didn't even see until just a few weeks ago.

As we talked about in Girlhood Interrupted, friends are typically the primary influence in a teenager's life. And, children are so wired these days with cell phones and internet that they're able to communicate with each other without parents interacting or even necessarily knowing about it.