During adolescence, a child begins to comprehend abstract reasoning with greater ability. He is able to see things from other people's point of view. He is also able to more fully comprehend that rules are not always followed by their fellow men.

How adolescents act at this stage, depends largely upon the principles that were instilled during their youth. They will tend to operate on rules that were established, solidly, by the parents while they were in their youth. If the rules were not established solidly, but periodically broken, the adolescent will not have a solid set of guidelines for which to base his decisions. Instead, the adolescent will have to decide whether or not to follow the semi-established rules, or continue to break them as before exhibited.

 The adolescent, with solidly established rules, will utilize those rules as guidelines to base his decisions. He will have a hard time discarding them. The adolescent, with a weakly established set of rules, will readily be able to discard the rules. The adolescent, without pre-established rules, will have to learn the rules as they go. This will often involve a lot of mistakes and heartache.