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The purpose of this presentation is to describe the experiences, pitfalls and facilitators of engaging adolescents as participants in research studies. A heightened sense of self-consciousness and emerging desire for privacy and autonomy is typical of the adolescent period of development and can make adolescents in this age group least likely to volunteer to be subjects in research studies. to the level of scrutiny central to qualitative research.  When we undertook to interview adolescents with Marfan syndrome for a Grounded Theory study of the process by which they transition to self-management of their chronic disorder, we pulled together information from developmental and psycho-social literature to develop an interview strategy designed to put the adolescent at ease and to facilitate the process of data collection.  We found that with an understanding of cognitive development and the unique psycho-social challenges, the process of conducting qualitative interviews with adolescent's can be pleasantly challenging and the result can be a wealth of information that provides a fresh outlook and perspective on life and the world, with or without a chronic illness.