Saturday, August 13, 2011

What to do with my parents?

I am an adult and I understand how you feel. I also understand how your parents feel. Let me explain to you what is going on. It doesn't matter "who started it", but they are acting like they don't trust you and you are acting like you can't be trusted. It is a complete cycle that just keeps going around and around. Someone has to break the cycle or it is going to get worse and worse until they say something so mean to you that it hurts you so badly that you won't have any respect for them anymore at all, you will disobey everything because you feel it's hopeless, and something catastrophic could happen like you running away. As the adults, your parents should be doing a better job taking responsibility for stopping the cycle. They should be reading parenting books. However, they are not, so it is up to you to break the cycle. Please go to a bookstore and find books on parenting teenagers. If you can find one that's written by a Christian psychologist (someone with a Phd, or Edd, or MD at the end of their name) that would be great, but any parenting book will probably do. Read through them until you find the trust issues you are talking about and how the expert guides the parents to handle it in the proper way. Now you can do one of two things (or both) - parent yourself and do the stuff that the expert says to break the cycle; or show your parents the book with the pages marked that apply to you and say "I really want us to get along better, and I think the stuff in this book will help. I read it, will you? I'd be willing to do my part if you do yours as suggested in the book." That's a really mature thing for a 14 year old to do, and I would imagine your parents would be impressed by your maturity and your willingness to work through the conflict, and they should also be a little embarred that they didn't think of it first (but don't gloat).

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