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Dear Jean: Jean responds: Hi, Good for you for being concerned about your relationship with your parents. I think it's great that you're taking the time and investing the energy in trying to "get off to a good start" with your parents. I'll bet that with discussion the three of you can find ways to work together much more smoothly. It is not unusual for adolescents and parents to find it harder to get along than it used to be, when the adolescent was a child. I think one thing that happens is that expectations get in the way. On the parents' part, they may expect their offspring to respond in the way she used to: that is, with more or less unquestioning acceptance of everything the parents say, their orders, their rules, their values, etc. Often parents cannot see why adolescents should behave any differently from how they used to behave when younger, in this regard. But adolescents have entered a whole new stage of development. You are no longer a child, yet not an adult either. It's an in-between stage, during which it is important for adolescents to begin to press parents, if needed, to be treated more like an adult, even though the adolescent isn't fully adult yet. This means that adolescents need increasing freedom to begin to run their own lives. They also need freedom to question what they formerly took for granted: to examine the rules and regs, to examine values they've been taught, to try to figure out what they want to do and who they want to be in their own right. This is not to say that adolescents do not also need rules or limits: they do. But they need to be a part of deciding what those should be, along with what consequences will follow their stepping over the lines. Your part of it, as I see it, may be to try to speak calmly and respectfully to your parents when you want their attention or want them to listen. I also realize that this is not easy to do--it takes controlling your feelings of resentment or disappointment. It might be best, when you feel your parents are being unfair or not listening, simply to withdraw from the conversation and return to it later, when you are calmer -- and maybe they are, too -- and tell them clearly what is bothering you. Perhaps your parents just have not fully realized yet that you are in a new stage of your development, with new needs and goals. Maybe it would be helpful if you printed out some of the Q&A's on the topics of independence and identity, as well as power struggles, limits, and consequences. You find these by typing in these words in the Search box and clicking on Search. Perhaps your parents would be willing to read these; I think they could be very helpful. Hope this helps a little. PS: You may want to remind your parents also that they can write me their own letter, which I will be glad to answer. Jean. Disclaimer: Ms. Walbridge's
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to get my way with my parents. I know they are my parents
and they have the upper hand but sometimes I feel like they don't
even wanna hear what I have to say! I feel like they don't care.
The other day I got in BIG trouble! I mean the worst I have ever
gotten into. My parents made me tell what all I have been doing,
and I did, but everything I said they yelled at me for talking
back and normally when I wanna carry on a normal conversation
I get yelled at for talking back! I just wish me and my parents
could get along; I am only 13, I am just now in my early teens
and I wanna get off to a good start! I love my parents and they
love me. I have a good future and they know it. I am an only
child and mostly get my way and sometimes when I don't I get
upset and I know when I do I also talk back a lot, but sometimes
I just feel like my parents are making getting on me a hobby!
Anyways I was just wondering if you could help me figure out
what to do about all the arguing?