Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Parents versus teenagers
Youth tips on surviving the eternal struggle with your parents!
As long as there have been teenagers, the war with parents has been raging. Before Jesus was born, parents were fighting with their children. Remember that as a kid you were never as happy as when you were with your parents? When school and everything else paled in comparison? So, after a long evening of thrashing it out with your parents, you may find yourself wondering how we went from that to this Iraqi style warzone.
I don’t think we can ever realistically hope that parent-teen fighting will go away (much like Madonna), however there are a few things which we young people can do to try and lessen the damage, or at least to silence the shouting.
First of all, and I know it sounds clichéd, but then things that are true often do, the honest to god truth is that your parents really “only want what is best for you”. Well, maybe it would be better to phrase that more accurately: they only want what they think is best for you.
Trying to make parents aware of this distinction can be quite difficult as a high dose of “know-it-all-ism” comes with being responsible for your very existence. Still, being conscious that at least their intentions are good (not merely completely random and cruel as they often seem) can help you understand their perspective and calm you down a bit. If you get across to your parents that you acknowledge their perspective, they will be a lot less hostile and more reasonable.
Secondly, take it easy on the voice box! Shouting and screaming often seems like the only way to get through to your parents, I know I generated enough sound energy over the last 8 years to power Ireland for the next 80!
The thing is, the louder you roar, the less people hear, especially your parents who tend to think you should be more angelic than is humanly possible. It is true in every relationship or communication that losing the head is not the way to go but I think it is most true when speaking to one’s parents.
The only chance you have of being listened to properly and as you deserve is by impressing them with your ability to convey your point forcefully but politely. If that fails to convince you to leave the shouting to heavy metal, it might be useful to remember that as loud as you roar your father can probably go a whole lot louder.
Fights between parents and teens are often put down to the generation gap, and the lack of understanding between the parents and their children. This is particularly powerful during our teenage years when we learn so much about the world so quickly and set about developing ourselves as people in the world, not just children in a family.
The generation gap sounds bad… but does it have to be there? A lot of the time our parents get more anxious and angry because they feel that they are losing us, so why not just nip the problem in the bud. Our parents are not complete idiots incapable of understanding our lives, though it is really tempting to believe that. However, if you talk to them and tell them about your life and your friends, the drama, the pressure and yes, tell them about the boredom that we so often feel during our teenage years, you will see the fighting collapse. I hope this helps!
By: John Dunphy
