Parents Don’t Always Recognize or Understand Your Issues
Growing into a young adult can be challenging at times, as well as rewarding. As we grow-up, we sense a need for independence, and during the process(es), we sometimes find it difficult to do what we are told to do because we have our own opinions about how, when, why, and where we want to conduct our lives. While this stage of growth can cause much hostility between teens and parents, it can be navigated smoothly if all parties learn to effectively communicate without disrespect and ill-considerations.
Teens must understand that parents are generally pre-occupied with taking care of and maintaining the family structure, and often times they forget what it was like being a teen and the frustrations involved with the emergence of the desire for more permissions and freedom. Due to parental responsibilities being so expansive, parents have a tendency to lose sight of the fact that their teens are experiencing the exact same stages of growth they experienced during their teen years. They lose patience, often saying hurtful things or failing to observe or listen to their teens, who very well may be reaching out to them. Parents also lose sight of the fact that as teens, we have not lived long enough to have recorded enough knowledge to act responsiblely or communicate logically –and this is where parents begin to go off track in effectively dealing with their teens. In the fashion of being adults , they expect their children to be identical to them in terms of responsibility and immediately catch on after they issue first directives; and they expect us to remember exactly what is or isn’t expected of us minus any margins for error.
Gaining knowledge of the variables in parenting, will help teens achieve greater understanding of the errors parents sometimes make when it comes to communicating with their children.
As teens and parents, it should be our respective goal to establish and maintain a healthy line of communication in order to feel comfortable communicating during stressful moments. We do not want to have the type of relationship that causes us to withdraw and not communicate with our parents, or turn to peer-oriented initiatives that run counter-productive to our parents’ teachings and expectations. So, when you see that the line of communication between you and your parent(s) is deteriorating, remember the above respective goal.