Improve Your Relationship with Your Parents
This post is all about how YOU can seek to understand your parents, not the other way around. Now before you click out of here give me a chance to explain myself.
Arguments happen because of disagreements, but at the core of those disagreements more often than not, is a misunderstanding. Too often we cannot see the situation from the other persons point of view, and if we could, we would see their view as completely rational.
Dale Carnegie wrote in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People “if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does (...) Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind (...) Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he was.”
If you want to have a better relationship with your parents, or with anyone for a matter of fact, you need to seek to truly understand them. In understanding them you can then sympathize with their viewpoint. You may still disagree, but you won’t be driven to frustration or thinking they are crazy for their viewpoints.
So, how can you seek to understand your parents?
The first thing to do is recognize how much they care for you. They want the best for you even though it may not always seem like that. This is something that you need to say everyday and remind yourself whenever you feel yourself getting emotional, because you have to drill it down into your subconscious mind.
If you only know it in your conscious mind then you will still find yourself acting as thought you believe that they don’t care about you or want the best for you. This happens because when we are emotional, its as though our conscious mind shuts down and our survival mode kicks in.
Now that you recognize that your parents care about you, and you’re reminding your subconscious every day, the next step is to realize that their lives aren’t easy and they have stress just like you do. Plus, parenting is hard, babies don’t come out with a manual so they are learning how to parent as they go.
I know that you have stress too, but the mere fact of recognizing that the other person has stress and has struggles in life as well (whether they seem like it or not, they do), will allow you to interact with them with more empathy. When you have empathy for someone you wont want to tear them down, you will want to help them and you will naturally seek to understand their viewpoint.
Okay, now that you have the two big picture things down let’s get into some more specifics.
Cultivating Trust
Maybe you feel like your parents just don’t understand you, or that they are babying you, and they may well be doing that. From my early teenage years through early twenties I know that I have constantly been growing and changing, to the point where it almost seems like I am a completely different person every four years or so.
So instead of getting upset that they don’t understand you, or that they are babying you, you need to find a way to be more responsible in their eyes. When they see you as more responsible, then they will give you more rights and treat you as more of an adult and equal.
The best way to do this is to go above and beyond in whatever responsibilities they give you right now. Eventually they will take notice. You can also talk to them about how you have grown and matured. Their immediate response will likely be to shrug it off because I’m guessing you have gone to them complaining about how they treat you as a baby. But if you can maintain composure, truly seek to understand why they have the rules they do, and remember that they care about you, they will be blown away. This will cause them to really reevaluate how they see you and the way they treat you.
Handling Discipline
Another issue maybe how they discipline you.
Quick disclaimer that I don’t know how you have been disciplined, whether it was reasonable or to extreme or abusive. Obviously, it can cross a line and if it does then there is no place for that, and that is not what I am going to be talking to in this section. But I think most people don’t fall into that category and those are the people I am speaking too. If you have been abused then you should seek help from a professional source. With that being said…
Proverbs 13:24 states “whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”
You may be wondering how your parent disciplining you can mean that they love you. It shows love because you have to learn discipline when you are growing up and unfortunately as humans, and especially as guys, we have to learn discipline the hard way sometimes.
Effective discipline will cause you to be more disciplined in the rest of your life. You may not notice this till you are older, but a lot of the time the kids who got away with everything, and were never disciplined growing up kind of suck as adults. They are entitled jerks who don’t take responsibility for their actions, and your parents just don’t want that to be you.
But I also understand they it sucks from your perspective no matter what. If you recognize that you should be disciplined but you objectively believe it’s too harsh, then I suggest you talk with them and try to understand. They key though is that you can’t be emotional, and at the end of the conversation if they decide to keep whatever was already in place you have to accept it. If you allow yourself to get emotional then they will feel justified in the punishment and they won’t want to work with you in the future to negotiate discipline.
In summary:
Remember that your parents love you
Remember they have stress too
If you want something to change you have to approach them in an adult way
You have to admit your mistakes and own up to them and take your punishment when necessary.
If you can do these things then you will see your relationship with your parents become significantly better.
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