This is a teens-only page! Here, we will disclose all the secrets we teach teens at Down To Earth about how to get their parents off their backs. Parents, you’re going to have to leave now, you’re too old to be here. Go on now, scoot!
Teens, adults don’t obey those kinds of orders any better than you do, so there’s going to be disobedient parents here and we’re just going to have to tolerate them.
YOUR PARENTS ARE CONFUSED
They really don’t know if you’re a kid anymore of if you’re an adult and they really don’t know how to treat you. Sometimes they treat you like a kid and it really irritates you. The only way to get them to treat you like an adult is to act like one. If they are treating you like a little kid, stop right there and try to figure out why. Maybe you just did something that was a little immature. If so, follow it up quickly with something that is mature. Remind them of the things that you already do that are very grown-up. You can “cure” their confusion by showing them that you are, in fact, grown up now.
YOUR PARENTS ARE SCARED
Your parents fully realize that they are losing control over you and it scares the crap out of them. Not simply because they want to control you, but because they realize that they can no longer protect you from all the evils of the world. When you were little, if you were about to fall down a flight of stairs, they were so big and powerful that they could just go pick you up and move you away from the danger. Now there’s all kinds of dangerous stuff around you and they can’t just go pick you up and move you away from it. You’re being exposed to stuff that they never had to deal with. They don’t even know how to get you away from it if they could. Besides that, you seem to be very interested in all that dangerous stuff and that scares them even more.
When parents are scared, they say, “NO.”
You ask to go to a party and they are scared to death that there will be so many drugs there and someone will slip you something and you’ll die, so they just say, “NO.” They’re scared that the whole thing will be busted by the police and you’ll go to jail, so they just say, “NO.” They are convinced you’ll get so wasted that someone ends up pregnant, so they just say, “NO.”
The only thing that can “cure” their fears is INFORMATION.
If you want to go to a party, they already think there is going to be every drug in the world available there, so it’s no harm in admitting that there will be alcohol and marijuana at the party. They already are convinced that you will be kidnapped and forced to drink and smoke, so tell them how exactly you plan to attend the party and protect yourself so you don’t have to drink or smoke. They are also convinced that someone’s going to force somebody to have sex there, so you might also tell them what your thoughts are about sex, condoms, and birth control so they know you can attend the party without someone ending up pregnant or diseased.
Whatever they are thinking is probably much worse than what’s actually going on, so admitting the truth can actually help to reduce their fears. When they are less scared, they are able to say “yes” sometimes.
YOUR PARENTS ARE GRIEVING A LOSS
Your parents once had a cute little baby that they could hold and cuddle and kiss and that little baby is being taken from them. That little baby is slowly being replaced by someone who doesn’t need them so much anymore, someone who wants to leave their home, someone who doesn’t get into all that cuddly junk anymore. They get very sad about that and sometimes they try to prevent it from happening by treating you like a little child so they can fool themselves into thinking you’ll stay little forever.
That starts a lot of arguments because it really irritates you to be treated like a child. If your parents are trying to hang on to their image of you as a little baby, you can “cure” them by reassuring them that you’re always going to need them for something.
Get them to start thinking about the FUTURE, not the PAST. Talk with them about how much you look forward to having them over for dinner at your new apartment when you get one. Tell them that you’ll still need their help when you move up to college. Talk with them about how you can’t wait to have them help you plan exciting stuff like your wedding. You can help them make the switch from missing their baby to being excited to have an adult child.
