Taking Advice From Parents

Five reasons why advice from adults does not work… (And why you should listen anyway)

5.     Parents learn from our mistakes. It might not be the easy way out, but you know from your own experience that those mistakes you made were better lessons than any lecture from your parents. As much as they might have told you that trust is important, it was not until you experienced the awful sinking feeling after telling someone’s secret that you realized how important trust really is. We were not all high school superstars. This same rule applies to most situations; no matter how many times adults told you something you had to experience it for yourself to understand the significance.

 4.     The world is a different place than when your parents were young. The internet changed everything. The world is different than it was when your parents were young. Information travels at the speed of light, communication takes place without ever speaking directly to people. Drugs, sex, and violence are everywhere, and they can be acquired from the internet! Your parents did not exist in a time with such easy access to the world. In their day if someone started a rumor about them, after a few days the whole school knew. These days, someone starts a rumor and it’s all over the web in 2.5 seconds. By the end of the day, it has gone viral, and not only does everyone know, but they have seen the YouTube video that proves it.

 3.     Parents do give some terrible advice. Ignore the bully? Tell on the gang member that stole your iPod? Things like this cause you to lose any faith you might have had in their ability to guide you in the right direction. They just don’t get it sometimes.

 2.     They don’t understand you. They even say so themselves! The things that are important to you, they see as useless. The things that they think are important you see as irrelevant. Who cares if you get to every single class on time? Why is it so important that you get an A in Calculus? They don’t realize that this is the most important time of your life and that that the experiences you have now, the friends you make, the things you do, are more important than any stupid test or grade.

And the #1 reason that adult advice doesn’t work…

 1.     You are your own person. You are unique. You are an individual. Adults might be well intentioned, but they are not you, they cannot say what is best for you in your life. How can they ever expect you to become a responsible adult if they do not allow you to make decisions for yourself? If they want to be able to trust you, they have to allow you some freedom to make your own choices and be your own person.

Why you should listen anyways

Parents: Why they may have a point.

Even though adults don’t always understand and often sound like they are coming from another world with their advice, the simple fact is that they care. They might have grown up in a different world, and they might not completely understand everything that you go through, but they have been through more than you know.

Even if their advice stinks sometimes, if they didn’t care they wouldn’t offer it. Adults that offer you advice are usually doing it out of love and concern for your well-being. And while your friends might also be well intentioned, sometimes we don’t always see the big picture the way an outsider can. Your parents and other adults in your life really don’t want to see you fail. They want to see you have a great life filled with happiness, love and success. Their advice might not always be spot on, but it might not be as off base as you think.

Ask any adult and they will tell you that there was plenty of advice they didn’t listen to and they will also tell you that many times, looking back, they wish they would have listened. They give you advice because they don’t want you to make the mistakes they made.

Your parents learned life lessons the hard way too, and they want to spare you some of the heartache and turmoil. They will tell you that they wished they had listened when their mother hadn’t approved of their girlfriend, or when their dad told them to save their money. They learned the hard way about things like drinking too much, driving too fast, or taking people for granted.

So maybe you feel like you can’t relate, and maybe your adult feels the same way, but the bottom line is that you love each other. The parents offer their advice because they have your best interests at heart, and you ignore it because you have your own best interests in mind. Maybe the next time your dad wants to sit down for a “heart to heart,” instead of tuning him out, listen to what he is really saying. Read between the lines. Even if what you’re hearing sounds like a bunch of criticism and complaints, look deeper to the heart of the matter, and that is that your dad wouldn’t bother if he didn’t care.

Beyond Parents

While unwanted advice may be annoying and even frustrating at times, it goes beyond your parents telling you what to do with your life. At the heart of the issue lies a deeper problem: communication. What is happening when mom or dad is giving you their deep lecture on the decisions you are making and the importance of taking out the trash on trash day (or whatever this week’s episode is), is that they are trying to communicate something with you.  You, being annoyed that they are trying to run your life, are missing what they are saying.

On the other hand, you are trying to communicate something as well (leave me alone!) and they are also not getting it. It is inevitable that somewhere along the line, as you become an adult yourself, you will have many communication problems with many people. Let’s face it, communication is not a strong point for us humans. But these types of communication struggles that you have with your parents, or other adults that you trust, are perfect training for the real world.

Each time your parents start to give you advice you don’t want, it is an opportunity to face one of life’s greatest challenges, expressing yourself effectively and appropriately. Your parents love you and want to see you succeed in everything. The better you are able to communicate with others, the more successful you will be in life. So the next time they start in, use it as an opportunity to practice communication.

Sounds great, but how do we do it? The following links will help you to explore different ways to communicate with your parents. Enlist their help; sit them down for your own talk, about how you all need to be able to communicate better. Then try some of these suggestions:

• PBS guide to talking this is a worksheet that both you and your adults can fill out and exchange to help better understand each other.
• RESPECT six tips for parents and six tips for teens for communicating effectively.
• Keep it simple this little article packs some valuable information about how to foster communication on your end.
•  Family education this site has many tools for the entire family, to help you strengthen your relationships.

There are plenty of other useful websites and articles, search the web, ask teachers and counselors at school or the library. Seek out ways to build a better relationship with your parents and other adults. You will see that the better you learn to communicate with them, the more they will trust you. The more they trust you, the more they will allow you to make your decisions without nagging you for the rest of your life about it.

Above all, try to keep in mind that someday you will look back and think to yourself “I wish I had listened…” Pick these battles wisely, it is better to wish that you had listened when they lectured about taking out the trash than wishing you had listened to something that would have prevented a major problem in your life.

Sometimes, we have to give mom the credit she is due, sometimes we have to admit that she really does know best. Don’t be so set on being your own person that you ignore good common sense.

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