If you’re no longer a teen, do you remember how it often felt like your parents spoke a different language from you? How you wish they could understand you better?
If you’re still a teen, do you often feel what you say is different from what your parents comprehend? You love your parents but it feels like you’re from Neptune and they are from Saturn?
We can all agree that parents to teen relationship can be stronger if both parties understood each other better. That was the foundation for this viral Reddit thread that asked teenagers to share what they think parents need to hear and understand, and boy they went hard!
Just because I don’t want you to go through my phone, doesn’t mean I have something to hide. It just means that it feels like an invasion of my privacy as an 18 year old. I don’t take/send/receive nudes or send lewd texts but regardless, I don’t particularly want my parents to read messages between me and my friend from a 3am convo where she’s pouring her deepest hurts out to me. She told me only for a reason.
However, I would understand a parent going through their kid’s phone if they hadn’t proved themself to be responsible enough to be trusted with one. After all, the parent is paying for it. BUT especially with older, trusted teenagers, I don’t particularly see why they would just search through it for no warranted reason. My parents used to have some kind of app where they could see all my texts, phone call history, search history and pretty much everything. I never did anything personally for them to need to go that in depth with it. They got mad because one time I was in a group message (I was 15) with my friends and one of them made a sex joke. Not even something I did and I got my phone taken away for weeks. All it did was make me paranoid to talk to my friends because they knew my parents monitored my phone and they felt like they couldn’t talk to me because my parents would know too. Even if I was doing nothing wrong.
I’m not telling anyone how to raise their kid, all I’m saying is, that if your kid has proved him/herself as trustworthy, show them that you trust them. Perspective of a teen here. —viridity12
“Your child is not a mini version of you. They have their own thoughts, feelings, dreams, and emotions.”
“Kids protect their parents from things a lot more than we let on. A lot of times we don’t open up to you because we don’t think you’d handle situations in a healthy manner.” —GreyRosato
“If I tell you I need a minute, it’s probably for a good reason. Please just give me a minute.”
“Yelling only makes me angrier. If you want to get through to me, explain why you’re angry. I can’t do anything if you’re just spilling your anger onto me.”
“Your words are way more impactful on me than you believe. If you call me bad words, trust me, they will hurt more than anyone else’s words.”
“You’re just as addicted to technology and social media as we are.”
School makes stuff hard, and sometimes parents make things hard too.
Just because I’m exhausted today doesn’t necessarily mean I was on my phone late last night.
If we tell you about our depression, our anxiety, our panic attacks, etc., it means we trust you. Don’t break that by brushing it off like it’s nothing or telling us that we’re lying.
We’re not always hiding stuff from you. Please, for the love of god, let us have some privacy once in awhile. — littlepinkranger174
“When your teenage son doesn’t want to stand up under any circumstance, he most likely has a boner. Spare him some humiliation.”
You were our age once too, so you should understand that this is literally one of the shiitiest times of our lives. — Ivana_Dragmire
I’m growing up. Let me have my freedom that I have been waiting nearly two decades for. If I need support I’ll ask for it, but don’t immediately jump in and try to help. I need to learn how to handle stuff on my own. I still love you, but don’t smother me. — Rodavlas895
Please don’t criticise your children’s appearance whether it’s weight,fashion sense or how they look in general. It will stick with your child for the rest of their life. You’re meant to build them up not tear them down.–Queenting
Time passes and I get more and more independent… and it’s okay. No need to keep this constant control over my life… I still love and respect you even if I don’t depend on you for everything I have to do. — alamirogiampieri
Don’t try to mold your kid into something, they will grow up and despise you. Don’t get pissed off because your we didn’t help you with something you didn’t ask for help on and say ‘I shouldn’t have to ask’. Just because you worked today doesn’t mean you are exempt from doing anything. You arent the only person that lives there, your kids aren’t your personal maids. And you having a job doesn’t make you superior. Never, ever have a superiority complex because you’re the parent. Do not hide under the ‘because I’m the parent’ when your kid decides to defend themselves. Civil discussion. Do not talk down to them. Kids are people too. — massee211
