A Letter Every Parent Needs to Read – Written by a Teenager

Dear Parent, My name is Patricia…well, you could call me Tricia. As I attained my teen years, my dad was fond of saying to me, “Wake up! You’re letting your mind go to sleep; if you want to go far in life, you have to be willing to first go far in your mind. For the mind is a very powerful tool that can perform extraordinary things, if we exercise or believe in its capability.” Well, I never used to quite get it. All I do then is mutter under my breath, “Blah, blah, blah, stop blabbing,” and afterwards I would feel guilty and apologise profusely for being cheekily sincere. And with a puzzled expression, my dad would stare at me, wondering what I was apologizing for. Of course, only God and I knew of my impertinence. You see, it’s not like what he said was not right. In fact, it was 100 percent correct but the problem was the frequency, and how he said it, too. He drummed it in my ears! It was now sounding like his own solo accusatory song. And he mostly repeated it when I had messed up; I definitely had a problem with that. So, it’s the accusatory tone that gets to us: “Grow up, why can’t you be more like…”, “You forgot again to…”, “Why do you keep acting up?” “Why can’t you do anything right?” “You’re falling behind – again.” And on and on the censure rolls out, without considering we have feelings too. Not that we are trying to excuse any slipshod attitude we may exhibit but have you ever stopped to think that we are still trying to find our footing too? Such belittling words won’t help; they just make us think there is something wrong with us and we recoil, shut down or rebel more. If I’m not mistaken, most teens want you to just talk to them, and not talk at them. Yes, they want openness from you and not judgement. If your teen knows you are available to talk to them, in and out of season, in good times and bad times and not only when they fall short of your expectations, they will be more receptive if and when you come down on them. Next is guidance and advice. Trust me when I say this: we will readily receive guidance from our parents or a parental figure, if such guidance is not too overbearing or over-controlling. We would listen more and act wisely if you soft-pedal on the lecturing. Truth be told, the lectures are a bore; we respond better when it’s a dialogue or discussion and not a monologue or long-drawn-out speech. Everyone makes mistakes in life. Yes, you want to shield us as much as possible, so that we don’t make the same mistakes you did in life or make catastrophic ones. We truly applaud your concern for us, but realise that we would still make certain mistakes in life and we would learn from them, too. Such non-life-threatening mistakes won’t destroy us, they would only make us grow into better and more mature people. Then, there is the popular one – threats. Something like, “Do your chores, or you will be grounded for a whole month!” “Don’t talk to that boy again or I will seize your phone – forever!” Yeah, this probably instills the fear of God – or fear of you – in us. But that’s all it does; it does not teach us any lesson you might want us to learn. I see it happening all the time because it happens to me. When we misbehave, you threaten to take away our gadgets, you threaten to cut back our allowances, you threaten to cancel that field trip we are looking forward to, or you threaten to stop us from seeing our friends, and so on. Such threats are only building defensive walls, hurting the relationship and hindering effective communication with us. I cannot fail to mention this one – the yelling and shouting. Dear parent, this does not make the message sink deeper; it has a contrary effect. It makes us not to hear you at all. We switch off. We are thinking in our minds: Here she goes again, or: Here he goes again… So at that moment, we are not listening, just waiting for you to STOP. There’s so much I want to say but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea – I didn’t set out to parent you, how dare I! You are still the parent and it’s our primary duty to honour and obey you. I say all these with the deepest love. So, I will just wrap up with one more. You don’t need to try too hard to “get us”. There’s nothing really to get about us. We are simply trying to navigate and understand the complexities of this phase of life. Yeah, we might not readily admit it; but at times, it’s quite challenging for us, too. Having to deal with the onset of puberty, hormonal changes, getting periods, mixed feelings, mood swings, sex drive, cyberbullying, peer pressure, the opposite sex, work and school pressures, and then the subtle but nagging reminders to act our age. All these can really get overwhelming and all we ask for is to cut us some slack and just be there for us when we need you. Yes, we STILL NEED you, even though we pretend not to. On a final note, I would succinctly say this – that teen boy or girl you have in your house just wants to be appreciated, listened to, and loved unconditionally. They just want to know that they can count on you in good, bad and ugly times, too. They are just waiting for you to recognise that there is so much good in them, and not only the handful of bad behaviours they manifest. They silently seek your approval but won’t tell you; they want you to be their biggest cheerleader. They don’t want you to baby them but to trust them to make responsible decisions. Of course, your teens are not asking you to turn a blind eye to their screw-ups, but to lovingly mete out corresponding chastisement and discipline for such. We know discipline is done for our own good, even though it’s not palatable. For the Holy Book says that God treats us as sons and daughters when we are disciplined: “For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined then you are illegitimate children and not true sons,” or daughters. (Italics mine). Thank you for reading. All the best!

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@efelisaifezuo