How to get along with your parents
- always nagging you
- treating you like you’re still a teenager
- telling you what to need to do
Well, it will probably come as no surprise that this is what many Chinese young people find, and from a whole lot of different churches too.
In today’s post I’ll let you know one of the reasons why this happens – and what you can do about it.
First of all, you have to understand that Asian parents want their children to be responsible – not independent.
Responsibility and independence sound like the same thing – but they are definitely not! As an ABC you are probably hoping that you can become independent, but this is not what your parents are looking for – they are looking for responsibility. This is because of a clash of cultures – Easterners tend to be more collectivist in their thinking, and Westerners tend to be more individualistic in their thinking. And since many ABCs have been brought up in Australia, it’s no surprise that ABCs unconsciously take on a lot of the values of their adopted culture, one of which is individualism.
Your parents want you to be responsible. But unless they see evidence of you being responsible, they naturally won’t treat you as though you’re responsible – it’s as simple as that. Because they love you and care for you, they will protect you in the only way they know how – by making decisions for you, and by vetoing your decisions in order to protect you. That’s why it seems that they are treating you like children – it’s because they are treating you like the children they perceive you to be!
Secondly then: if you want to improve your relationship with your parents, what you need to do is not just be responsible, but actually show them that you are responsible.
See, you may actually have been making responsible decisions for years now. In fact some of the young people whom I know struggle with all this are actually already in the workforce, and hold very responsible jobs. They exercise the kind of responsibility every day that people are willing to pay money for! But at home they are still being treated like a teenager. And that’s because they haven’t shown to their parents that they can be responsible.
Consider honestly what your parents see of you. It’s likely that they following things happen:
- When they warn you about something that might go wrong, it appears that you don’t listen to them, but instead brush off their worries.
- They see you making major life decisions without consulting wise people (such as themselves), but instead by talking to people just as unwise as yourself (such as your friends).
- You tell them about decisions that you’ve made up your mind about, and it seems to them as though you haven’t spent any time thinking over the pros and cons. And when they talk to you about the cons they see, you don’t want to hear.
- They see that you aren’t able to manage such simple things as waking up on time, cleaning your room, or paying your own mobile phone bill. Instead a lot of things are left up to the last minute, or done hurriedly.
Now honestly. Given that perception, you really can’t fault parents for stepping in, can you! It really does appear to them that you are going to ruin your life, so they naturally want to step in and protect you. Instead of seeing this as them trying to make your life hard, see it as a sign of their love and concern.
A lot of these things are perception problems. For example, you actually have been giving that decision a lot of thought, and have already worked out the pros and cons like a responsible person would – it’s just that they weren’t aware you were doing all of that. You may be a tremendously responsible person at work, but they don’t see what you do in the city – only what you do during those rushed moments at home.
There may also be a range of other reasons as well that can complicate your relationship. But just with this, you can already see some strong reasons why they might be dubious about your responsibility.
There are in fact some things you can do to help with this perception problem, and you have it within your power to make that change.
When they begin nagging you about something, instead of responding like a teenager and storming off to your room, why not sit down and talk to them about it, just like you would a colleague at work? Instead of cutting off the lines of communication, take the lead in opening them up further, just like a responsible adult would. Ask them questions about how it makes them feel. Why it worries them so much. Maybe even thank them for bringing it to your attention. They nag because they think you haven’t heard them the first time, and so they need to say it again and again. You need to show them that, as a responsible adult, you are willing to hear from them – in fact, you welcome it.
When you have a decision that needs to be made, allow them to be part of your thinking process. Do some of your own initial thinking about the pros and cons (just some, not all of your thinking), and then go to them and ask them for their advice. Talk them through the pros and cons that you see, and ask them what they reckon. They will probably leap in and give you a solution ("you should do this"). But that’s not good enough for a responsible person – ask them for their reasons for thinking that’s the way to go. Test their reasons - not as a beligerent teenager, but instead as someone who wants to understand their wisdom and pick their brains. See if the three of you can maybe come up with some more pros and cons, or a new way of thinking about it together. This way they can see that you actually do think about decisions responsibly, and that you do have some insight into the things of this world.
So thirdly, in those areas where you have been given responsibility, you want to make sure that you are making responsible decisions and acting in a responsible manner.
Young children obviously shouldn’t have a lot of responsibility given to them (so a lot of what I have to say here needs to be stored away for another time), but adults ought to have responsibility, and should be capable of handling it. And when they see that you are responsible, they will feel more and more comfortable in allowing you more and more responsibility in greater and greater areas.
It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen, as they see that happening. And trust me, the first few times you do the responsible thing, they may not say anything, but they will notice it. And when they see the pattern of responsibility building up, they will start to treat you as an adult.
The fourth thing is to remember that, in all of this, as a responsible adult, you are the one who still has to make up the decision.
This not about making them happy by obediently doing what they tell you to do – that’s going back to childhood! No, it’s actually about showing them that you think and act responsibly – like an adult.
So in the end you may not actually go with what they told you to do. But hopefully they will see that you were responsible in your thinking process. They may not be entirely happy, but hopefully they would have been impressed.
The fifth thing to keep in mind is that this is not an act – you really do want to learn from their wisdom.
You are not just pretending to listen – trust me on this. They’re your parents, they know you very well, they can tell if you’re faking it. Especially when you haven’t had lots of practice! Instead consider that, because they know you very well, it’s actually a good thing for your decision making. Your friends that you talk to all the time? They only know you for a couple of years. But they’ve known you for 20 years plus! Not only that, they must have had some level of wisdom to have made it so far in this world, especially as migrants!
So what you want to do as a responsible person is to make full use of their general wisdom, as well as their particular inside knowledge of your character strengths and weaknesses over 20+ years of interacting with you. When they tell you that "this course is not so good for you, you should do that instead", they actually have a lot of authority. Ask them for their reasons for them saying that. It may in fact be built on some insights to your character that your friends don’t have the history or the maturity to pick up. And only your parents can provide that kind of insight to you. Ask them specifically about what they know of your character, and add it to your thinking material.
Again, it’s still up to you to make the decision in the end, but remember that it’s the responsible and adult thing to do.
Your parents have a lot of wisdom they can share - and they can also make your life pretty hard! Why not make things easy for yourself, and make the most of the wisdom they have at the same time?
[ PS: things have been really busy since returning from Malaysia/Singapore, that's why there weren't any posts in September! ]
Categories: Church life
