...Why People, Mainly Teenagers, Are Not Close With Their Parents - They Are, After All, Your Own Parents.

Parents. Well, they can be rather annoying can't they? Most of us have one or two, some of us have three and some even have four or more! They're always telling you to do your homework, forcing you to do some manual chores, embarrassing you around your mates and grounding you for not doing as you're told. They keep preaching to you how lucky you are to live in the 21st century, yelling at you when you let the cat inside the house, hog the phone for hours and hours because the insurance company overcharged your family around $2 in the last monthly bill and smashing pots and pans till you wake up at 8am on a Sunday when you're busy dreaming about a nice holiday in Hawaii. One minute you're checking people out on the beach. The next you're awake and there's a ringing noise in your head.

But parents do other things too. Nice things. Like do your washing if you live at home or bring you some homemade lasagna when you're living on your own. They provide for you, they care for you and they "put their best interests at heart" when they tell you off or guide you. They raised you. They watched you grow up. They drove you to all the sports games or the swim meets. They taught you how to do basic maths (since you only knew how to count with apples and when the teacher started using eggs instead, it just became too confusing). They are your parents. Yours and no one else's (apart from siblings).

So why hide from them? Why shun them from your world? Why limit the amount of communication between yourself and them? If you just keep your distance like you are now, the gap is just going to get bigger and bigger and by the time you move out, things become more and more awkward to fix in the future - the longer it takes, the harder it gets. Parents are essential for our own individual growth. They can show you what you want to become in the future and what you don't want to become. If you're living at home, why don't you put in that effort and talk to them? Tell them your stories, your interests and your thoughts. Let them know what you like and what you don't like. They are your parents. They will love you unconditionally (unless you poured acid on Mum's beloved roses or threw rocks at your Dad's Porsche when you were young) and they will listen to your problems. Trust me, you're missing out on a very important relationship.

So unless you're parents are hostile towards you, toxic to your personality, mentally unstable or -insert many other rather unusual, non-typical things that could be wrong with your parents-, you should make use of your time and opportunity and become close with them. I mean, if you were a parent, wouldn't you like to understand your own children? How would it make you feel if you couldn't even name a few things that your son or daughter likes? You don't have to tell them everything - just enough to have some kind of connection that will last when you do move out.