My parents don't listen to me, what should I do?

It's definitely super tough when we don't feel like our parents are hearing us. It can lead to feeling invalidated and alone. It might help to do a bit of self care just to destress a bit, things that make you feel better! Self care includes art, music, writing, watching TV, just anything you do for fun :) Then maybe once you feel destressed you could talk to your parents about how it makes you feel that they don't listen to you, if that's possible. If not then keeping a journal or writing down how you feel might help!

Growing up can be difficult. Many teens and young adults face challenges feeling heard by their parents or parental figures in their lives. It's important to note communication goes both or all the ways: there's how we communicate, how others communicate to interact with us and how we take their reactions and responses. I'm not sure what's going on with your parents but sometimes, parents have very valid and logical reasons they do not always seem to hear what is being said or they do not respond well. It may help to communicate differently such as with "I-statements" to emphasize yourself in the conversation.

It’s completely normal for your parents to not listen to you because most times they think that since they are the parent, they know better than you. Sometimes it is correct in cases that you want to do something dumb or rude. But in other cases, it could be serious. Some parents don’t believe in things such as extreme anxiety and other disorders that deserve to be treated. I’m not good at advice, but you should, first of all, explain to them about the situation and let them realize the graveness of it. Once you’ve got that in grasp, you have a right to be heard by them!

A lot of people struggle with parents and communication. There can be ways of speaking to them. Maybe writing down on a piece of paper how you feel, express yourself, sharing with them what it is that is bothering you, ask them what bothers them about you. And then talk to them and bring up those points. Have an open mind. Communication and understanding is the key. Having a calm environment is also important. Definitely sharing feelings and expression is important, because we don't want to keep building things that are bugging us inside. We want to be able to share.

Parents are quite rigid when it comes to changing their mind, so understandably it is hard for you to do something to make them willingly listen to you. The best thing one can do while dealing with this scenario is to come to a sort of compromise with them (if possible). In my experience, I have seen how misunderstood and unheard it makes me feel when they do not want to listen to all that I have to say, I feel as if my words aren't worth hearing and my knowledge is miniscule. It is something you will have to make peace with. You can try and slowly make ease them into valuing your opinion but it wouldn't happen until they want it. If they have preconceived notion that people under certain age do not have valueable things to say about a certain topic, all you say would be "they are just a kid". We can hope for them to listen to us, but we cannot really do much about it and to think that they will listen to you and understand you, or perhaps even heed your words meaningfully is difficult to achieve. I have made peace with it. I cannot make them listen, if something is very important for me and I want them to listen and vaguely mention it and if their reaction tells me I could get disappointed in future is I tell them then I keep it to myself. Acceptance is the first key step, the rest of the things to do depends entirely on what is the situation in which you want them to listen to you. I hope you figure out your way of dealing with this.

You should try to talk to them about it and let them know how you feel, to let them know that you don’t like the way they are behaving with you. You have to let them know that you don’t like the way they are treating you. If this doesn’t help, try talking to another family member about it or even request to go to family therapy. I’ve been here before and talking to my parents about it really helped. If they continue to disregard you, turn to a trusted family member! They could always give some great advice but remember you're never alone in this!!

Do you have other close relatives in your family? if so have you tried talking to them about this problem maybe get them involved and all sit down and talk it through together. If not try brining it into conversation if you get the chance. Try telling them how this is making you feel. Explain that there not listening to you and how that is actually making you feel. Hopefully they will understand. I am sorry to hear this. Maybe bring it into conversation over dinner or something. Or when your out. I hope you get this problem resolved.

You need to continually speak up for yourself, yet even after years of me saying "listen to me!" you need to take a step back and think. Are they constantly interrupting you, putting you down, and not valuing what you think? Is it always their way, do what they say, that they never take your opinion into consideration? It might help to look at an Emotion Wheel of about 100 words to describe what you are feeling to get words to describe and identify how this makes you feel. You might need to use "I feel...." statements. Such as "I feel disappointed that I" example.. cannot stay out later at night, go to this event, feel *** from feeling "misunderstood" Is there a reason you feel this way?" You cannot change your parents behavior but if you can identify how this makes you feel using descriptive words such as under the category of sad - lonely, isolated, abandoned, vulnerable, victimized fragile, despair, grief, powerless, depressed, empty, inferior.....I am explaining that since I have a hard time identifying my emotions, if I can express them clearly in an "I feel ____" sentence, that sometimes this opens up the conversation to a new perspective where the other person can listen to you. If it doesn't work with parents, if can work easily on other people. You need to search healthy boundaries and always be speaking up for yourself and have a voice when it is your parents.

I think reaching out to you parents to have an open conversation is the ideal goal to having your parents listen to you. Sometimes it's difficult to get to this agreement and it can be helpful to try to understand where your parents are coming from so that you can compromise. For example, maybe they aren't listening because they feel like when you have your own opinion it means that they are wrong. It can be frustrating when that may not be your intention but if that is how they feel which is preventing them from being able to listen to you, addressing this directly may help you get to a place where you and your parents can listen and talk to each other.

If you feel comfortable, maybe have a chat with them and let them know how you are feeling and how it is affecting you. They might be unintentionally doing this, so by letting them know they have a chance to understand what to do differently. If you don’t feel comfortable talking directly, you could send them a message or write them a note to give to them, so that way you are getting your point across but not having the face to face conversation. I hope this works out for you and we are here to listen all the time.