How do I tell parent what is on my mind?
What are some ways to start talking to parents?
This person posted both of these questions.
It’s important to know exactly what we are dealing with here. It’s called fear. What’s even more important is that if you don’t acknowledge your fear now, to yourself, and verbally to each parent/teacher/friend, it will become a part of your personality for life.
It’s not as though you aren’t communicating your fear to your parents and to everyone else, you are. People don’t know what you are afraid of, or even that you have a specific problem with fear, they only know that something is wrong. In other words, you are communicating nonverbally that something is on your mind. This something is called a withhold. You are withholding some thought from someone. The more thoughts you withhold the more bound up you become.
You’d think that adults would see that you are withholding a thought or thoughts but they usually can’t. That, or they can see but don't know how to get into communication with you. There were many teachers at Columbine who couldn’t see that the students had been dramatizing their upsets non-verbally, and there were many who could see the dramatizations, yet none knew enough to get into communication with either of the students. Why can’t adults see, why don’t they say something? They can’t because they too are withholding thoughts from others. They become so bound up they can’t see that you’ve become bound up. Strange as it may sound, teachers do not attend advanced communication training programs to become teachers. They simply don’t know how to get into communication with you.
What kinds of thoughts are you withholding from your parents? Believe it or not the first thought you withheld was most likely your first lie. You were going along in life in-integrity. Up till then you had been completely honest and truthful, and then one day your mom asked, “Did you brush your teeth?” You lied and said you did. Had she been conscious, (awake) and in-integrity herself, she would have heard the lie in your voice or seen it on your face, but unbeknownst to her her mind was preoccupied with some upset, withhold, or lie she was telling to your dad or her mom, or someone. For example: To the IRS: “I used my family car for 2650 miles for business.” To the school principal a week ago: “I’ll mail our new address and emergency phone numbers to you today.” To the insurance company so as to get the lowest premiums: “I’m in perfect health.” (when she knows she has had some health problem.). To your dad: Your mom may have been withholding from him that she’s had thoughts of divorcing him and she’s become afraid to communicate openly and honestly with him. To you: “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Each lie, conscious or not, has an effect, a consequence. Each lie saps one’s awareness, their consciousness. After a while a parent has so many outstanding (unacknowledged to anyone) lies and withholds they can no longer hear your lies or see that you also are withholding thoughts. You begin to lose [total] respect for them because you have been able to con them too easily.
Now here’s the shocker. That first lie still effects you and your relationship with your mom and everyone else in your life. It’s called an unacknowledged perpetration. The guilt is still written on your face, begging to be caught. That lie serves as a barrier to open and honest communication with your parents. It was the beginning of them shutting down with you because they couldn’t get into open and honest and spontaneous communication with you. They had no idea when it began, when they lost touch with you, but when traced, all adults have their number one unacknowledged lie with their parents.
This is true for the vast majority of adults. A communicologist can experience when an adult is shut down, when another is hiding something from someone. The adult simply begins to look tired, as we say, “solid.” There is no space for communication. They are no longer open and spontaneous. Their humor is not as close to the surface as it used to be. They have too many unresolved upsets. They are in fact dramatizing that life isn’t working as they know it could.
For example: When you look among your teachers some look approachable and others look grumpy or busy all the time. The ones who look approachable are more open and honest in their communications than the grumpy shut down looking teachers. There are no exceptions to this rule. Teachers and parents who appear to be angry or short tempered or grumpy, or not easily approachable, unconsciously create fear in their relationship with others. The majority of police officers create fear in their relationship with the populace and they don’t even know that they are cause for this fear. This is because they carry around so many thoughts that they don’t, won’t, or can’t, share with anyone. They just don’t look like they are a safe space in which to tell the truth. They aren’t comfortable with themselves and so no one can be comfortable around them. Adults become bound up. It’s not only you.
One of the phases most teens go through is called pouting. The reason pouting is used as a manipulation tool during teenage years is that in the beginning it most always works. When a normally happy open and spontaneous child suddenly shuts down it’s so obvious that all those who know him/her ask, “What’s wrong?” Pouting is when you dramatize an upset/incomplete non-verbally. Pouting begins with pout number one. You were upset and instead of crying you just shut down. This caused your parent to ask, What’s wrong?” This is called a setup. You set it up for someone to drag out of you what was on your mind. Communicating non-verbally, in the beginning, is a great way to control others. It drives adults crazy. They feel like failures in their relationship with you. It looses its effectiveness soon and then adults simply give up on you.
So, you ask, “How do I tell my parents what’s on my mind? and “What are some ways to start talking to parents?”
You begin by acknowledging your first lie to them. Come clean. It opens up space. It completes the incident. It disappears the guilt. It creates space for them to be open and honest with you.
Here’s how it works:
You: “Mom, is this a good time to talk? I need you to sit down with me?”
Mom: What? What do you want to talk about?”
You: “It’s a homework assignment. I can’t tell you what it's about until you are sitting down with me. When’s a good time? It will only take about five minutes.” (It’s an assignment because I am a teacher and I’m assigning you this communication-skills homework.)
The most important thing here is to not reveal the subject until you have her sitting down with you. In other words, you have to be willing to control her. If your fear is such that you are afraid to ask her to sit with you and you think she would not take the time to sit with you, then you need some therapy and counseling immediately—you, not her. She’s already too damaged; the relationship is too damaged, for you to help her right now. You are in survival mode and it’s up to you to raise yourself from now on. If you don’t get therapy you’ll find yourself blaming your parents for the rest of your life for how screwed up you are, except, you and I will know that you had a choice, you were told, and you refused to get help for yourself.
Continuing: Once she is seated you say to her anything, that’s true for you, of the following:
“I am uncomfortable. I’m experiencing nervousness. I have the thought that you will get upset with me for what I’m about to say. I’m afraid that you will get angry. I’m afraid that you will interrupt me in the middle. I’m afraid that you might hit me. I'm afraid you will ground me.”
The above paragraph is called creating a context. It’s building a basket into which you will deliver your withhold(s) your first unacknowledged childhood perpetration. To understand why we are doing this you need to know that the mind is driven to be right. For example: If you tell an adult that you are afraid they will interrupt you, they, to be right, will do their best to not interrupt you, to prove that you were wrong. The above paragraph consists of your fears, your considerations. If you do a thorough job, if you communicate all your fears, then you will have none left. You will be fearless—at least for a few minutes.
For more about this topic go to Questions posted via the
Teen Topic Request Form 3/22/04:
Posted here by Kerry, Teen Forum Moderator
How do I tell my parent what is on my mind?
What are some ways to start talking to parents?
Background and explanation:
It’s important to know exactly what we are dealing with here. It’s called fear. What’s even more important is that if you don’t acknowledge your fear now, to yourself, and verbally to each parent/teacher/friend, it will become a part of your personality for life.
It’s not as though you aren’t communicating your fear to your parents and to everyone else, you are. People don’t know what you are afraid of, or even that you have a specific problem with fear, they only know that something is wrong. In other words, you are communicating nonverbally that something is on your mind. This something is called a withhold. You are withholding some thought from someone. The more thoughts you withhold the more bound up you become.
You’d think that adults would see that you are withholding a thought or thoughts but they can’t. There’s not a teacher at Columbine who couldn’t see that the students had been dramatizing their upsets nonverbally. Yet none knew enough to get into communication with either of the students. Why can’t adults see, why don’t they say something? They can’t because they too are withholding thoughts from others. They become so bound up they can’t see that you’ve become bound up. Strange as it may sound, teachers do not attend advanced communication training programs to become teachers. They simply don’t know how to get into communication with you.
What kinds of thoughts are you withholding from your parents? Believe it or not the first thought you withheld was most likely your first lie. You were going along in life in-integrity. Up till then you had been completely honest and truthful, and then one day your mom asked, “Did you brush your teeth?” You lied and said you did. Had she been conscious, (awake) and in-integrity herself, she would have heard the lie in your voice or seen it on your face, but unbeknownst to her her mind was preoccupied with some upset, withhold, or lie she was telling to your dad or her mom, or someone. For example: To the IRS: “I used my family car for 2650 miles for business.” To the school principal: “I’ll mail our new address and emergency phone numbers to you today.” (a week ago). To the insurance company so as to get the lowest premiums: “I’m in perfect health.” (when she knows she has had some health problem.). To your dad: She may have been withholding from him that she’s had thoughts of divorcing him and she’s become afraid to communicate openly and honestly with him. To you: “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Each lie, conscious or not, has an effect, a consequence. Each saps one’s awareness, their consciousness. After a while a parent has so many outstanding (unacknowledged to anyone) lies and withholds they can no longer hear your lies or see that you also are withholding thoughts. You begin to lose respect for them because you have been able to con them too easily.
Now here’s the shocker. That first lie still effects you and your relationship with your mom and everyone else in your life. It’s called an unacknowledged perpetration. The guilt is still written on your face, begging to be caught. That lie serves as a barrier to open and honest communication with your parents. It was the beginning of them shutting down with you because they couldn’t get into open and honest and spontaneous communication with you. They had no idea when it began, when they lost touch with you, but when traced, all adults have their number one unacknowledged lie with their parents.
This is true for the vast majority of adults. A communicologist can experience when an adult is shut down, when they are hiding something from someone. The adult simply begins to look tired, as we say, “solid.” There is no space for communication. They are no longer open and spontaneous. Their humor is not as close to the surface as it used to be. They have too many unresolved upsets. They are in fact dramatizing that life isn’t working as they know it could.
For example: When you look among your teachers some look approachable and others look grumpy or busy all the time. The ones who look approachable are more open and honest in their communications than the grumpy shut down looking teachers. There are no exceptions to this rule. Teachers and parents who appear to be angry or short tempered or grumpy, or not easily approachable, unconsciously create fear in their relationship with others. The majority of police officers create fear in their relationship with the populace and they don’t even know that they are cause for this fear. This is because they carry around so many thoughts that they don’t, won’t, or can’t, share with anyone. They just don’t look like they are a safe space in which to tell the truth. They aren’t comfortable with themselves and so no one can be comfortable around them. Adults become bound up. It’s not only you.
One of the phases most teens go through is called pouting. The reason pouting is used as a manipulation tool during teenage years is that in the beginning it most always works. When a normally happy open and spontaneous child suddenly shuts down it’s so obvious that all those who know him/her ask, “What’s wrong?” Pouting is when you dramatize an upset/incomplete nonverbally. Pouting begins with pout number one. You were upset and instead of crying you just shut down. This caused your parent to ask, What’s wrong?” This is called a setup. You set it up for someone to drag out of you what was on your mind. Communicating nonverbally, in the beginning, is a great way to control others. It drives adults crazy. They feel like failures in their relationship with you. It looses its effectiveness soon and then adults simply give up on you.
So, you ask, “How do I tell my parents what’s on my mind? and “What are some ways to start talking to parents?”
You begin by acknowledging your first lie to them. Come clean. It opens up space. It completes the incident. It disappears the guilt. It creates space for them to be open and honest with you.
Here’s how it works:
You: “Mom, is this a good time to talk? I need you to sit down with me?”
Mom: What? What do you want to talk about?”
You: “It’s a homework assignment. I can’t tell you what it's about until you are sitting down with me. When’s a good time? It will only take about five minutes.” (It’s an assignment because I am a teacher and I’m assigning you this communication-skills homework.)
The most important thing here is to not reveal the subject until you have her sitting down with you. In other words, you have to be willing to control her. If your fear is such that you are afraid to ask her to sit with you and you think she would not take the time to sit with you, then you need some therapy and counseling immediately—you, not her. She’s already too damaged; the relationship is too damaged, for you to help her right now. You are in survival mode and it’s up to you to raise yourself from now on. If you don’t get therapy you’ll find yourself blaming your parents for the rest of your life for how screwed up you are, except, you and I will know that you had a choice, you were told, and you refused to get help for yourself.
Continuing: Once she is seated you say to her anything, that’s true for you, of the following:
“I am uncomfortable. I’m experiencing nervousness. I have the thought that you will get upset with me for what I’m about to say. I’m afraid that you will get angry. I’m afraid that you will interrupt me in the middle. I’m afraid that you might hit me. I'm afraid you will ground me.”
The above paragraph is called creating a context. It’s building a basket into which you will deliver your withhold(s) your first unacknowledged childhood perpetration. To understand why we are doing this you need to know that the mind is driven to be right. For example: If you tell an adult that you are afraid they will interrupt you, they, to be right, will do their best to not interrupt you, to prove that you were wrong. The above paragraph consists of your fears, your considerations. If you do a thorough job, if you communicate all your fears, then you will have none left. You will be fearless—at least for a few minutes.
For more about this topic go to Questions posted via the
Teen Topic Request Form 3/22/04:
Posted here by Kerry, Teen Forum Moderator
How do I tell my parent what is on my mind?
What are some ways to start talking to parents?
Background and explanation:
It’s important to know exactly what we are dealing with here. It’s called fear. What’s even more important is that if you don’t acknowledge your fear now, to yourself, and verbally to each parent/teacher/friend, it will become a part of your personality for life.
It’s not as though you aren’t communicating your fear to your parents and to everyone else, you are. People don’t know what you are afraid of, or even that you have a specific problem with fear, they only know that something is wrong. In other words, you are communicating nonverbally that something is on your mind. This something is called a withhold. You are withholding some thought from someone. The more thoughts you withhold the more bound up you become.
You’d think that adults would see that you are withholding a thought or thoughts but they can’t. There’s not a teacher at Columbine who couldn’t see that the students had been dramatizing their upsets nonverbally. Yet none knew enough to get into communication with either of the students. Why can’t adults see, why don’t they say something? They can’t because they too are withholding thoughts from others. They become so bound up they can’t see that you’ve become bound up. Strange as it may sound, teachers do not attend advanced communication training programs to become teachers. They simply don’t know how to get into communication with you.
What kinds of thoughts are you withholding from your parents? Believe it or not the first thought you withheld was most likely your first lie. You were going along in life in-integrity. Up till then you had been completely honest and truthful, and then one day your mom asked, “Did you brush your teeth?” You lied and said you did. Had she been conscious, (awake) and in-integrity herself, she would have heard the lie in your voice or seen it on your face, but unbeknownst to her her mind was preoccupied with some upset, withhold, or lie she was telling to your dad or her mom, or someone. For example: To the IRS: “I used my family car for 2650 miles for business.” To the school principal: “I’ll mail our new address and emergency phone numbers to you today.” (a week ago). To the insurance company so as to get the lowest premiums: “I’m in perfect health.” (when she knows she has had some health problem.). To your dad: She may have been withholding from him that she’s had thoughts of divorcing him and she’s become afraid to communicate openly and honestly with him. To you: “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Each lie, conscious or not, has an effect, a consequence. Each saps one’s awareness, their consciousness. After a while a parent has so many outstanding (unacknowledged to anyone) lies and withholds they can no longer hear your lies or see that you also are withholding thoughts. You begin to lose respect for them because you have been able to con them too easily.
Now here’s the shocker. That first lie still effects you and your relationship with your mom and everyone else in your life. It’s called an unacknowledged perpetration. The guilt is still written on your face, begging to be caught. That lie serves as a barrier to open and honest communication with your parents. It was the beginning of them shutting down with you because they couldn’t get into open and honest and spontaneous communication with you. They had no idea when it began, when they lost touch with you, but when traced, all adults have their number one unacknowledged lie with their parents.
This is true for the vast majority of adults. A communicologist can experience when an adult is shut down, when they are hiding something from someone. The adult simply begins to look tired, as we say, “solid.” There is no space for communication. They are no longer open and spontaneous. Their humor is not as close to the surface as it used to be. They have too many unresolved upsets. They are in fact dramatizing that life isn’t working as they know it could.
For example: When you look among your teachers some look approachable and others look grumpy or busy all the time. The ones who look approachable are more open and honest in their communications than the grumpy shut down looking teachers. There are no exceptions to this rule. Teachers and parents who appear to be angry or short tempered or grumpy, or not easily approachable, unconsciously create fear in their relationship with others. The majority of police officers create fear in their relationship with the populace and they don’t even know that they are cause for this fear. This is because they carry around so many thoughts that they don’t, won’t, or can’t, share with anyone. They just don’t look like they are a safe space in which to tell the truth. They aren’t comfortable with themselves and so no one can be comfortable around them. Adults become bound up. It’s not only you.
One of the phases most teens go through is called pouting. The reason pouting is used as a manipulation tool during teenage years is that in the beginning it most always works. When a normally happy open and spontaneous child suddenly shuts down it’s so obvious that all those who know him/her ask, “What’s wrong?” Pouting is when you dramatize an upset/incomplete nonverbally. Pouting begins with pout number one. You were upset and instead of crying you just shut down. This caused your parent to ask, What’s wrong?” This is called a setup. You set it up for someone to drag out of you what was on your mind. Communicating nonverbally, in the beginning, is a great way to control others. It drives adults crazy. They feel like failures in their relationship with you. It looses its effectiveness soon and then adults simply give up on you.
So, you ask, “How do I tell my parents what’s on my mind? and “What are some ways to start talking to parents?”
You begin by acknowledging your first lie to them. Come clean. It opens up space. It completes the incident. It disappears the guilt. It creates space for them to be open and honest with you.
Here’s how it works:
You: “Mom, is this a good time to talk? I need you to sit down with me?”
Mom: What? What do you want to talk about?”
You: “It’s a homework assignment. I can’t tell you what it's about until you are sitting down with me. When’s a good time? It will only take about five minutes.” (It’s an assignment because I am a teacher and I’m assigning you this communication-skills homework.)
The most important thing here is to not reveal the subject until you have her sitting down with you. In other words, you have to be willing to control her. If your fear is such that you are afraid to ask her to sit with you and you think she would not take the time to sit with you, then you need some therapy and counseling immediately—you, not her. She’s already too damaged; the relationship is too damaged, for you to help her right now. You are in survival mode and it’s up to you to raise yourself from now on. If you don’t get therapy you’ll find yourself blaming your parents for the rest of your life for how screwed up you are, except, you and I will know that you had a choice, you were told, and you refused to get help for yourself.
Continuing: Once she is seated you say to her anything, that’s true for you, of the following:
“I am uncomfortable. I’m experiencing nervousness. I have the thought that you will get upset with me for what I’m about to say. I’m afraid that you will get angry. I’m afraid that you will interrupt me in the middle. I’m afraid that you might hit me. I'm afraid you will ground me.”
The above paragraph is called creating a context. It’s building a basket into which you will deliver your withhold(s) your first unacknowledged childhood perpetration. To understand why we are doing this you need to know that the mind is driven to be right. For example: If you tell an adult that you are afraid they will interrupt you, they, to be right, will do their best to not interrupt you, to prove that you were wrong. The above paragraph consists of your fears, your considerations. If you do a thorough job, if you communicate all your fears, then you will have none left. You will be fearless—at least for a few minutes.
For more about this topic go to Parents.
Thank you,
Kerry, Teen Forum Moderator (Last edtited 2/5/17)
