I love my children, but now that they are teenagers, our relationship has become very challenging: they’d like to have it their own way and don’t respect the household rules.
I lost count of how many times I told them not to throw their dirty clothes on the floor and all the times I asked them to tidy up their rooms, to no avail.
They often don’t even bother turning up for lunch, even when I cook for them delicious dishes.
The worst part, though, is their reaction when I ask them for help: they get angry and shut their bedroom door on me without even listening.
One day, tired of tidying up yet again in their stead, I came up with an idea.
I left their dirty clothes on the floor, unwashed, I didn’t leave the table all set up for them and so on and so forth.
Over the next days, things deteriorated and my children started complaining.
They asked me where their football uniforms for training were, and I didn’t reply, “Where you left them, in your bedrooms.”
They complained about dinner not being ready and served on the table.
I replied, “I didn’t heat it up since I didn’t know when you’d be back for dinner.”
When they started complaining and protesting, I went straight to my room and said, “I don’t feel like listening to you, just as you do with me. Until you respect the household rules, I won’t do it either.”
I did to them the exact same things they did to me.
Since then, they’ve stopped complaining and disobeying: now they don’t leave a mess behind them anymore and help me with the house chores, they eat all together and now I’m now happy to cook for them.
Being a family also mean helping each other in everyday’s problems and we shouldn’t take for granted what parents do for their children.
When they grow up, they want to empower themselves but in order to do that they have to learn to look after themselves.
Household rules are important because they keep a balance among the needs of the whole family: they are not senseless impositions, they are there so that everybody can feel at ease together…and I do think that my children have now understood that, at last.