Getting Your Parents to Trust You

Sparkler Coral_Sharx brings solid logical reasoning to her post about trust. Enjoy! —SparkNotes Editors

We’ve all had to go through it—it’s Friday night, and your friends show up asking you if you want to hang out. But your parents refuse to let you go, saying “you have too much homework” or “you have to wake up early for sports practice tomorrow,” while really they’re thinking: “Pssssht. Just yesterday you lied to me about those test scores, and now you think we’re going to let you go out at this time of night? Who knows what teenagers are doing these days…”

Why do adults not trust us? We’re old enough to think for ourselves, but most parents insist on putting us on a leash, dictating who we’re allowed to hang out with, what time we need to be home, and even when to do our homework and go to bed. As guardians, they might be entitled to that, but we also deserve some freedom once in a while…right?

Adults think we’re reckless, even if we've proved ourselves responsible. Yes, there are plenty of teenagers who go to "those parties" where people drink and smash things when their parents aren’t home. Plenty of teenagers smoke, do drugs, vandalize, drive without a license, and endanger the lives of themselves and their fellows in similar ways. The majority of us, however, are reliable, trustworthy people who just want to have fun once in a while.

Fact: If people don’t trust you, it’s because they don’t think you deserve to be trusted. If you lie to your parents and they find out, they’re going to be much more reluctant to trust you the next time. If you don’t have a good relationship with them, they’re less likely to give you what you want: in this case, freedom. It’s hard to tell your parents about that C you got in math, where you were last night at 12 a.m., and that you (not the dog) broke that expensive alabaster vase. But, to quote Sir Walter Scott, “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…”

Here are things you can do to get adults to trust you more:

1. Tell the truth. When confronted about something you’ve done, try to listen to their reasoning before you start explaining and getting defensive. You have two ears and one mouth—use them in that ratio.

2. Do your homework/chores.
Help around the house a bit—it may not always seem like it, but most parents appreciate it a lot. Even something as little as washing the dishes or doing the laundry makes them happy.

3. Listen to them. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should heed their every command, but if they tell you to clean up the "pigsty"—i.e. your room, it wouldn’t hurt.

And most importantly…

4. Act like you deserve to be trusted. If you deserve to be trusted, most people will trust you, plain and simple (unless they’re just paranoid). But one lie, a few angry words, can break down a relationship much faster than the time it took to build it.

All in all, everyone benefits: you get more freedom, your parents are reassured of your trustworthiness (you are trustworthy, right?) and everyone's happy. With that said, I really must run—time to go to that wild party my parents forbade me to go to…(I'm kidding, I'm kidding!)

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