Question : I am a 19year old boy and though I am very close to may family but now I feeI that I need my personal space. Unfortunately, my parents are not willing to understand. What shold I do? Teentalker
Dear Teentalker,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing your concerns. I can understand why you need your space which is natural to feel at this age.
It’s totally normal to want your space — and possibly well into your mid-to-late 20s. But, there usually isn’t a way to redefine a relationship without feeling some guilt and without both of you having feelings you’d probably rather not have. I can get to the details, which will help guide you through this conversation and its potential consequence.
1. Understand why you need ‘space’: At this time in your life especially, you need independence— to feel you’re really the author of your own life. During these years, parents often misunderstand the push for independence as a push for separation. It’s not. You’re not trying to leave them behind. You need to be more confident and solid in your own identity before you take in too much of their thoughts and opinions on your life.
2. Set the boundaries: Like, how much time will you spend together? What will you do when you are together? Try not to jump to extremes. Try something and then see how panicked, worried, or guilty you both feel.
3. Find out the consequnces of breaking the boundaries: Setting a boundary usually doesn’t work unless there is a consequence along with the boundary. In order to establish a healthy boundary, you need to tell them a clear request and a statement about what you’ll do if your boundary isn’t respected or recognized.
4. Have a discussion: Now’s the time for you to use your words. Tell them what you need, and give a realistic time frame for establishing new boundaries. Things won’t change overnight, but they should begin to change over the course of a few months.
5. Deal with consequnces: If both of you are getting into more conflict, you both might need help from a trusted person in your life. Sometimes we can hear things from others that we can’t hear from someone really close to us.
Hope this helps, if you have any other query do connect online for chat between 11am-8pm or drop us an offline message.
Regards,
Expert Teentalk India