Improve Your Relationship with Parents

Mbhoni Manganyi

The first thing I want to point out is that improving your relationship with your parents isn’t a “follow X-step and Y-step, then you can see results right away” goal. In fact, you may not even see any changes for a while for that matter. To improve your relationship with your parents is an on-going, work-in-process goal – an end point does not exist.

While I was working on my relationship with my parents in the past, one of my biggest challenges was that my efforts often seemed futile. For example, when I tried to strike up a conversation with my parents, they were not receptive. There was a period 2 years ago when I went all out to draw us closer, making big steps (in my opinion) like hugging them and writing cards to tell them how much I loved them and appreciated them for bringing me up. The response ranged from weak to negative. With the hugging, my mom violently pushed me away; My dad didn’t return the hug. With the cards, there was no direct response from my dad or mom. With the conversation attempts, my mom would snap back and ask me why I was asking so many questions, while my dad would give his usual mono-syllabic responses.

That was when I realized my relationship with my parents wasn’t one that could be mended overnight. I'm not talking about mending a one-time conflict. I'm talking about mending a lifetime of arguments, miscommunication, conflicts, and misunderstanding. To think that I could resolve all past grievances with just a few “nice” actions was incredibly naive on my part.  Even though I did muster a lot of strength to initiate the hugs and write/give them the cards, these actions alone were not enough to mend the gap. Clearly, *a lot* more work had to be done. (I continued to work on the relationship for years after that, even to this day.) If I switched to their perspective, their (lack of) reaction at that time was completely understandable. Imagine – Up till that point, all our interactions had been abrasive, usually from me to them. Hence for me to suddenly be warm and fuzzy toward them – it was no wonder they were unsure of how to act. They had probably formed a hard shell all these years to protect themselves from further hurt. They probably thought my niceness was a fluke; a randomity; that things would go back to the way they were the next day, and I would be abrasive towards them again.

It was then my responsibility to let them know that things were truly different, that I had grown into a different person, and that I was serious about improving our relationship. How? Not through saying it, but through consistent effort. Through consistent effort on my part, they slowly became more receptive to my actions. Remember these things take time. The rebuilding of trust is a delicate process. If you want to improve your relationship with your parents, be ready to commit to this as a journey, and not some X step, X thing you execute in 1 week or 1 month. Let them know you’re truly sincere in changing the situation. Let them know that you’re not just doing this as a one-off fluke. Anticipate negativity in their reactions at first, because your changed behaviour is probably new to them and they’re trying to adjust. Consistent effort is the key.

Think about how you can be a better child to your Parents