Personal Narrative: Growing Up With Overprotective Parents

Growing up with overprotective parents has taught me valuable lessons such as organizational skills and respectfulness, but my personality has suffered from it. Often times my parents have restrained me from attending a party or have restricted me from new activities because the act was potentially “dangerous”. Adolescents need adventure to find their true selves, and discovering it is a task that should be journeyed alone, without overprotective parents. Parents are some of the best advice givers, but if they happen to become too restricting and self imposing, than the children become robots, always dependent on somebody making decisions for them. Trapped in their parents’ envision, children lose themselves and never acquire creative skills.

Now, I have become an introvert: dull, shy, and defiant. This change did not occur immediately, instead, it was a slow shift throughout elementary. If my parents would not have restricted me or had set rules to follow, then my outgoing personality may have continued, instead of being withdrawn from the world and its surroundings. Instead of vaguely remembering how enjoyable my younger years were, I maybe would have images vividly appear that I could talk and laugh about. Maybe it would have been easier to create writing topics, or to think of exciting new activities for students, or to be a better artist, but I am stuck in my own little world. My voice only repeating what other friends say rather than speaking what is on my mind. Coming up with new ideas or topics has been and will probably be the most challenging thing I ever do in life. I struggle with it so much because my brain literally does not think unless I use force, which usually ends up in a headache. Lately, headaches have been pounding away at my head, bouncing around the inside as nothing fills the empty space. Due to the lack of freedom, my brain has been taught to not do anything unless guidelines are involved. At a confirmation retreat, a speaker said that guy's brains are like waffles, straight and logical thinking. It all comes back to the parents though. A little rule here and there is fine to iterate discipline and respect,

For the parents, it is hard because it causes them to have weak relationships with their sons or daughters. I regret being rebellious when I was younger because nowadays I feel like my parents and I relationship is distant and when I do have moments where I actually feel like a part of the family, I resent all of the time I was planning to do something that would hurt their feelings. When teens rebel, it makes them untrustworthy to the parents making them more protective than they already were making the teens want to rebel and lie even more making them more and more untrustworthy creating a downward spiral effect. Trust is very difficult to regain once it is lost. I know from experience. A night during the summer I went out with friends to the movies without telling my parents because I knew they would not let me go because of the group of friends I was going with and the movie we were going to watch. I went anyway, lying about where I was and ignoring my mom’s constant text messages to update my position. After the movies when I arrived back at home my mom was waiting for me in the doorway and asked where I actually was and what I actually did. Ignoring her, I pushed through her stance and went to bed. I knew that she knew that I did not tell her the truth and ever since it has been hard for her to believe me when I say I am