Do my parents still love me?

"I am more at home in school, I would like to stay longer in school than to be in the house, with a mother who seem not to know me at all."

"I hate my mother, when all that is important for her is just money and she does not even pay attention to my needs and my personal problems... so I hooked up with many boyfriends and even tried drinking and drugs."

"I'd rather be with my grandparents because they listen more to me, my parents they don't really care about me, because they are too busy with our family business."


Such thoughts verbalized put me dumbfounded. I could feel a sense of trust to be reading and hearing those, but they also shock me to realize what some or many young people could be missing in their development years. Reflecting puts me back into my actualized self with gratitude and confidence that my parents have provided me the love they could afford.

Home and school are separate social spaces sharing performative roles in the development of every child. The students I am handling are not adults yet, but adolescents. They embody the youth who could be sharing the same issues with their parents. Most of them are in the upper middle class of our society with parents busy at work or in business, if not separated or physically absent.

What struck me the most on this issue is that a student one morning asked me: ""When parents are always strict, do they still love their children?" What I heard was a representative of the mimed voices of young people, feeling bad about how their parents are rearing them. But, I could suspect that this signals misunderstanding of the constructs of love and discipline.

On the background where other thoughts, saying that in other countries it is just wrong to treat any child that strict, that it is child abuse. I understood that again as lacking grasp of the fundamental concepts of discipline, legal rights and child development, that most young people mistake to be unfair and a sign of being not loved. That happened all at one time during our open sharing on attitude in my academic advising class.

Putting the issue in the context of family communication, it is clear that those students whose points of views I shared in here are challenged in their experiences of dysfunctional family structures, ambiguous role assignments, misunderstanding of functions, and unexpressed affirming emotions. In other words, they find themselves in a mere dependent or co-dependent relations without symbolizing, signifying and valuing the meaning of family.

More than material things, more than working hard for money, more than dining out, more than having fun, more than going to church at the same time, more than sending children to good schools, it pays to share the meaning of doing all these through casual conversations. There is a richer collateral to keep a healthy communication among family members to build a stronger relationship and a deeper understanding of each needs.

When parents intend to discipline their children out of an unexpected behavior the immediate response is a punitive one. Nagging, pinching, hitting, whipping, swearing, blaming and grounding the child for their actions are the parents' response or form of reinforcement to a negative behavior. True, many parents don't know the impact of these to their child's esteem particularly when other people can see. And, very few would actually process the situation with their children.

Thus, these reinforcement compound to be associated by young people as either strictness or not being cared for. While little time is spent by parents to stay with their children, the children are more deprived to bond with parents as the former spends their own time in other means. With their friends, online and offline, and the unmonitored school schedule they have, children with "strict' parents would rather stay away from home to find a space where they are attended to.

These children who grew up with punishment as reinforcement only learn the pain of it, and not really its relevance to being disciplined. They too will apply the same to their children even worse than which they experienced. But if the children knew that they are different from their actions, and they understand what needed correction in their behavior and they were taught how to rectify their ill-conduct and wrong attitude, they will grow up in discipline and be better parents that they can be.

Being strict is never wrong. Discipline to a child is never wrong. But they have limitations, while being strict is an attitude, discipline is a process. Both have to be contextualized in the frames of family love, parental love to children and caring for every member of the family. Family culture in its own dynamics operate in honoring the family and caring for its members. To discipline with consistency an affirming attitude is never strict nor constricting but liberating a soul from being wrong.

How did I answer my student's question as to whether his parents love him even if they are strict. My answer was simple, no parents want their children to do wrong, as they all want them to be in the right. Having the right attitude, behaving appropriately, becoming better to stand on their own and to succeed in life are what parents want for their children. Being strict is a way for parent to discipline their children. Parents discipline their children because they love them. If parents see that their children have the discipline they expect, there is no reason for them to be "strict".

I furthered, parents get angry, they get mad because they feel that what they expect were violated. They feel such because they love their children. It should worry the children more if they parents tend to ignore even their wrong behavior or ignore them all the more. That is not love anymore, because the parents have become indifferent to their child's situation. What then should children do for their parents, if they love them and need them in their life? That's our next discussion point.