How to Give Advice to Your Parents?

[Milkyway!]

As a child your parents pretty well tell you what to do, when to do, and how to do. You don't argue with them, you just go with it because they're your parents. There comes an age in life that you realize your parents behavior is self destructive, or simply unhealthy.

My mother is literally drinking about a gallon of Diet Mountain Dew a day. We've tried tell her how unhealthy it is, and she disagrees because it is "diet." This is a damn woman with a Doctorate degree in Early Childhood Education so she's by no means an idiot, but she's that far in denial about her health habits. She proclaims it's literally the only thing in life that she enjoys, along with smoking.

At 21, she seems to think that my opinion doesn't matter because she's my mother. I reach out to you guys because most of you are well into you late 20's-30's. How did you handle such things with your parents in terms of saying "Hey, maybe you shop too much? Maybe you shouldn't consume so much beer?" Etc.

 

[Rusty]

I tell my parents all the time about their unhealthy eating habits and whatnot. And mine are by NO means overweight, if anything my Dad is skinnier than me (though with a large beer gut). They come from a different generation where maintaining health and physical well-being perhaps was not as important as it is today.

Furthermore, they don't see it as big of a deal as what we do because they are older/married/nothing to prove anymore. As with young people still tend to want to look good (though most wrestling fans are probably stereotypically fat). Personally, I wouldn't tell her to stop drinking it all together, I mean if she likes the damn thing than she should drink what she wants. It's the quantity in which I would tell her to maybe relax a little. Ease into it and she'd be amazed at by how much you don't need soft drink in her life. I used to drink coke religiously back in high school, and now I barely even touch soft drinks all together and I feel 1000000% better.

 

[ABMorales787]

We've tried tell her how unhealthy it is, and she disagrees because it is "diet."

That's always such a dumb thing to hear. Let her know it's a faster way to get cancer due to the aspartame used instead sugar. But as far as dietary habits go, you should make suggestions but never outright force people. My parents are trying to push their silly diet habits on me like counting calories and nutrition facts and all that jazz. I try to explain to them that it's nonsense because you can track what you eat as much as you want, that'll never guarantee proper nutrition because all bodies need different things at different amounts. They even call me fat and unhealthy to my face even though I'm perfectly fine for my height and age.

Just make sure she at least drinks a lot of water to help her system clean out as much as possible.

 

[Torgo]

What you need to do is get a whole bunch of print outs of studies or documents about why her behavior is wrong. Although if she's a doctor, you'd think she'd figure it out. Ah, well.

Old people are like this. My grandfather was a crabby old guy who needed everything his way or else (no disrespect grandpa, I love ya man). Its tough.

 

[Akhilleus]

From what I've experienced, you can't. They just don't listen. Often times they end up agreeing with me and saying "You were right I should have listened" yet every time afterwards they still never trust my opinion. So I say whatever, do whatever you want I warned you.

 

[A11oftheLights]

From what I've experienced, you can't. They just don't listen. Often times they end up agreeing with me and saying "You were right I should have listened" yet every time afterwards they still never trust my opinion. So I say whatever, do whatever you want I warned you.

This

I nearly came to blows with my old man when we went on holiday to the UK, I was always suggesting the quickest way on the tube in London and we'd stand around for 5 minutes then do either exactly what i suggested(but only after they had the idea) or we'd go the wrong way. And of course I'd pipe up and point out I already said this and maybe next time they should listen to me(which they never did)

 

[Mighty NorCal]

You can't, its utterly pointless. Take it from someone who has wasted immeasurable hours and effort on it.

 

[Mr X]

My parents smoke more than they breathe. Whenever I tell them to quit, I remember I just smoked couple of minıtes ago. As with everything in my life giving advice to my parents result in EPIC FAIL! By the way my last girlfriend after months of advising me to stop smoking until I found that she started smoking recently . So yeah I have many relationships in which at the end I make people potencial lung cancer victims.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Fucking steal a car from the dealership you work at, run the bitch over, leave a note saying you will run over over every day until she stops, then repeat until she is cured.

Idk man, my mom is the same way. She drinks Diet Dew like its water and chain smokes like a freight train. Its her life, I don't wanna lose her early because of stuff like that, but ultimately you can't do much

 

[ScreaminNormanSmiley]

she seems to think that my opinion doesn't matter

That is because it doesnt.

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

I can't speak for a solution in your case, but health issues isn't something I would try to advise someone on anyway. As someone who is overweight and has been for a long time, I know often that the person to whom you speak probably knows their shortfalls and it'll come off as lecturing which'll do the opposite of the desired effect.

I'm afraid unless you are the government or a parent, you can't guarantee to get people do stuff. That's life.

But when giving advice in general, I advocate avoiding blame and focusing more on the benefits of the alternate decision. ie., provide reason. For example, if it's maybe to do with buying crap food, go to the supermarket and instead of saying "don't buy these, they're crap", say, "I've heard these are really good?" And when you've bought them, encourage said person to try them and do it with them.

Focus on the positive. I only know from myself that being lectured and told I'm doing things wrong is not going to have the desired effect. I work much better with positive re-enforcement.

But yeah, when it comes to parent's specifically, nothing works for me. Neither my mum or dad would take a word of my advice. Partly age and partly having too much pride to admit that your child has a point. Some parent's are uncomfortable to let the parent-child relationship slip and have their kids grow up. I know one of my parents is.