When your parents, guardians or elders advise or ask you to stop a certain bad habit, it doesn’t imply that they dislike you, are making rules or controlling your every move and action like most teenagers think.

They are only trying to steer you in the right direction and mould you into a better person.

You probably talk to friends way more than you talk to your parents. That’s natural. Even if you and your parents have a great relationship, you want to find your own path and make your own choices.

Listening to parents is important because several regret why they didn’t listen and follow their parent’s advice when they were still young.

Many will do anything and give everything to go back to their childhood so that they ‘right the wrongs’ they made, but it’s impossible!

Today you are lucky, you have a chance not to make the avoidable and unrevasable mistakes some people made. Some people who didn’t listen to their elders ended up getting pregnant and fall out of school, others were caught in criminal acts and are now serving long terms in prisons and others acquired the deadly HIV/AIDS virus.

No doubt Teens that don’t practice good manners will likely turn into adults who exhibit the same behavior. The sooner you learn proper etiquette, the better it is for your future.

Your parents know you better than anyone; No one has a better opportunity to know what you need than your parents. They have been where you are, children with parents are blessed to have advice from those who traveled the same road, only much farther.

Their wisdom is like gold; their wisdom often includes that of their parents (your grandparents). Children who respect their parents by heeding their counsel are made more attractive and appealing to others by such counsel.

You should always listen to your parents, they may not always be right, but they will always be your parents! They may not be well educated as you but they know best.

martin.bishop18@yahoo.com