With clear exasperation in his successive words, he wrote to us, “My problem is that my parents do not admit that I have grown up. I see all the time that I am still young.” He continued, citing the simplest details of everyday life: they would never think of my opinion, and if I said my opinion they would not act upon it.

And when I say any opinion at home, they say, “Your friends have overpowered you or played with your mind.” For example, when I objected to joining the college they wanted, and expressed my opinion that it did not suit me, they immediately replied, “You are one of your friends in your brain.”

I don’t know anything going on in the house except the last person. Even when they read my sister’s Fatiha, I did not know until after a while. I feel out of place with them or petty. These behaviors caused me a psychological crisis, and made me isolated from people and trying to escape from them all the time by sleeping to the extent that I could sleep 10 hours a day and feel without a goal or ambition and not even thinking about my future.

He concluded his speech, “I do not hate them, but I do not know what to do, and I tried to talk to them, but I was not afraid that they would laugh at me or belittle my words.”

****

Dear Reader, I fully understand the harsh feeling of marginalization and exclusion. We all went through this situation, especially if you were the younger brother and there is a big age difference between you and your older brothers, who always preoccupy parents with bigger problems and bigger details by the nature of the stage. We all lived through this experience, and our parents only noticed that we grew up in a specific situation in which they were surprised by our good behavior and the maturity of our ideas. However, according to Dr. Raymond Michel, a consultant for mental health, family counseling and behavior modification, the abuse that your parents may sometimes do is not aimed directly at attacking or insulting you, but to object to a certain order or behavior that may come from you, no one He’s happy that you’re better than him but your parents.

The mental health consultant praised your keenness and interest in presenting your problem to search for a solution, but he invites you to sit with yourself in an honest frank session in which you review your behavior and actions and why they see you like this, and if you are honest with yourself, you will discover that there are some things that you have to modify and this is necessary.

I want you to put a challenge in front of yourself by deciding to confront to prove the wrongness of what they think. Your escape from the problem through excessive sleep or social isolation may cause you psychological anxiety, increasing your pressure and problems, and on the other hand, it reinforces their idea that you are not grown up yet.

You mentioned to us in your letter that your parents have consulted you in some matters and listened to you, and this is an important matter that we should focus on, but they did not act according to your opinion, so ask yourself why? You are in the early stages of youth, and at this age, human activity and psychological and physical energies increase dramatically, and therefore we invite you to do the following:

Ask yourself, am I doing my homework and focusing on and completing the responsibilities and tasks required of me in order to be a useful member of my family, community and country? It also helps to think about your positives and strengths and work on developing them.

And take a good example for your life, be guided by it and learn from it, stay away from bad friends and think objectively about your parents’ view of them, read simple books about goals and learn from them and always occupy yourself with what is useful. Find a plan and a goal for your life and strive to achieve it.