Dear parents, why it's important to listen to your children

The majority of us have been brought in a setting where rules are rules, and your parents' word is final—supper by 7 p.m., bedtime by 9.30 sort of thing. We didn't get to negotiate our way through issues or have our side of the story heard. Mischief was met by BMW (I wish it were the car, instead of Black Mama Whooping), or a milder version of discipline was through an intervention. This is where unruly behavior was sorted out by spiritual advisors or senior members of the extended family.

As adults now, we are probably grateful for the parental corporal punishment we received. However, at some point, we've thought there were few situations our parents could've (or should have) handled just a little bit better. We would try to justify their actions on busy work schedules, large families to keep up with or simply not in the right frame of mind when whatever happened, happened. Perhaps I wasn't a parent to see it through their eyes. A huge percentage of failed adult parent-child relationships stem from unresolved childhood experiences, whether from the parent's or the child's perspective.