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father that won't listen


Question Posted Thursday April 28 2011, 10:52 pm

Today I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone while I was doing homework. I was actually making progress on it (more than I would have otherwise) because I was doing something I enjoy at the same time. My dad yelled at me to hang up the phone and get off of the computer so that my brother could play his computer games. I tried to explain the situation but he wouldn't listen. He said I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone in order to avoid homework. He didn't understand that it was actually helping me. I am afraid to tell him that multitasking is actually a better way for me to study. As I said my goodbyes to my girlfriend he continued to yell at me. I tried talking to him in a calm voice which just made him mad. He grabbed my arm and pushed me against the radiator (my back really hurts) and told me that I was giving him bullshit. My own father won't listen to me and I don't know how to get the message to him that I need him to let me take care of my own academics. I feel like I will go more insane than I already am if this doesn't end.

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VoiceofReason answered Tuesday May 3 2011, 7:49 am:
There are three problems here:

1. Your father approached this in an abusive manner and needs therapy. There is no excuse for physical violence in this context unless you were giving him a lot more guff than what you are letting on. Tell him to take out his control issues on someone else. If he strikes you, call the cops.

2. When you live in a multi-person household and have a dial up account, sharing the phone line becomes an issue. Sorry dude, but you have to share. That is just one of those things that comes with the territory. The phone was an issue when I was a kid, except it was due to me and my girlfriends talking about mostly trivial crap for long periods and that was before the invention of the cellphone.

3. If you perform better in a multi-tasking environment (I don't, but I'm not you and neither is anyone else) then talk to your teacher about it and see if he/she can help put you in situations where you can do more of that to get assignments done but yet doesn't infringe on your family's shared computer time. Everyone has his/her own individual learning/tasking style. So glad you found yours. Now see how far it can take you.

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AskAliceMadisson answered Monday May 2 2011, 1:01 pm:
Fathers can be a real pain sometimes. I think that he is quite concerned about your studies. Maybe it is because you are not getting such good grades (no offense). I see that no matter how calmly you try to tell him, he wouldn't listen. You should talk to you mom about this. Usually parents tend to communicate better than with children. Tell you mom how you feel, and that you think you dad is not treating you fairly. If you don't have a mom, I think that it might also work instead of trying to explain it calmly, you should surprise him by shouting at him. I usually works when you surprise a parent because they would have never expected something like that from you. This might not work on some other parents.

Please, I could give you a better answer if you tell me what your dad is like, tell me a bit more about him. Please email this info to me, I could give you a fuller answer then.

For any more advice please email me at AskAliceMadisson@hotmail.com. If you would like to know more about me please visit my website: www.askalicemadisson.webstarts.com. I am a professional at giving advice.

Advice of the week: Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is the future and today is a gift, thats why its called the present!

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Razhie answered Friday April 29 2011, 11:08 am:
Shared computers, mean sharing the computer.

It's not necessarily his job to understand that chatting to your girlfriend was helping you to your homework, and it is COMPLETELY rational for him to assume otherwise.

Sorry. He may have been mistaken, but he wasn't being irrational or unfair. Yelling is unkind and unproductive. Grabbing you was completely wrong. But you need to recognize that sometimes staying calm and explaining yourself DOESN'T mean another person will accept your explanation. Behaving perfectly, doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want.

Multitasking might help you, and that is good to know, but it's not something that other people are always going to respect. In a shared living situation, with shared resources, you're going to have to accept that. Finding ways to multitask which do not limit resources for others, or finding ways to multitask that don't look lazy (and yes, at home and at work, how things look matters) will help you in the long run.

If you are having trouble at home with your father’s temper, talk to a teacher or adult you can trust, or call a help line to talk to someone about it. Just because I don’t think he was completely wrong in this particular situation, doesn’t mean the way he is treating you is okay in general. It sounds like you are under a huge amount of pressure and stress - a lot of it coming from him - and you need support and help to deal with that.

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adviceman49 answered Friday April 29 2011, 10:01 am:
Hi, I'm old enough to be your grandfather. I hope the wisdom that comes with age and life experience will be helpful to you.


As the saying goes there are two sides to every story and this story begs for the other side to be told. It's not that I don't believe what you have written, I do. I have questions that might be answered by hearing your fathers side.


First: I don't like that your father pushed you into the radiator. What I would like to know is if this is this something that happens often, not pushing you into a radiator, but physical abuse in general.


Second: What are your grades like? Are you an A/B student or more of a C/D student? How long was it, in actual minutes and how many times did he tell you to hang up, before you hung up and he grabbed you?


If your grades are good to great or even at just a level that it is felt you are capable of, I might be able to see your side. We all multitask at one time or another. I will listen to music while writing reports and yes it does help.
Writing reports, listening to music, talking on the phone is a little to much multitasking.


If your grades are not good or not at a level you are capable of then I can see why your father got upset. Your method of homework through multitasking may be getting homework done; but you are not learning from the homework because you are too busy multitasking. Is this possibly what your father sees?


Kicking you off the computer so that your brother could play games was just his way of eliminating one of your tasking's. If you truly need to computer for homework I don't believe he would have kicked you off of it.


Reexamine the issue here and look at it from dads point of view with the in site as it may be appropriate that I have offered.. If I am right, write back to me and I will offer suggestions on how to make peace with dad and how to go forward. If I am wrong tell me where and I will offer suggestions on how to approach dad to point these things out to him.


I would also like to know if physical abuse on you by your father is a regular form of his manner of showing his anger and displeasure. If so I can help with this as well. I will need details on this and how often it occurs. Children of any age should not be physically abused for any reason.

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sweeethoney answered Friday April 29 2011, 7:57 am:
Maybe instead of talking to your girlfriend on the phone while doing your homework, you can help over to her house and do it there. Then when you come home, you can present your Dad with the finished product and he will know that you work better that way.

Or, maybe your can ask him to calmly sit down with him and discuss how he should trust you with your academics. Tell him that you're a better multi tasker and that you want to get your homework some just as bad as he wants you to. Then, you can maybe tell him that if your grades start to slip then you'll stop.

The physical abuse is not okay. If this happens again you really need to tell someone like a teacher, a friends parents, someone you trust.

Good luck, my inbox is always open
x sweeethoney

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Jasmine23 answered Friday April 29 2011, 3:31 am:
First of all,. you need to be very aware,. that him pushing you against the radiator is NOT OK! And it is a red flag.
If more Things like that happen,. you may have to talk to someone about it.

As for academics,. he doesn't seem like the type that will listen no matter what you say. you may have to do it in a way that he won't get mad at you?

Hope this helps:)
~Jasmine*

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