My parents will not let me read THIS manga or book series! Help!
I have received this question often:
“How do I convince my parents to let me read a certain manga?”
There are a couple ways you could go about this. Instead of going behind your parent’s back, breaking their trust, and the potential consequences of getting caught, there is a better way that will help you and your parents relationship.
Why is this import?
Relationships are built on trust. When we go behind our parents back we are breaking trust and therefore the relationship.
So, what’s the better way?
A better way is having a conversation with your parents together about the manga or book you would like to read.
1. Find out why?
Before I can give an answer I always start with, “WHY do your parents not want you to read the book?”
For example, one person shared that he was told by his parents that manga is rubbish. A great question to ask, your parent is, “why is it rubbish?” then follow up by seeking to understand.
2. Seek to understand
What I mean by seeking to understand, is genuinely try to see from their point of view.
A great follow up question seeking to understand would be, “could you read part of the book and show me something you read in the book that would be considered rubbish?”
This a great opportunity to ask them to read some of the book so you can better understand the difference between rubbish and not rubbish.
If they say, “this manga is bad,” seek to understand what part of it is bad, or even what do they define as something that is bad? If it’s all bad, ask them to explain each part that bothers them.
It’s part of a parent’s job (myself included) to be able to teach the difference of what is okay and not okay. How can you learn what is bad unless they can actually show and give helpful examples.
3. Assume positive intent
We must assume positive intent that your parents want the very best for you. Assuming positive intent does need to go both ways. As a parent I also need to assume positive intent that my child genuinely wants to understand why I would not be okay with certain manga or books.
From a parent’s perspective:
What I will usually do as a parent is read the first couple of chapters until I can form an opinion if the book is appropriate for my child’s age. Once I have done that I will sit down and have a conversation about what I found in the book.
If it’s age appropriate, not only will I give them the green light but I will seek to understand more why they enjoy or want to read the book so much.
If I’m not okay with them reading the book, I will share and give examples of things I found that are not okay and why. This is also a great opportunity to talk to your child about your values and what type of books that you would be okay with them reading.
It might also be an answer of you cannot read this yet… I have several manga series that my daughter wants to read but I am not allowing to read because she is 11. She knows that once she is a little older she can read these other manga as much as she wants.
Whether you are a parent or a child when we share why, seek to understand, and assume positive intent we are going to have a much easier time communicating with one another.
