Reddit user Lanky-Medium4473 and her husband promised their daughter that she could choose any restaurant for her 17th birthday dinner.
However, when the teenager picked out the one she wanted, the mother realized that it would be a bad place to dine for her son due to the boy’s allergies.
So the woman told the birthday girl that it was off limits, causing her to feel hurt and disappointed, as she believed her parents were dismissing her and reneging on their prior agreement.
This woman told her daughter that she could pick any restaurant for her birthday dinner
Image credits: Stephanie McCabe / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
But when the teenager did, the mom took back her words
Image credits: Durenne Loris / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Lanky-Medium4473
The teenager’s sadness is understandable
“To keep your promise shows that you have acted as you said you would, that you have kept your pledge, and that your word is good,” psychologist Carl E Pickhardt, Ph.D., wrote. “The power of a promise kept is that it creates reliability, predictability, and security to be counted on, thus engendering trust in the relationship.”
Therefore, to break a promise is to become unreliable, unpredictable, and untrustworthy, meaning that the Redditor’s daughter is completely entitled to her feelings. “Receivers and believers in the promise can feel surprised, disappointed, and betrayed [if it fails due to the other party,” explained Pickhardt, who is also the author of Holding On While Letting Go: Parenting Your Child Through the Four Freedoms of Adolescence.
Image credits: valeriygoncharukphoto / envato (not the actual photo)
“If parents want to encourage promise-keeping in their teenager, they have to model promise-keeping, which consistent parents tend to do, but which inconsistent parents often do not.”
Given that everyone else was ok with the dinner arrangement, it’s difficult to understand why the Redditor was so adamant about changing the venue and wasn’t ready to compromise.
Pickhardt said that promises the adolescent wants include:
- You will hang in there with me during hard times;
- You will listen when we disagree;
- You won’t laugh when I am being serious;
- You will let me earn more freedom as I grow;
- You will welcome my friends;
- You won’t hold past mistakes against me;
- You won’t tease when it’s not funny;
- You will tell me what you believe I need to know;
- You will appreciate what I am doing well;
- You will help me when I can’t help myself;
- You will love me when I do not like myself.
After the mom promised her daughter more freedom, she took it away. Which is a shame, because, according to Pickhardt, “if a parent can rear a teenager who mostly keeps promises to them, and mostly tells them the truth, and the parent mostly does the same as well, then together they can mostly stay communicatively and influentially connected.”
The mother’s post has received a lot of strong reactions
