How To Get Your Strict Parents To Lighten Up

My parents are really strict - how can I get them to lighten up?

Parents, at the end of the day, are just people. They are your parents, but they are people in their own right. If you feel that your parents are really strict, that's tricky. You can't really change their personalities, but maybe you could sit down and have a discussion about what you're finding difficult in their behaviour. So if they're being overly strict in your mind about certain issues, maybe you should have a discussion with them about what you're finding too strict, what you'd rather was the case, some ideas you've got of them behaving differently and they may surprise you and take on board some of the things that you're saying. Often parents can be stricter with younger siblings for example, than older siblings, and sometimes having your older siblings or other siblings in that kind of discussion can help your parents to see that they haven't necessarily treated you all the same for example and they may be able to lighten up on how they behave with you, compared to how they've behaved with other siblings.