For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
对许多父母来说，抚养孩子就像打一场长期战争，但漫长的岁月里没有明确的胜利者。就像邻国之间的边界冲突一样，父母与子女的战争是关于边界的：我所控制的和你所做的之间的界线在哪里？
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.
双方都希望和平，但没有人认为有能力阻止冲突。在某种程度上，这是因为双方都不愿意承认发起冲突的责任。从父母的角度来看，争吵的唯一原因是他们的孩子完全没道理。当然，孩子的看法也是如此，只是恰好相反。双方都陷入了困境。
In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong.Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is - politics, the laws of physics, or the properway to break an egg - he point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the otherperson is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority - someone who actually knows something - and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.
在本文中，我将描述孩子和父母之间常见的三种双输的情况，然后提出一些摆脱困境的方法。第一个双输的局面是为不重要的事情争吵：比如孩子头发的颜色、卧室的整洁、喜欢的服装风格、孩子在上学前没有吃上一顿丰盛的早餐或周末睡到中午的倾向。第二，指责：指责的目的是让对方承认自己的不良态度是一切出错的原因。第三，正确的需要：无论主题是政治、物理定律还是打破鸡蛋的正确方法，这些论点的目的都是为了证明你是对的，而另一个人是错的，因为双方都希望被视为权威——一个真正了解某事的人——因此赢得尊重。不幸的是，只要父母和孩子始终认为他们比其他人知道得更多，他们就会永远继续争吵，永远不会取得任何实际进展。
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