Or, if you reflect on your relationship with your parents and find that their need for control actually affects your life on a greater scale (maybe it's influencing your career, relationships, or daily decisions), you may need to prepare more before bringing it up with them. In this case, Boykin says it's important to focus your conversation on how their actions make you feel — and how you would like to feel instead. "Be very concrete about the behaviors that you will no longer accept," she says, adding that you should avoid asking them why they act the way that they do — most of time, controlling parents are acting out of misguided but good intentions and calling that out may cause them to feel hurt and, consequently, shut down. "With a parent who's controlling, you need concrete directions if you want to see changes in their behavior and in how you guys relate to each other."