DR. WALLACE: I'll bet you've heard this complaint from other teenagers before me, but my mother drives me crazy with her demands and commands that have no explanation attached to them.

She loves to get her way without telling me why, so I often hear, "I make the rules and you follow them" and "What I say goes, period!" She also drops an occasional classic like, "Because I said so!"

This is beyond frustrating. I don't expect to get my way or have my requests granted every single time, but when I'm apparently denied for no good reason, it's really frustrating to be ghosted like this. I even told her once to stop ghosting me, and she said, "Call me Casper if you want, but the answer is still no!" I'm a junior in high school, not a fourth grader. Why does she do this to me? — A Really Frustrated Daughter, via email

A REALLY FRUSTRATED DAUGHTER: Yes, some of your lines are classics I've heard often, but your mom's creativity with "Casper" is new to me, I'll readily admit.

At the root of what I feel may be going on here is a lack of fundamental communication between the two of you. Often both parties have opportunities to work on the situation in an earnest way to improve it, if they choose to do so.

If you'd like to be the one to step up first, select a quiet, calm time to bring this subject up. Trying to convince her or argue with her in the heat of the moment is destined to lead to frustration on your part.

Yet if you can find a good time of camaraderie with your mother at a calm time when you are not asking for anything specific, you may want to give her a hug and even apologize for pressing her during the heat of the moment. Then after you've apologized, ask her to merely let you know her thinking on that specific matter so that the two of you can make good decisions together ahead of time in the future.

Think of it as a trade: You need to give something to get something. You give an apology and you're likely to get both an answer of some kind back and a better shot at avoiding these situations from repeating themselves.

I also believe your mother bears a lot of responsibility here. "Because I told you so" or "Call me Casper" indicate very poor communication skills. Her role should be to calmly but firmly explain her reasoning in almost all cases. There could be the odd time or two that a factor she'd prefer not to explain could be at play, but certainly not most or all of the time. Take advantage of your desire to put an end to this cycle if you can by making the first move here.

MY COUSIN'S WARNING HAS ME WORRIED

DR. WALLACE: I recently just received my driver's license, and I've enjoyed driving myself to school lately. I'm very careful and follow all of the rules as I promised my parents that I would.

I also never text anyone when I'm driving, and I don't talk on my phone either. I know that driving is a privilege, so I don't want to lose it now that I've just begun to truly enjoy my new independence.

My eldest and most brash cousin came to visit our family this past weekend, and I took him for a short drive to the store so that he could get everyone some sodas and a pizza. While we were driving, he told me to watch out for the cameras in some areas as those cameras would record me running any red lights and then they would mail a photo of the moment of me driving behind the wheel going through the intersection. The worst part, he warned, was that a ticket with my photo could be mailed to my father since he's the registered owner of the car. Is this all true, or is my cousin just trying to scare me like he does in other areas of life? If he's right, what exactly do I have to look for to know if a particular intersection has cameras possibly taking photographs of me? — New Driver, via email

NEW DRIVER: In some parts of our country there are indeed red-light cameras that will snap a photograph of a vehicle that enters an intersection after the signal light has turned red.

But instead of worrying about trying to find out if your particular state, county or city has these cameras and this program in place, I advise you to forget about that entirely and simply focus on good, safe, defensive driving.

If you are in control of your vehicle and your actions, you won't be running any red lights anyhow, so don't spend any of the bandwidth of your focus worrying about red-light cameras. Leave that to your worldly cousin and be in control of your own driving skills without even thinking a second more about that issue.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Jan Huber at Unsplash