How to convince my mom to let me move out?

Many people go through these kind of emotional upheavals during their mid-teen years. You are pushing for your own independence and your parents are still trying to hold onto your childhood a few more years.
A couple of things to consider.: First, you will be imposing upon the kindness of others and while this may be a short term solution, if you overstay your welcome you will find yourself under even more stress and emotional turmoil. Your friends parents might be willing to have you over now but it will be a hardship on them eventually and they do not need to be in the middle between you and your parents. Keep this in mind if you decide you need time away from your family.
Second, I would also add that leaving or running away will not make the situation between you and your parents any better; the only way that will happen is through coming to some kind of arrangement or compromise between each of you and that is a lot easier speaking to each other, not running away. Do it face to face.
Finally, I am not real sure what you are trying to say about your mom, it seems odd that you would complain that she wants to listen to you. Can I ask you to clarify what you mean?

In short, I cannot tell you how to convince your mom you should leave but I would advise you that if you are convinced that you need to do it then to do so on a short term, temporary basis for the sake of your relationship with your mom and with your friend and his/her parents. And for your sake, keep talking to your folks.

I meant she won’t* listen. And I was meaning for it to be short term. It really has nothing to do with independence its something going on in my house that needs to be gone and she knows it. I just need some help to convince her to let me leave until this problem is fixed

I don’t know the situation, obviously, so I will speak in generalities.
If you are using this temporary move to force your Mom to make a choice, you will lose.
If you are using this move to get away from abuse or an unhealthy situation the proper authorities should be called to help you. Temporarily moving out won’t fix it.
If you are using this move to behave in a manner that is unhealthy to you: drug use, drinking, internet porn, sex with boyfriend, etc. Don’t do it! Your job right now is to do the best you can in school. Study for your finals. Do your homework. Be the best you can be. It will make a big difference later in life.
I wish you well.

Welcome to Fluther.

I can understand and support your desire not to want to share intimate details of your life with us strangers on the internet – and that’s very wise. So by all means don’t give up a lot of details. But … if you’re not going to give specifics, then the generalities you give have to be at least comprehensible.

How can you “have a conversation with your mom” if she won’t listen? That’s not a conversation. That’s the antithesis of a conversation.

And if it’s “something in the house that has to be gone and she knows it” then it sounds potentially threatening, and all that we can do is guess.

Other than that, for a fifteen-year-old writing a native language, I have to tell you that your writing leads a lot to be desired. We have kids coming to Fluther from around the world with English as their second, third or fifth language who articulate a whole lot more clearly. Please don’t let us down here. Up your game.

@LuckyGuy has the best generalities that I could offer about your particular living situation. If you won’t say what the problem is, its “actual” effect on you, how long it’s been going on or what the potential for further harm is, all we can say is “be safe and hang in there”.

But I can offer you something about having a conversation, anyway.

You need to talk to your mom when neither of you is stressed out. That means, not when you have incomplete chores that she’s been ragging you to complete, not when she’s already angry with you about something else (or about the thing in question, whatever it is), not when she’s late for work or you’re late for school, and not when she’s trying to concentrate on something else. Because as much as we adults love our children, we also have lives apart from our children, too. So that’s the first thing: pick your time to start the conversation.

And don’t jump right into “there’s this huge problem that you never talk about” – because if she never does, then that conversational gambit will also surely fail, and you probably know that by now (but you probably also keep trying it, I’ll bet). So stop that. Pick a topic of conversation that you can both agree on: Nice weather? Bad weather? Talk about that. A lot of conversations start about very bland topics where the people can agree on something and then build on their agreement. It might sound stupid, but if it works, then it’s not stupid.

After the conversation has started, then take a tip from television shows about hostage negotiations: Try to make the conversation one in which you don’t say “no” to her. That’s the tricky part. Keep her talking, keep it light and friendly, and see if you can avoid saying “no” to her. Because the flip side of that is … you want her to stay in agreement with you, too.

And definitely exercise your language skills in speaking with your mom, as well as in future writing. That’s not just for our benefit in understanding; it’s to your benefit to make yourself understood and present as the intelligent young person that you are.

Try that, see how it goes, and get back to us sometime.

Good luck, yes?

This is a difficult question to answer, for a number of reasons. Advising you on how to convince your mother that you should leave depends in a large degree on whether you can convince us that you should leave. The main obstacle to that is that we don’t know your reason for wanting to leave. Knowing that you are 15, and that probably most teenagers go through a phase of wanting to move out or get some space for a while, it’s easy for us to jump to the conclusion that you shouldn’t. But I can think of some reasons why your suggestion might be the right one – the chief of these being that your mother may be an alcoholic or drug addict. Or, conversely, maybe she should be on medication that she’s not taking, and it’s dangerous for you to stay home. In other words, whether we agree that you should move out depends on how bad the bad situation is.

You also say that the problem is temporary. This is another thing that we would need to assess before giving advice. If your mother really does have a substance abuse problem, or if the problem comes from someone she is seeing socially, that might not actually be temporary, and that’s not something you can control. So, you might need to find a more permanent solution than kipping on someone’s sofa for a short while.

Finally, let’s say your home situation is dire, and in a short term way… in other words, that you should have exactly what you want. The next problem to address is why your mother is fighting your decision. Does she know the people that you want to move in with? She will never agree if she doesn’t. If she does, perhaps the best thing to do is have the parents discuss the situation with her, and see if an agreement can be reached. If the parents won’t do this, then frankly it sounds like your situation is probably not as dire as you think it is. They probably wouldn’t leave you in a dangerous situation if they could do something about it.

Anyway, these are my first reactions to your details. I’ll send this question to a Fluther member with social work experience – her advice will probably be useful.

I am sorry that you are having to live in a difficult situation. I am not sure that you by yourself can talk your mom into it.

Perhaps you could enlist someone to help with the cause: a school guidance counselor or a priest (or other appropriate religious leader). If you have to tell them the details of the situation, they will keep them in confidence.

Please reach out to a trusted adult to get the help that you need.

How else will you learn the art of compromise and solving problems if you don’t learn to resolve them. Going away will only delay things. Yes, you will feel better for a while and maybe even your family, but once you go home things will end up right where you left them. Maybe even worse. Family counseling I can see, but unless there is some physical or emotional abuse going on, you may want to sit things out and find a way to make things work for all involved. If there are issues that need to be confronted with the aide of a 3rd. party than I would take @marinelife suggestion of a counselor or some religious leader, unless they all belong to some cult. Then run away someplace safe.

If your issue is something to do with a divorce, than talk to both of your parents. If it’s with a sibling, than try to appeal to them. If the problem is something you only see and everyone else doesn’t have a problem with it, than get a friend to give you an honest opinion, or the parent of a friend. Someone who you know won’t be afraid to tell you the truth. But when relaying your version, try to see it from your family point as well. What’s keeping them from listening to you?

Do you tend to send a double message? Does every situation seem extreme to you and yet you know of other people who don’t react that way and don’t think it a big deal? Are you going though something else outside of home and it’s affecting how you feel about your family? Do you think other people have a more loving or caring family and you wish you had a family like that? Are your parents too strict or to demanding only in your eyes but your siblings don’t think so?

Get the help of a third party (councellor) to intervene.