>We see this play out in abuse situations where a lot of gaslighting is going on. People who abuse are often very experienced in abuse, so they're going to be much better at articulating how they are not doing what you're doing.

In a lot of these threads I see people trying to insist one way or the other (disrespect or perception of slight).

While I agree with you that people who abuse often are more skilled in avoiding blame than the victim, I would like you to consider the likelihood that there is abuse going on to begin with (i.e. what is the base rate of abuse?). I don't have hard data, but my experience is that it much more likely that the one claiming disrespect is misreading signals.

What I think your parent is trying to say is: Consider the scenario where the parents meant no disrespect. And suddenly get a negative response from their adult son/daughter. The only person in this scenario who can provide clarity to the situation is the son/daughter.

>In some situations, often the only thing the person has to go on is that things feel wrong.

This is very true. In the communications resources/books I have encountered, however, the burden is still on this person to articulate it (and they have advice and templates on how to go about it). And the advice is somewhat in line with your parent commenter. Accusing someone of disrespecting them is totally unhelpful. Instead:

1. Point out the actual, specific example/fact. Phrase it in a way that is not disputable. By "not disputable", consider the criterion: If 5-6 people who are not involved were witnesses to that act, would there be consensus? Whether someone's actions constitute "respect" is very disputable. I've seen this at work where one person kept insisting another coworker was arrogant and putting others down. But whenever he gave an example, half his audience would say "I don't see anything in that which is putting others down". This person had a narrative in his head where he was inserting a whole story to connect the dots - but was not considering that simple, alternative explanations exist for those dots.

2. Once you state the fact, describe how you felt. What impact did that action have on you? Some books add the extra catch: A feeling has to be all about yourself. Saying "I felt disrespected" or "I felt cheated" or "I felt ignored" are simply stating your hypothesis - none of these are feelings. Suitable feelings might be "sad", "confused", "annoyed", "embarrassed", "depressed". The key thing to remember is "Feelings are always legitimate". No one can reasonably dispute it and say "No, you did not feel embarrassed".

3. State what needs of yours are being impacted. People have all kinds of needs. Autonomy, peace, companionship, harmony, etc. If anything upsets you, some of your needs are not being met. Learn to identify the needs that are not being met and state them.

4. Now that you've stated the facts, state the story you have going on in your head. Connect all the dots together.

5. Ask for, and be open to hear alternative narratives to those dots.

6. Make an explicit request: Specify how you would like the other person to behave. Again, no vague words like "Speak with respect" or "Speak politely". Make it specific and explicit.

As you said, most people just feel something is wrong. They can't say quite what. The mistake is many then either construct a whole story where they are the victim and the other person is the aggressor, or they just have a vague dislike for the other that tends to grow with time.

Going from feeling wrong to being able to:

1. Identify and separate out the facts from the perceptions.

2. Put non-judgemental words to your feelings.

3. Identify needs that are not being met.

4. Identify the story your brain is telling you (and realizing it is an unvalidated story).

5. Finally, discussing the issue with the other person without triggering defensive responses.

To do all this takes a lot of practice. Now a lot of these resources do acknowledge that you can't expect the whole world to learn to speak this way. So they do spend as much time on how others (the perceived aggressors or third party folks) can communicate to extract all these elements from the person feeling victimized.

After reading up on this for over a year, when you see people arguing or in conflict, all of this suddenly becomes clear. Most failures start from step 1 - instead of stating the facts, they state their narrative (which is often flawed) and insist the narrative is the fact. Some people never talk about the impact on them. Instead, they resort to generalities ("When people do x, ..." or "When X happens to people"). This rarely works as almost all general statements will be false - too many counterexamples. Others are good talking about the impact, but fail to mention what needs are affected. This prevents others from finding (alternative) solutions to take care of their needs.

Long comment, but I'll end with an example. A school with a lot of students from a disadvantaged ethnicity was having lots of problems. A mediator was brought in, and the students kept complaining that the principal was racist and didn't respect them. When asked what they wanted, they kept saying "We need respect!" etc. When asked what the problem was, they kept saying "He speaks to us as if we're nothing - we want respect!" Of course, the principal denied any of this.

The mediator worked them through these steps. The students had to give specific examples that bothered them. They had to give specific requests - not "we want you to respect me" but "when you talk to us, do not use phrase X", etc. The principal agreed to everything. And things got a lot better.

No one will ever know if the principal was a racist. And eventually the students didn't care. At the end of the day, there was some behavior they disliked, and they did not know how to explain it. Once they were taught how to discuss it, the undesired behavior went away and everyone was happy. Pondering over whether the principal really had or did not have respect for the student provides no gain.