Today we are going to focus on the PARENTS! Yay! The thing you want.
Parenthood is a journey from feeling like you have a lot of control to feeling as if you have none.
You go from being “in charge” of a tiny human to being not “in charge” of an adult.
Yelling, threatening and bribing are ways you try to get your power back. Using fear to get your kids to listen is your attempt to feel in control.
The thing is, you never had power or control in the first place. And no other time in parenting does this feel more true is when raising teens.
Darlynn
- Confusion about your role - Knowing what you are responsible for and what you aren't. Being unclear about what limits/boundaries to set.
- Fear about their future - When we are afraid they won’t reach their potential we constantly intervene in order to “teach” our kids how they should behave. The problem is that failure is the real teacher. Whenever we intervene we deprive our kids of opportunities to learn.
- Uncomfortable with their discomfort - Teen years are full of hard moments. This can be hard for parents to witness.
- Failure creates discomfort. Either emotionally or practically. If we are uncomfortable when our child is sad or frustrated, then we will have a tendency to stop negative consequences from happening. We end up in rescue mode - which ultimately results in us feeling resentful and our child feeling entitled.
- Feeling distant and disconnected. Not being sure how to talk to your kids about their lives.
- Not trusting your kids - feeling powerless
- This feeling of powerlessness can be scary. Especially when your teenager starts making very adult decisions and your entire body is tight with a feeling of terror.
- Sometimes we don’t really trust our kid’s judgment or thought process. We don’t have confidence in their thinking, so we do all the thinking for them. We end up being controlling. This can go one of two ways - either our kid rebels against our control, or they end up lacking self-confidence and live in fear of making mistakes.
- This also erodes your child’s self concept
- Not processing your own grief around the shifts in your role as a mom.
- There is an inherent loss that accompanies raising a teen. If you don’t recognize and talk about the loss, your feelings might show up as hypercontrolling or checking out as a way to cope with your own grief.
- Strategies
- Define your limits: What works for you. What is your teen allowed to do and under what conditions. What are you willing to do for your teen and under what conditions. If you aren’t willing to respect your boundaries, your teen won’t respect them either. And they won’t learn how to hold boundaries for themselves.
- Boundaries aren’t the problem. It’s holding our boundaries and dealing with the emotional/practical impact of holding your boundary. (Examples: Lincoln with use of car
- Positive Parenting Vision: Push out 5 years and write about what is possible for your child. A few prompts are: What do I know is true about my teen that helps me believe they will get through this? In 5 years from now what is possible for them? What will success look like in 5 years?
- Process your negative emotions (This will help you be ok with your child’s struggle) Label the actual emotions you are feeling. Allow yourself to feel them. If you need to be sad, be sad. If you need to be mad, be mad. If you need to do some worst-case scenario thinking and feel scared, go for it. Just be in it. Avoid telling yourself you shouldn't feel what you are feeling.
- Solve for worst case scenario - Play out the scenarios of unprotected sex, failed grades, drugs and alcohol, vaping, social isolation, extreme video
