LETTING GO OF HOW YOUR TEEN REACHES THEIR POTENTIAL — A NEW MINDSET FOR PARENTING TEENS | EP. 2
Welcome to The Small Jar, a podcast where we explore how to intentionally design the life that you want in the space between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins.
Hello, friends. It's a sunny day in January. I have the house to myself, which is rare and beautiful.
I adore my family and I love being with them, but there's something so peaceful about being here on my own. I find I'm able to breathe more deeply, check in with myself and see what's going on for me. This is how I think of The Small Jar.
It's a space where we can look inside to understand why we're feeling the way we feel and begin to question the beliefs that are holding us back. So today I want to dive into the relationship we have with our teen and young adult children. Now, we are all very different mothers and may have completely different philosophies about how to raise our children.
But in the end, we all just want our children to be happy, safe and healthy. We want them to be okay. I mean, how much would any of us give for that promise that everything would work out well for them, that our children would be happy, healthy, successful, that they would find love? You might think of this as wanting our children to reach their full potential.
There's so much to unpack here and it will definitely take more than one episode. What I find as mothers, so much of who we are and what we want is connected to our children. This is particularly true when our children are still living at home, but it can be true even when they are in college and well beyond.
As mothers in particular, many of us have the tendency to design our lives around the lives of our children. The decisions we make, the goals we set for ourselves, more often than not take into account our children's needs and desires before our own. This isn't a judgment, but something I've certainly noticed in my own life and the experience of many of my friends and clients.
We put our children first. It's interesting to think that from an evolutionary perspective, the survival of our species has always depended on keeping our children safe and encouraging them to be productive. This basic maternal instinct is not limited to humans, but our ability to learn from the past and imagine the future is something particularly unique to us as humans.
This unique ability of our minds to learn from the past and imagine a different future, imagine a wide range of possibilities for the future, is precisely why our species has innovated and developed over centuries and now at an ever-increasing pace as technology connects us and our imaginations across the globe. This incredible adaptive and forward-thinking aspect of our minds is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to motherhood. We've already learned throughout our lives from our own mistakes, and so we are very sure of what our children should be doing.
Why allow them to make our past mistakes? Our mind's ability to imagine future outcomes also leads us to think of all the consequences that might arise when our children don't heed our advice, when they go down the wrong path, take unnecessary risks. We can also imagine the success and feelings of accomplishment they could achieve if they would only do what we say. Take school seriously, stop wasting time, take advantage of opportunities.
When our children were little, maybe even up until 10 or 11, we had quite a bit of control over their lives. We could keep them fed, protect them from strangers, we wouldn't give them access to things that were dangerous. We planned their extracurricular activities and had control over when and how long they saw their friends.
During this time, our children were rarely, if ever, in situations where we didn't know the players or the environment. Of course, there were times when our children might have faced a difficult interaction with someone new at school. But let's face it, if this happened to you, how long did it take you to find out everything about that mean child and their family after your child came home upset? You could find ways to protect your child so easily because they never wandered far outside of your sphere of influence.
Look, it's not like we could ensure our younger children were happy all of the time, but before the preteen and teen years, we were able to ensure, to a relatively high degree, that they were as safe as possible, that we controlled many of the circumstances. We were able to design our children's lives so that they only took on the amount of risk that made us feel comfortable. Enter the teenage years and all bets are off.
We don't have as much access to their lives, we may not know all of their friends, they don't tell us as much anymore. They're circulating in a bigger and virtual social environment. Their access to technology opens a door to a wide world of strangers.
The proliferation of social media platforms and ways to connect virtually are staggering and difficult for us to navigate. As parents, we're often looking for answers. How do I keep my child safe in this world of technology, of early access to knowledge about life from questionable sources? Parents will often ask, should I monitor their social media accounts, keep them from getting a phone until they're 18? Should I get their pin and monitor their text messages on their phone, or follow them on Life360? It starts to feel like you're putting fingers in an exploding dam.
It's impossible to plug every hole. Danger is everywhere. We imagine all of the horrible scenarios awaiting our children if we allow them to make the wrong choice.
If we don't parent in the right way, if we don't find a way to protect them. I remember when my children were little and I was physically and emotionally exhausted. There was a time when I met a group of friends who had teenage children at home.
Of course, I came to lunch late, bemoaning another long sleepless night, and one of my friends said to me, little children, little problems, just you wait. At the time, I remember thinking there couldn't be anything more exhausting than the stage of mothering an infant and a toddler at the same time. It felt to me like Groundhog Day, and I still believe those days were challenging, at least for me.
But the truth of what my friend said many years ago has come back to me time and again as I navigate parenting my now teenage children. Little children, little problems. Big children, bigger problems.
And this is not to say I think of my children as big problems, but the world that faces them, the world to which they are exposed on a daily basis, the magnitude of the problems they might face, the challenges, the amount of stress at school, getting into college. These can all feel like big problems on a fairly regular basis. A psychologist named Abraham Maslow developed a framework in the 1940s that suggests humans are motivated to fulfill a hierarchy of needs.
The most basic needs, those that must be fulfilled before any other need can be satisfied, are for food, water, shelter, and rest. Maslow laid out this hierarchy of needs in a pyramid, and the second layer of the pyramid is the need for safety, security, and health. Then you go up to the third layer.
These are needs of love, belonging, and friendship. Then comes the need for self-esteem and feelings of accomplishment. And at the top of the tier is achieving self-actualization or reaching one's full potential.
As parents, we want this entire pyramid for our children. Food, shelter, safety, health, of course. It's the social contract we signed intuitively when we decided to become parents.
Of course we wanted to ensure all of those things for them. And I'm generalizing this because I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, you are the type of parent who truly does care about their children and their well-being. So yes, we want to provide these basic needs for our children, but we want our children to experience the full hierarchy, including love, belonging, and friendship, self-esteem, and accomplishment, reaching their full potential.
We want all of this for our children, and there is a nagging voice in our heads that tells us it's our job to provide all of this for them and all of this before they leave us to go to college. Here's a crazy statistic. Maslow developed this hierarchy, but he also believed that achieving the highest level of the hierarchy, reaching your full potential, is actually incredibly rare.
In fact, he believed that only about 1% of the adult population had actually achieved self-actualization. Now, I don't know if that statistic could possibly be true or ever be proven. I'd like to believe that reaching your full potential is inherently possible for all of us, but the statistic does point to the fact that it's not easy and also seriously puts into question the possibility that we as parents can guarantee this for our children before they leave to go to college.
Now, before we go further with this concept of our children reaching their full potential, I want to go further back down the pyramid. Let's start with basic needs, food, water, shelter, and rest. Have you ever experienced not being able to get your teenagers to sleep long enough at night to go to bed at a reasonable hour? I was floored the first time I realized one of my children, when he was fairly young, had pulled an all-nighter, gaming no less.
I was shocked and felt shame and anger, like how did I let this happen? How could I have missed that he was up all night? There have been times when I have been concerned that my boys aren't eating enough or eating enough healthy foods. Sometimes they don't even drink enough water and I think they're seriously dehydrated. At times I've been astounded at how difficult it is to fulfill the bottom, most basic needs of my teenage children.
I can't make them eat enough or eat the right foods anymore. I can't make them drink water. I can't make them fall asleep.
Now, this doesn't keep me from trying, but it's actually somewhat comical that I can devote so much emotional energy to trying to get my children to reach their full potential, build their confidence, bolster their friendships, and I can't even make them fulfill their basic needs. I point all of this out to give us, as mothers and fathers too, an opportunity to stand back and appreciate what we're up against, why it feels hard so much of the time. We have brought these children into the world and for years we have practiced the belief that it is our job to keep our children safe, happy, and healthy.
We've practiced our concept of what it means for us to be a good parent. What this means for each of us might be different, but whatever concept you have about what it means for you to be a good parent, this is a belief you have forged in the fire. The years you have spent protecting and providing for your children.
But the game is changing. What used to keep our children safe and happy doesn't work anymore. As our children seek independence as a natural next step in their development, they pull away from us.
They start testing boundaries. Their view of what the consequences of their actions might be is very different from ours. For example, we see them not getting enough sleep and we think this is a disaster.
They're going to be useless tomorrow. They're going to get sick. They think this is awesome and so much fun.
I love hanging out with my friends in the middle of the night and I don't care that I'll be useless tomorrow. These are two very different views of the same situation and they inevitably lead to conflict. No matter how many times we tell them it's a problem, they're not going to take our word for it anymore.
We've learned from this mistake but they haven't yet. So for them, fun wins. And here we are back to not being able to provide one of our children's basic needs, getting enough sleep.
The next level of the hierarchy of needs is safety, security, basic health. Again, so much easier when our children were little. I have to be honest that when my boys reached a size and stature that made it significantly less likely that they could be kidnapped, trafficked, or physically taken advantage of, it was a huge relief for me.
For parents of young women, this fear really never goes away. We are no longer able to monitor every moment of our children's lives so we imagine all of the dangers that await them and we try to put up as many barriers as we can to thwart these potential dangers. Restrictions on social media, monitoring interactions with friends, limitations on dating, talking to them endlessly about the dangers of drugs, drinking, and sex.
I'm not here to tell you what you should do or how you should parent but I want to suggest that the way we think about the consequences of our children's actions is the source of pain and conflict for us. Notice that I said the way we think about our teen's actions or inactions, not the teen's actions themselves. Let's take an example of online gaming.
Let's say this particular teen games a lot, like every spare minute, late at night, in between classes, immediately when they get home. As parents, what do we make that mean? We think they're wasting time gaming. They could be doing homework or doing some other more productive activity.
They're putting themselves in danger by interacting with strangers. I hear bad language. They're going to become someone who thinks it's okay to swear.
They're not getting enough sleep and then we imagine what the future holds. They're never going to amount to anything if all they do is game. They're going to get addicted.
This is a problem and it's going to have disastrous consequences. The more we think about how incredibly badly this situation can go, the more stressed, frustrated, and angry we get. We're making it mean that our children are doing something wrong.
They're putting themselves in danger. They are limiting their potential. Here's an interesting question.
We are very clear on why it's a problem for our teen to be gaming, but why is it a problem for us? Well, first, clearly it's a problem because we're feeling so stressed and frustrated about it. But when it comes down to it, when I've asked clients this question, they realize it's a problem because they feel it's their job to help their children reach their full potential. It's their job to encourage their children to be their best, to do their best.
If they're gaming all the time, surely I as a parent have failed. How does that make you feel? I have failed as a parent. Frustrated, anxious, angry, disappointed.
But who would you be as a parent without the story that there will be disastrous long-term consequences to your teen's gaming? It's hard to let go of the story, I know. Your mind may even go to, well, I can't just let them game all the time because then they will get addicted. They will get bad grades.
There will be consequences. Everyone you know might agree with you. I might agree with you.
I don't want my children gaming all the time either. As you parent, you get to set boundaries for your children, at least while they're living at home. You can set rules about how long your teen can game, what games they're allowed to play, if they're allowed to play.
But when you set those boundaries, do you set them from a place of frustration and fear of what happened? When you're convinced of the story that there will be long-term consequences, that your teen is absolutely doing something wrong, when this narrative is driving your actions, how will you show up with your child? You'll likely threaten, yell, take away privileges, take the computer away altogether. It feels awful for you and for them. You might even feel guilty afterwards, then cave and give them back their computer and their privileges.
And now you feel like you've done something wrong. But what if the only problem is the story? Without the story, you might observe your teen gaming. You might hear him laughing with friends.
You might observe him having an incredible time. You might listen to him brag about how many levels he's achieved in the game. You might see his joy in place of your fear.
When you're able to see for a moment that your child may be gaming because he is fulfilling his hierarchy of needs, connection with friends, achievement in the game. He may not be worried about fulfilling his long-term potential in this moment, but he is living in the moment. He's happy playing the game in your home.
In that moment, he is safe, happy, and healthy. How do you feel when you notice that your child is doing something he or she loves? Even if you also think they may need to carve out more time to do the things they may not love as much, like schoolwork or chores. Instead of thinking your teen is doing something wrong, you might think, I see how much he loves gaming, but I may be able to help him find balance.
Instead of leading with frustration and fear, you might approach him with love and curiosity. You might ask him what he loves about gaming. You might tell him calmly and with love that you are so happy he's found something he loves that connects him with friends.
And that as a parent, you want to be sure he's also making time for his long-term goals and share why you feel it's important. You might ask him to help problem solve with you. How would he structure his time differently to both get his work done and enjoy time gaming with his friends? You might design a plan together and you could even communicate in advance that there will be consequences if he's not able to live up to the agreement you have created together.
You would be leading with love and not fear. This is such a simple example, but this dynamic shows up in so many areas of our interactions with our teenage children as they discover what's important to them. And we discover that their goals and desires may not line up with our own desires and goals for them anymore.
We have learned from the past and we do have wisdom to share with our children, but we find we can't make them do what we say as easily anymore. So instead of leading with frustration because they're no longer compliant 10-year-olds, we can begin to see the beauty of them exploring their own hierarchy of needs, exploring new experiences that give them motivation and learning their own lessons of which choices work for them and which create short-term consequences they want to avoid in the future. My son once pointed out to me that gamers are making millions of dollars.
In his eyes, gaming wasn't a waste of time. Now, I'm not convinced my son should follow gaming as a career path, but I do find that when I am willing to acknowledge that my visions of the worst-case scenarios of my children's actions are just figments of my imagination, that they're not true and predestined, I'm able to let go of the fear and anxiety, the pain, and I'm able to communicate with my children in a way that is more likely to encourage them to listen. Sometimes.
Because I also listen to them. I respect that their motivations may be different than mine, and I try to find ways to bridge the gap. Anger and fear are going to come up for us as parents on a regular basis when dealing with our teens.
It feels like a gut reaction. But when you experience this pain, stop. Observe what your teen is doing and ask yourself, what are you making it mean? What worst-case scenario is your mind offering to you? Acknowledge this thought, this version of the future that you want so desperately to avoid.
Consider that it is this imagined future that is bringing you the pain. In this moment, there is just your teen, doing what they're doing, not worried what the future will bring, fulfilling their own hierarchy of needs in the moment. It's hard to let go of our fears of what might happen in the future.
We think that by continuing to imagine everything that could go wrong for our teens, that will somehow keep them safe from harm and guaranteed to reach their potential. But no matter how hard we try, we can't control the future for them. And imagining the pain that might come later only brings us pain now.
Who would we be without our story that if they would only listen, that we could guarantee nothing would go wrong? We might discover that our children, unshackled by our fear for their futures, are able to embrace a future beyond our imagination. We can no longer keep them safe all the time. We can no longer make them feel happy.
But it is beautiful to consider that the only person who can make your child reach their full potential is them. We can't do it for them. But I do notice that when I stop making my children do it my way, while still offering guidance and suggestions fueled by love rather than fear, they sometimes eventually listen to me and we all feel less pain.
I've only scratched the surface of this topic. There are so many layers to our desire to support our children as they fulfill their hierarchy of needs, from the most basic needs to higher level needs, from friendship and connection to self-confidence and self-actualization. In future episodes, I will explore all of this.
And I will also dive into our own hierarchy of needs. As mothers, we often sacrifice our own needs to support the dreams of our children and family. And so often it feels like we can't pursue our own dreams without letting others down.
We'll explore all of this and more together in The Small Jar. Until next time, friends. Thanks for listening to The Small Jar podcast.
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