"MY KID DOESN'T LIKE ME."—THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK | EP. 166
Thoughts Moms Parenting Teens and Adult Kids Are Ashamed They Think. My Kid Doesn't Like Me. Welcome to the Almost Emptiness Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace.
I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins. Welcome to Things Moms Are Ashamed They Think, a special series inside the Almost Emptiness Podcast. If you've ever had a thought about your teen or adult kid that makes you feel like a terrible person, this series is for you.
In every episode, I'll be naming one of those honest but unspoken thoughts out loud, and I'll unpack what's really going on underneath. Because these thoughts don't make you a bad mom. They make you human.
And when you learn how to shift the way you relate to these thoughts inside your head, everything changes. Let's dive in. Hello, my friend.
Have you ever thought, my kid just doesn't like me? Actually, let me say this. If you're going through something really challenging with your kid, this sentence, my kid doesn't like me, it doesn't feel like a thought. It can feel like the truth.
Have you ever watched other moms and felt jealous? Like you see how close they seem to be with their kids, and that their kids are always smiling around them and being kind to them. And you think, what did I do wrong? The truth is, some of us don't have a close, connected relationship with our teens or adult kids. Some of my clients tell me, my kid is just so rude to me now.
They roll their eyes and act like everything I say is so annoying. Other times, our kids can shut us out. So many moms have said to me, all I get is one-word answers.
You try to have a normal conversation with your kid and they tell you nothing. It can hurt even more when you see them opening up to other people, or being so happy and open with their friends, but then totally sullen and closed off at home. I've coached moms whose kids refuse to eat dinner with the family.
They'd rather eat dinner up in their rooms. Or they manage to always be busy, so they're never around, never available to have that family dinner. They don't call home or text back.
I've worked with moms who feel like their kid has a better relationship with their dad or someone else in their life. And you can't help but feel hurt and jealous. Like, why did they open up to them and not to me? And let's face it, kids can say things that cut us down in the most hurtful ways.
They can actually say the words, I hate you. Or they voice the deepest fears that we're already thinking. They might say that we really did mess them up, or that we did do it wrong.
That we let them down or ruined their life. Even if you know you're trying your best, hearing those words from your kid can feel devastating. I've also worked with moms who have had a major falling out with their big kid, where they're totally estranged.
Or for other moms, the break in the relationship can feel like the slow, gradual drift apart. Until you start to fear it's not just a phase, but something that seems to be building. Where there's a wall between you and the person you love more than anything, and you're not even really sure how it got there.
As moms, when we're faced with a kid who's pulling away, we don't just accept it, right? We want to feel connected, and so we try to stay close. We check in, we try to find out what's wrong. We talk to them about how what they're doing is hurtful.
We try to show them we care by explaining to them how they need to show they care back. But this often backfires, because our kids pull away even more, or then tell us we're always on them for something. It's like your love is being rejected, and you feel powerless to fix the connection you so desperately want with your kid.
When this first happened with my son, I was absolutely stunned. To be honest, I responded by telling him that his behavior was unacceptable. In fact, I was furious.
At the time, my son wasn't even saying he didn't like me, but he was being very direct about something he thought I did wrong. And the way he delivered the message, at least at the time, to me, it felt so cruel. It was like he was discounting everything that I had ever done for him, and that I was being criticized, honestly, for something I didn't even think that I did.
I look back now, and I see this was the beginning of a very long and difficult period between me and my son. And over time, it only got worse. The more I tried to connect and get him to see my point of view, the more critical he got of me.
I'll never forget that look of disappointment in his eyes, how he stopped actually making eye contact with me at all. I felt like I was walking on eggshells with him. I was constantly thinking about what I could say to get him to see where I was coming from.
I felt like I needed to explain what he wasn't seeing. I was in so much pain. I mean, when your child, this human who you've poured your heart and all of your love and time and energy into, starts treating you like you're the problem, it hurts.
And I was willing to take accountability and apologize for my mistakes. I was even willing to apologize for things I didn't think I had done. But it's like he didn't even hear me.
I kept thinking there might be some way for me to help him remember that I was still that same mom who loved him and who was always trying her best. But he couldn't see any of that at the time. And here's what I came to understand.
He couldn't see it because he was looking through the lens of his own pain. He was focused on what wasn't working for him at the time. And I only now know a small piece of what he was going through.
But it was incredibly difficult for him. And he was trying to navigate it in the best way that he could. And this is true for all of our kids.
They're trying to navigate their increasingly complicated life and their own increasingly complicated emotions. And they don't yet have the emotional maturity or experience to be able to do that gracefully. And let's be honest, as adults, we can still be struggling with this.
Our teens also don't always know how to set boundaries or really just communicate what they need respectfully. And at the same time, we as adults aren't always the best at hearing them. When our kids say, leave me alone, what we hear is rejection rather than a simple request to give them a little time to figure things out.
Our kids are in this messy space of trying to figure out how to be separate from us. But you know what? I think we are also in this messy space of trying to figure out how we can separate ourselves from them. So sometimes the only way they figure out how to create that separation is to push us away.
But here's something to consider. When our kids are hurting, they often direct that pain at the safest target. And for many of our kids, that safe target is us.
And this isn't necessarily because we've done something wrong, but because they know on some level that we're not going anywhere. They don't always have the words to say, I'm overwhelmed, or I feel lost, or I just need space. So instead, they say, you're the problem.
And if we're not careful, we believe them. So if you're in that place right now, if your teen or adult kid is criticizing you or shutting you out or just making you feel like you're the enemy, I want you to hear this. This doesn't mean you've failed or even that they don't love you.
It just means that something hard is happening for them and for you. And your job right now isn't to get them to see you differently. It's to shift how you see yourself in the face of their behavior.
So what's really going on in your brain when your teen pulls away and you start thinking, they don't even like me? It all comes back to something I talk a lot about on this podcast, and that's the motivational triad. Our brains are wired to avoid pain, seek comfort, and conserve energy. And when your child rejects you or even just pulls away emotionally, your brain perceives that as danger.
It might not be a physical threat, but it feels like an emotional one. Your brain is desperately trying to make sense of your kid's behavior, and so it lands on something like, they don't like me. And let's be honest, once you start thinking this, it becomes the lens through which you see everything.
When they walk away in the middle of a conversation, there's proof. When they don't text back, more proof. That eye roll, just collecting more evidence.
But here's the problem. As much as I know it can feel true, that thought, my kid doesn't even like me, this isn't protecting you. It's actually only hurting you.
Because when you believe it, you feel hopeless and rejected and honestly resentful. And from those emotions, it's really hard to do anything other than be defensive and fight back or even reject your kid right back. And this absolutely does not help you build connection.
And it actually often only makes them pull away more. So let's talk about one of the mindset traps we can fall into when we think, my kid doesn't like me. Now remember, mindset traps are mental shortcuts your brain takes when it senses something that feels emotionally unsafe.
And these traps are just your brain's way of running on autopilot, trying to keep you safe. But they often work against you by creating more stress and anxiety. And in this case, more disconnection with your big kid.
So one trap you can fall into when you think your kid doesn't like you is that you resort to validation seeking. And look, when you feel rejected by your teen, it's natural to want reassurance. You want to know that they love you and that you matter.
You want to know that you're still important in their life. So what we do is we try to get that reassurance, maybe by checking in or asking them how they're feeling, or maybe even asking if they're mad at us. Or you might try to coax them into connecting.
You can find yourself saying something like, you used to love hanging out with me, what happened? Kind of hoping to guilt them into reconnecting with you. Or you could try to explain to them the impact of how they're treating you. Or explain your point of view.
Help them understand your intentions. Ultimately, so they'll change what they're doing or take back what they said. Other times, we might be more subtle.
Like we spend a lot of time trying to think of the right thing to say. Trying to be so laid back and easygoing like, hey, you want to eat in your room, no problem. You hope that maybe if you get it right, they'll let you back in.
Like if you give them a little space that you'll get credit and that they'll appreciate your effort. But then when none of that works, it just feels like more confirmation. See, they really don't like me.
It can feel like we're left with only two choices. Try harder or give up. But when your love and effort doesn't seem to be acknowledged in any way, it starts to feel hopeless.
But here's what I want you to notice. All of this effort is coming from fear. It's coming from a belief that something's broken and that you need them to fix it by showing you love and a desire to connect.
But in doing this, you make your emotional well-being entirely dependent on them behaving a certain way so that you can feel OK again. But here's the other problem. When we seek validation from our big kid, especially when they're already pulling away, it almost always backfires because what they feel in that moment is pressure.
They feel like they have to manage our emotions. And most teens and adult kids, and let's face it, this is true of full-grown adults too, we don't have the capacity or even really the desire to have to be responsible for managing other people's emotions. That's actually a lot of responsibility.
And on top of all of this, when we look to our teens to reassure us, we're handing them the power to define how we feel about ourselves. We're basically saying, tell me I'm a good mom so I can believe it or show me you love me so I can feel secure in our relationship. But what I hope you know is that your value and worth as a mom was never measured in the hugs or the thank yous.
It is literally measured by how you choose to show up every single day. Even when it's hard, you are always showing up with love and doing your best. And I know that you're doing that right now, even if it doesn't always entirely look like what you want it to look like.
Look, having someone tell you they love you is a beautiful thing, but it's not a reliable foundation on which to measure your worth. And our kids, in their own messy stage of life, aren't always equipped to give us what we want in the moment. So the real work is learning how to give this back to yourself, to trust that your love matters and that you are still deeply important in your child's life, even when they can't show it.
And here's something really powerful that happens when you do this. You stop needing your child to prove something to you. And this actually opens the door for real connection, because you get to love them through their messy experience and stop making them responsible for cleaning up yours.
You create a relationship that isn't built on guilt or pressure, but on love and mutual respect. It took me a while with my son to realize that the more I tried to get him to understand me, the more I was actually making it about me and my pain, my intention, my need to be seen as a good mom. But what he needed in that moment wasn't another explanation or certainly not another lecture.
He didn't need to be convinced that I was right or that I had done my best. What he actually needed was space and support. He was desperately trying to navigate a messy stage of his life and me pressuring him to make me feel better was only making it worse for him.
Although I couldn't do anything to take away his pain, I could stop making him responsible for mine. And so I decided to stop chasing his validation and reassurance and instead decided to show up with love, even if he couldn't give it right back to me. I'll be honest, that was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
Not the part about loving my son, that part was easy. But it was hard to stop trying to fix the relationship, to stop trying to be understood. But what I learned was how to focus on how I wanted to show up no matter how he was acting.
That meant learning to sit with my own pain without making it his responsibility. I made a promise to myself that I would love him no matter what. And I was willing to trust that I was doing my absolute best, even if he couldn't see it or acknowledge it.
I think of it as the time I left the light on. It was all I could do to keep the light on as he walked through the darkness. And eventually he saw it.
It certainly didn't happen overnight, but he sensed that I wasn't fighting anymore. I was accepting him for who he was in that moment and what he needed. I still set the boundaries I needed to set, but that was more about me and my decisions and not about control.
And little by little, my son started coming back to me. My friend, if you're in that place right now, if it feels like your kid doesn't like you or that they're pushing you away, I just want to say you're not alone. And more importantly, you don't need their validation to keep showing up with love.
If you'd like to learn more about how to make this shift, check out my next free masterclass. My friend, you are and always will be their mom. And I truly believe that no matter what's happened, they still love you.
Even if they can't show it right now, even if they're doing the exact opposite, hold on to this belief that they do love you. And also lean into the truth that you absolutely love your child and that you're always doing your best. This alone is the most powerful thing you can offer your child.
Until next time, my friend.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
