THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK. "MY TEEN IS ENTITLED" | EP 178
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest 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.
Have you ever had a thought as a mom and then immediately felt terrible for thinking it? Believe me, you're not alone, and you're truly not a bad mom for thinking it. In this series on the Thoughts Us Moms Are Ashamed We Think, I'm exploring these thoughts and where they're coming from. Because when you shift from judgment to understanding, that's when everything changes. Let's dive in.
Hello my friend.
The other night I got a message from one of my clients. She was upset because she and her son had gotten into a huge fight. It started because she'd asked him to write a thank you note to his grandparents for sending him money for graduation.
She'd already reminded him a few times, and at this point she was feeling like it was really rude that he hadn't acknowledged the gift yet. When she brought it up again, he just rolled his eyes and said, I already texted them. She was beyond frustrated.
His grandparents couldn't make it in person for his graduation because of their health, and so they'd sent a generous gift. And all this kid could do was send a text? So she let him know what she thought about that text. And then she said, you still need to write the thank you note.
So he said back to her, why do you always make a big deal out of things that don't matter? So needless to say, the conversation escalated from there. My client ended up calling her son disrespectful, and her son called her names back. And there they were yelling again.
My client told me it's not just the thank you note. It's really his attitude. He's so entitled.
It's like he doesn't even care how much everyone else does for him. I can't stand it. I have heard the same story in different forms from so many other moms I've worked with.
And so if you've ever had this thought, my teen is entitled, you're in good company. You ask for a little help, maybe to unload the dishwasher or fold the laundry, and your teen acts like it's a huge burden, like you're interrupting their extremely important job of watching TikTok videos in bed. You spend your time, money, and effort making their lives easier, driving them everywhere, paying for everything, supporting everything they do.
And they barely acknowledge it. But even worse, you get the eye roll when you ask them to do just about anything. They leave trash everywhere, and they eat the food you bought and cooked without any type of thank you.
And somehow you're the bad guy when their favorite food isn't in the fridge. It's like not only do they not appreciate everything you do, but it's like that somehow you're still not doing enough for them. You can feel like they act like it's your job to make their life go smoothly, and when things don't go their way, it's suddenly your fault.
My friend, it's hard not to think they're so entitled. The bottom line is you feel disrespected and unappreciated. And maybe the worst part is that you feel helpless.
I mean, you've really worked hard to raise a good human, a person who's kind and responsible. And so when your kid acts this way, entitled, it feels like they don't value what you thought you raised them to value. For example, you likely value things like gratitude and respect, maybe effort and contribution.
And this goes well beyond good manners. It's really about how you try to live your life, right? And the way you try to raise your kids to live their life as well. So when your teen doesn't seem to recognize these values as worthwhile because they don't say thank you or they complain when you ask them to do something, it feels like they're kind of rejecting everything you've worked so hard to teach them.
So inevitably, in these situations, your teen's behavior can trigger a lot of emotions for you. Obviously, frustration. I mean, at a basic level, this is really coming from the reality that you want them to be doing or saying one thing, and they're just not.
Maybe they're even doing the opposite. To put it another way, you're frustrated that you have an expectation of your kid that they're not meeting. And most importantly, you're thinking they should be meeting this expectation.
You can also feel resentful. I mean, here you are doing everything under the sun to support your kid, and they not only seem to expect it, but they don't appreciate it at all. Or worse, it's like it's not good enough.
You can even start to want to pull back on what you do to support your kid. I mean, if they're not going to appreciate you or pull their own weight, why should you have to go out of your way to do all these things for them? The relationship can start to feel one-sided and unfair. When you think your kid is entitled, you can also feel hurt.
It almost feels like they act like you don't matter. I mean, many of us remember a time when we did feel close to our kids, but you can reach a point where you just feel irrelevant in your kid's life, maybe also taken advantage of. They don't seem to care what you have to say, or to care that you need help, or that you're doing everything you can for them.
It's like, what changed? How did I become the bad guy here? Another emotion that comes up a lot in these situations is that you feel powerless. You want them to be less entitled and show a bit of respect and appreciation, but you don't know how to get them to do that. You try to explain why what you're asking them to do matters, but they still don't do it.
You've also tried threatening and maybe even enforcing consequences. The universal, I'm taking away your phone consequence. Because honestly, that seems to be the only thing they care about.
But even then, nothing seems to change. So you feel at a total loss about how to make them care. There's another emotion that comes up that might surprise you, and that's fear.
Interestingly, where our minds go is, if this is bad now, it's only going to get worse in the future. This could relate to your connection with your kid, like they're pulling away now and treating me this way now. So when they leave, they're just going to totally blow me off.
Maybe we're never going to be able to fix this relationship. Or, and I've had so many women say this to me, they worry, what if they act this way with their partner or their boss? How are they going to successfully navigate relationships and the real responsibilities of being an adult? If they can't do these simple things I ask now, how are they ever going to make it in the real world? So our minds go to this future place where we're thinking about the long-term consequences of this attitude and behavior. And then it's like we feel even more pressure to have to fix it now.
Here's what's important to see. The real reason this feels so hard right now isn't just because of what your teen does or doesn't do. It's really because of how it all feels to you.
OK, so they didn't write the thank you note or take out the trash. These are just the facts. But these facts stir something up in you.
And that's what's making you feel frustrated, resentful, and afraid. When your kid says something snarky or ignores you, and I'm not here to convince you that this behavior isn't rude or disrespectful, but when they do these things, your mind interprets what that means. That they shouldn't be acting this way.
That they don't appreciate everything I do for them. They don't have any respect for me. Or I'm doing something wrong that I've raised a kid like this.
And look, I get it. These challenges in parenting are hard and really not fun. But also, it's your perspective about what your kid's behavior means that's driving not only how you feel about it, but how you react to it.
And the reason this distinction is really valuable to see is that when you feel terrible, it's harder for you to show up in a calm and decisive way. You show up from a place of reactivity rather than confident authority. So understanding the sources of your emotional experience is truly the path to taking charge of how you respond to your emotions.
So as I said before, when you think your teen is acting entitled or disrespectful, that typically means that there's a gap between what they're doing and what you think they should be doing. Now, anytime this happens in life, when there's a difference between what happens and what we think should happen, our minds want to try to make sense of it. Why is this happening? Why is my kid acting like this? Or how do I get them to care or do what they should be doing? Now, here's what's really interesting.
It can be really helpful to ask yourself these questions. Why is this happening? What am I missing here? The problem is what our brains often do subconsciously is ask these questions as a way to assign blame or to find a way to control or fix the circumstances. Really, to get your kid to do what you want them to do.
Said another way, our brains often resort to trying to control the outcome, to control the circumstances. And I know you don't want to control your kid. You just want them to be respectful and responsible.
It doesn't seem like that should be too much to ask. But when your kid doesn't listen and you think they should, your brain interprets that gap as a problem that needs to be solved. And the way your brain tries to solve it is by focusing harder on what they should be doing and what you need to do to make that happen.
This is where we can fall into mindset traps. These traps are your brain's way of trying to protect you by trying to find safety or comfort or just by simplifying the situation. When we fall into these traps, the conclusions our minds jump to feel really true, but they also lead to reactions that on a minimum aren't effective, but more often just make things worse.
So what are the mindset traps involved when you think my teen is entitled? Well, one trap is all or nothing thinking, where a series of frustrating things your kid does becomes a broader conclusion about who they are. You think they're always like this. They never appreciate anything.
They just don't care about anyone but themselves. When you're seeing your kid this way, it becomes harder to see the moments when they do try. Or you discount those times when they're making any effort at all and focus instead on when they don't.
Our brains also fall into confirmation bias in this way. They look for evidence that proves you're right, again, at the expense of noticing anything to the contrary. You can also fall into the trap of personalization, where you take your kid's behavior personally or make it mean something about you.
Or you can catastrophize, thinking about what your kid's behavior is going to mean for their future. Now, notice this is already a lot of mindset traps tied into just this one experience of our kid's entitled behavior. And so it's no wonder we're feeling a big ball of emotions that don't feel so great in response to it.
But the trap I really want to explore today is a trap I call emotional outsourcing. It's when your emotional well-being starts to depend on how your teen behaves. So if they're polite and helpful, you feel good.
But if they roll their eyes or ignore your request, suddenly you feel angry and anxious and resentful. Essentially, you're outsourcing your peace of mind to someone who, let's be honest, isn't always emotionally stable themselves. So when you're in this trap, it feels like your only option is to try to get them to act differently so you can feel better.
So the things you might do to try to get them to change might be lecturing or nagging or threatening consequences. All of these actions can become a way of trying to get relief from the painful emotions you're feeling and that you think are being caused by their behavior. And this is what creates this urgency, this need to fix it, because your peace and well-being feel like they're dependent on your kid's behavior.
Now, I want to stop here and make something really clear. Just because you might be in this trap of emotional outsourcing doesn't mean you're wrong for wanting your kid's behavior to change. I mean, of course you don't want the eye-rolling or the entitled behavior to continue.
And believe me, I get that you feel responsible to teach your kid to be respectful. And you might also really need their help around the house or with the things you've asked them to do. So I'm not here to justify entitled behavior or to imply that you should somehow just let it go.
In fact, one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal are your boundaries. Those moments when you say to your kid, this is not OK, and here's what I will or won't do if this continues. But how do you know how to do this without falling into the trap of emotional outsourcing? I mean, both seem to be motivated by this desire to change our kid's behavior.
So what's the difference? Here's the key. When you're setting a boundary from a place of calm confidence and intention, you are guiding your kid to be the best version of themselves. But when you're trying to change their behavior because you can't feel OK until they do, this is when you're outsourcing your emotions to your kid.
And it's almost impossible to set calm, intentional boundaries from this place. Look, boundaries can feel really complicated because we tend to focus on the rules and consequences. But consider that what boundaries really are is a decision about how you show up in any situation.
So boundaries can look like you just walking away or choosing not to say something. But they can also look like being very clear with yourself about what your expectations are and why they matter so much. Also, so you can clearly communicate these things to your kid.
Boundaries can also look like you being willing to let your kid be pissed off if you have to follow through with consequences they don't like. Just imagine how much more powerful all of these decisions become when you're doing them from a calm, confident and intentional place. When I think about what it means to be intentional, I think about something that I've thought through, that I'm clear about the importance of.
It's those times that I know that this is something I really want or need to do. Now, when we react to our emotions, especially emotions like frustration, anger and resentment, we're almost never responding with intention. In fact, the truth is what we're doing more often than not is reacting by trying to control our kid's behavior so we don't have to feel angry or disrespected.
Or alternatively, we can shut ourselves down and pull away again so we don't have to feel terrible. But either way, we still feel pretty terrible. I mean, we've all been there.
I know I've been there. In fact, emotional outsourcing is something we all do, especially with the people we love the most. In fact, it's actually something we've been raised to do, to believe that other people are responsible for our feelings, that they can hurt us or make us feel unappreciated.
And I'll be the first to acknowledge other people, even our own kids, can do some really crappy things. And you actually get to feel however you want to feel about those things. You're not wrong.
Recognizing this trap of emotional outsourcing isn't about invalidating your feelings or experience. But when your kid dismisses you or treats you like you don't matter, this is the moment to acknowledge how reacting from your anger or hurt isn't working. It's not teaching them the lesson you hope to teach, and it's definitely not helping you feel better.
So the point of this conversation is to help you see that there is another way. It's in learning how to approach your teen from a place of calm intention, no matter how they behave. That's where your power lives, my friend.
When you think your teen is entitled, I know it feels like the truth. And I have no doubt that you could share many facts that we both could agree prove it. But labeling your teen this way and trying to fix the problem from a place of hurt, frustration or resentment won't get you what you actually want, which is respect, connection, influence, maybe even trust.
So what will get you there? It's learning how to show up calmly, clearly and consistently, even when your teen doesn't. And this is the work we do inside of my coaching program, Mom 2.0. Together, we explore what's really triggering your hurt and frustration and the urgency to fix it. And we empower you to tap into that calm, confident version of you who knows what she wants and how she wants to show up with her teen and in every area of her life.
You'll learn the power of not needing your kids or even life to change so you can create the power to feel confident, connected and calm. So if you're ready to stop outsourcing your peace of mind and start parenting from a place of real power, I'd love to support you. I want to leave you with this question to reflect on.
Who would I be in this relationship with my kid if my peace didn't depend on how they acted? Sit with that and just know no matter how impossible it feels right now, I know without a doubt that you have the power in you to be the mom you want to be. You know in your heart how you want to show up. The only thing that's holding you back are these painful emotions that are making it hard to approach your kid with calm intention.
You don't have to wait for your teen to change for you to become the mom you want to be. 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.
