ADVICE OR BOUNDARIES: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR TEEN STOPS LISTENING | EP. 223
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 found yourself holding back advice with your teen or big kid, wondering whether to say something or just let it go? The thing is, we still have wisdom to share, but far less influence over our big kid's choices.
Advice that they used to listen to now feels like it creates distance and power struggles. So in this episode, I'm going to explore the difference between advice, expectations, and boundaries. You'll learn how to decide when to speak up and when to step back, and how to show up in a way that protects both your peace and your relationship with your big kid. It's time to stop second-guessing yourself and start feeling more grounded and confident in how you want to show up as a mom. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
I'm in a stage with my boys where I still have a lot of thoughts about how I think they should live their lives, the things they should do that are in their best interest. But now that they're in college and both legally adults, I notice how little weight my advice and opinions have when it comes to their choices. If I'm being really honest with myself, the things I think they should be doing, they're really just my opinions.
They're preferences I have about how I think they should take care of themselves, apply themselves, and the way they should treat themselves and other people. And the reality is, as our kids grow up, there's some point at which they stop listening to our preferences as a guiding force in the way they live their lives. And honestly, this happens long before our kids become adults.
When we offer our guidance to our kids about these types of things, we don't often tend to think of these as opinions. But the truth is, that's what they are. But look, these opinions aren't unfounded.
The reality is, we've learned a lot of lessons about life, and so we want to guide our kids to be the best version of themselves. And the truth is, we probably do know better. I had a client last week say to me, it's just so hard when I know all the things, and my son seems to not know any of the things.
And she's so right. For our entire lives, we've been trying to teach our kids these things. Essentially, our guide to living a safe, happy, and successful life.
And some of these lessons, we've had to learn the hard way. So when it comes to our kids, we want to pass on the most valuable wisdom we have to them, so that they don't have to struggle in ways that we see as preventable. We're often able to do this pretty successfully when our kids are little.
But as they get older, this becomes so much more complicated. They start to have their own opinions, and actually start to have the freedom in many areas of their lives to make their own independent decisions. It starts with small things, like how much effort they put into their homework, and who they spend time with when they're at school, what they do when they're on social media.
And before we know it, it's bigger things, whether or not they go to class at all, what they prioritize, and how seriously they take their own future. There are so many micro decisions that our kids make every single day, and they make them independently, without our permission or a buy-in. And sometimes, we find we don't like the decisions they're making.
And not only do we at times have different opinions from our kids about what they should be doing, we also don't always trust that our kids understand the full weight of the consequences of their decisions. And this is where things can start to feel really complicated. Because on the one hand, we know our kids are going to make their own decisions.
We know we can't control their choices. And also, I don't think most of us really want to control our kids. But at the same time, it's incredibly hard to stay silent when we see them making choices we don't agree with.
Especially when those choices feel like they could have real consequences. I'll give you an example from my life that happened just recently. My son was hurt on a trip to Montreal.
In fact, he was so hurt that his friends called us for help getting him to the hospital, because he wasn't listening to them. My son's jaw was so busted up that he couldn't talk. But he was also refusing to get help.
It seemed like a pretty clear-cut answer. He needed to get to the hospital. But it wasn't until his face started swelling up like a balloon, and he realized he wasn't getting any better, that he decided it was time to go to the hospital.
And at this point, it was 4 30 in the morning. As parents, we often find ourselves in this uncomfortable middle ground, where the answer seems obvious to us, but we realize we don't have control when they don't listen. It can feel like our only recourse is to nag or lecture them.
That also feels terrible to us. And we can also start to worry that they're going to shut us out and stop listening altogether if we push too hard. But we also don't want to do nothing.
Because the truth is, if we could just give our kids advice and they took it, there wouldn't be a problem, right? If we could just share our perspective and they said, yep, mom, that makes sense, and then they did what we recommended they do, then we'd get to feel that relief of, okay, we're back on the right track. The problem is, more and more often, that's not what happens. We offer advice and they dismiss it, or they push back.
We either feel ignored or end up in another power struggle. And then we're left in this other uncomfortable place where it's not just that they're not taking our advice, but we're faced with our own perception of what it means when they don't listen. It can feel like they don't respect our perspective, or like we're failing them in some way by not getting through.
And so inevitably, we start questioning ourselves. Should I say something? Should I let this go? Do I need to set a boundary here? And if it is a boundary I need to set, what does that even mean when they're older and I don't have any clear consequences to tie to it? So I want to explore something here, because I think it's really worth considering what the lines are between advice, expectations, and boundaries. Because I think these concepts can get really tangled up in our minds.
Let's start with advice. Advice at its core is really just information or perspective that you share. In fact, real advice is offered without attachment.
In other words, we're sharing our opinion or perspective, but we're giving the other person full authority to say yes or no, or I don't agree. And I want to invite you to really sit with that for a second. Because if you really think about the way you're often motivated to give your kid advice, I'm guessing that most of the time it's not offered without attachment.
True advice sounds something like, here's something to consider, with the genuine understanding that your kid may take it or leave it. But then if they don't follow your advice, you don't feel upset or anxious. You might not love the outcome, but emotionally, you're okay.
Now let's contrast that with expectations. Expectations can sound very similar to advice on the surface, but they're very different in terms of the way we experience them inside of us. Because our expectations come with attachment.
So for example, we might think our kid should be more motivated. And what we mean by that is they should be studying more or going to class more consistently, maybe proactively researching internships or jobs or figuring out what comes next for them. And so we talk to them and we say things like, you really should be going to class, or you should be studying more.
But here's the key thing to notice. This isn't actually advice. This is an expectation.
Because when our kid doesn't do it, when they don't go to class or don't study more, we don't feel okay about that. We feel frustrated and disappointed. We're thinking about the consequences of their actions.
And often we feel like if they would just listen to us, we wouldn't have to feel stressed and they wouldn't be risking these terrible consequences. That emotion you experience here is a key giveaway. Because if you were truly offering advice without attachment, you wouldn't feel anxious or frustrated.
And look, there is nothing wrong with having expectations. I mean, of course you do. You care so much about your child and their future.
In fact, for that very reason, I think it's almost impossible for us to not have expectations for our kids. Because we want so much for them. But here's where it's really valuable to be honest with yourself about what's happening here.
Because when we tell ourselves we're just giving advice, but inside of us we're attached to a specific outcome, we're setting ourselves up to feel frustrated and powerless. So now let's talk about boundaries. Because this is often where we turn when we see our kids doing things we don't agree with, but yet they don't listen to us when we encourage them to do something differently.
The thing is, very often when we say to ourselves, I need to set a boundary here, what we really mean is, I need to get my kid to do something differently. I need to change their behavior. The problem is, we don't actually have the power to change our kid's behavior anymore.
The reality is, the only reason it felt like we did when they were little was because they listened to us. They heard us communicate our expectations and they did what we told them to do. Whether because they trusted us or because they were afraid of the consequences of not doing that thing.
And when they were young, we also had a lot more control over the consequences. When my boys were little and got hurt, I had total control over the decision to take them to get treated by a doctor. What levers do I have to pull when my 18-year-old son is hurt in another country? The truth is, I had none.
No influence, no consequences I could enforce, only my expectations. As our kids get older, more and more of what we're dealing with falls into this gray area where we have strong expectations, and we're deeply attached to the outcome, and yet we don't actually have a clear consequence we can enforce. And this is the place where so many of us get stuck, because we're left feeling a lot of emotional discomfort.
And so naturally, our instinct is to try harder. We repeat ourselves and remind them again. We look for the right way to say it, hoping that maybe they'll hear it this time.
But what we're really trying to do in these moments isn't just help our kids. We're trying to relieve ourselves, to calm that fear we feel about their future or whatever situation they're facing. We're also trying to avoid feeling that guilt, wondering if their behavior is our fault.
We try to outrun that helpless feeling of watching them struggle and not being able to fix it. And my friend, it makes so much sense that you don't want to feel this way. The problem is, when we're attached to an outcome we can't control, and we don't have a consequence we're willing or able to enforce, continuing to push advice, telling ourselves we're setting a boundary when we're really just communicating our expectations, doesn't actually make our kid change.
It only creates more tension and fuels those power struggles. Eventually, it can also lead us to pushing our kids away. And honestly, none of that brings us the relief we were hoping to achieve.
So this is the real question we have to grapple with as our kids get older. How do we show up when we care so much, and we have real wisdom to share, and yet we don't have control over the outcome? My friend, there is a way to give advice to your big kid that honors your wisdom and their autonomy. And it starts with getting really clear, before you even open your mouth, about a few very important things.
I'm going to frame them as five questions you can ask yourself before giving your kid advice or setting a boundary. Number one, ask yourself, is this thing I feel like I need to say to my kid advice or an expectation? Remember, advice is something you can offer and feel okay if they don't take it. An expectation is something you're attached to them following.
To distinguish the difference, you can ask yourself, if my kid doesn't listen to this, how am I going to feel? Because that answer will tell you everything. If you truly feel like, hey, I just want to put this on the table, take it or leave it, then what you want to communicate is probably advice. But if you already know you're going to feel frustrated, disappointed, or anxious if they ignore you, then let's just be honest with ourselves.
This isn't just advice. This is an expectation that you're attached to. And again, there's nothing wrong with that.
Of course you have expectations. The reason this matters is because the energy you bring to these conversations is going to be different depending on whether you're attached or not. For example, when you're offering advice, you can easily say it once and let it go.
But when you're communicating an expectation, you're much more likely to keep pushing if they don't listen. And that's where those power struggles can start. So before you say anything, tell yourself the truth.
Am I sharing something helpful or am I trying to create a specific outcome? Because if it's the latter, you're going to need a different approach than just giving advice. The second thing I want to invite you to think about before you give advice is, what am I hoping this will create for me? On the surface, it makes sense to say this isn't about me. I'm giving advice to help my kid.
And of course that's true. But if you look just a little bit deeper, we're also often giving advice because we're hoping it will make us feel better. That if they do what we say, then we can feel less anxious.
That we'll feel reassured that we've done our job. And my friend, I want to be clear here that sometimes the discomfort we feel when we have this urge to say something or do something is a signal that there's something we need to do here. For example, there are moments when safety is an issue or when not saying anything would feel like giving up on our kid.
So this isn't about telling yourself you shouldn't care or that you shouldn't do something. It's really about noticing what's driving your urge to step in or say something. Because when we're asking our kids to change so that we don't have to feel something, whether it's fear or anxiety or frustration, it can put a lot of pressure on the conversation.
And without realizing it, we can end up putting our kids in charge of our emotional well-being. And that's a lot of weight for them to carry. If I were to apply this point to my situation with my son in Montreal last weekend, the truth is he did need to go to the hospital.
But the reason why it felt so urgent for me was because I felt like I couldn't relax until I knew he was seeing a doctor. The reality is my son, for at least some period of time, thought he was going to be okay without seeing a doctor. So really, me continuing to push would have been about me just trying to feel better so I didn't have to sit with the discomfort of knowing that he was hurt and not getting medical attention as quickly as I wanted him to.
And again, this step isn't about judging yourself about how you're thinking or feeling or even deciding not to say anything. Because believe me, I did tell my son to go to the hospital. But it's really about getting honest with yourself so you can choose how you want to approach your kid.
The third thing to do before giving your kid advice is to ask yourself, if this is truly an expectation I want to communicate, and I recognize I'm attached to the outcome, what am I prepared to do if nothing changes? Because when we say I need to set a boundary here, what we really mean is I need my kid to do something differently. The problem is we often communicate our expectations as if that's a boundary. But we don't consider what we'll do if our kid doesn't meet our expectations.
The real boundary isn't what you want your kid to do, it's what you'll do if they don't respond to the expectation you've communicated. So before you call something a boundary, it's really important to ask yourself, if my kid doesn't do this, what will I actually do in response? Think about how often we communicate expectations without having a clear idea of how we'll respond if it doesn't happen. We tell our kid at college to go to class, but then they don't, and then what? Or we want our kid to stop gaming or get off their phones.
Sometimes we threaten consequences, but we don't follow through. These aren't boundaries, they're just us sharing our expectations, almost like we're sharing hopes and wishes. And my friend, I'm not pointing this out to tell you you're doing it wrong.
It's just the reality we face as moms that we're in this gray area that comes with parenting big kids, where you care so much, but often have very little influence or even leverage to enforce consequences. So the step isn't about forcing yourself to come up with a consequence to match every expectation. It's really about being honest with yourself.
Because if there is a clear response that you can make if your kid doesn't meet that expectation, and you're willing to make that response, enforce that consequence, then you have an opportunity to communicate that boundary calmly and clearly. In other words, I expect you to do X, and if you don't, I'll do Y. That's a boundary with a clear consequence, a clear response. But if you're not clear on what you'll do, or even what you can do if your kid doesn't meet your expectation, that's really valuable information.
Because when there is no response you're prepared to make, continuing to push your expectations just keeps you stuck in the same cycle of repeating yourself, hoping something will change and feeling resentful when it doesn't. So before you decide whether you're setting a boundary or communicating expectations, ask yourself, is this something I can actually take action on? Or am I asking my kid to change in a way I don't have the power to enforce? That answer will tell you a lot about what your next step really needs to be. The fourth thing I want to invite you to think about before you give advice or set a boundary is, what feeling am I afraid I'll have to feel if my kid doesn't change? The thing is, when we feel that urge to say something to our kids, to step in or explain or remind them, there's usually an uncomfortable emotion for us driving that.
It might be fear that they're going to mess up, or that the choices they're making will limit their future. It might be guilt, that feeling that their struggle is somehow your fault, that you failed to teach them, or you missed something along the way. You could also feel helpless.
You're watching them struggle and sitting with that. Just doing nothing can feel unbearable. We can also feel anticipatory regret.
It's the fear of looking back one day and thinking, I should have said something. I should have done that differently. The thing is, when our advice or boundaries are being driven by our need to escape a feeling, they tend to come out with urgency and pressure.
And at times our big kids can almost react to that urgency and pressure more negatively than they do to the advice we're giving itself. Sometimes the most loving and honest thing we can do for ourselves and for our kids is to recognize that the discomfort we're feeling belongs to us. Because often this pain isn't coming from what our kid is actually doing.
It's coming from the story we're telling ourselves about what it means. That this choice defines their future, or that if we don't step in something terrible is going to happen. But if we don't slow down and work through that discomfort on our own first, we tend to make it our kids' responsibility to fix.
But instead, when we're able to sit with that discomfort long enough to question the story we're telling ourselves, we're able to focus on the moment we're in right now, rather than fighting against imagined worst-case scenarios. Sometimes we do need to say something or communicate a boundary with clear consequences. But when you take ownership of your own mindset and don't make your kid responsible for your fear or discomfort, you empower yourself to meet the moment you're in with calm confidence, rather than urgency and pressure.
And finally, consideration number five. It's time to make a decision. And the question to ask yourself first is, how do I want to show up in this moment, regardless of what my kid chooses to do? So at this point, you've slowed yourself down.
You've gotten honest with yourself about whether this is advice or an expectation. You've looked at what you're hoping this will create for you and asked whether there's a boundary you can actually hold. You've also noticed what you're feeling and taken responsibility for that.
And now the question becomes less about what you say and much more about who you want to be when you're saying it. For example, who do you want to be when your kid doesn't agree with you or doesn't meet your expectations? Understanding that I don't ultimately have control over my big kid's choices, where is it that I do have power here? The truth is, as our kids grow up, we're no longer able to set the parameters of their lives for them. Instead, we're navigating a relationship with young adults who are learning how to navigate their own lives.
And that very often looks messy. So our work is to learn how to hold the discomfort of watching them work through the challenges of their lives and to make intentional decisions about how and when we want to step in. Sometimes that means offering advice once calmly and letting it go.
Sometimes it means saying, I'm here if you want my advice or perspective, and then waiting. And sometimes it means choosing connection over control, even when that's really hard. And yes, there are still moments when we need to step in more firmly and draw a hard line.
But even then, how we show up matters. Because when we lead with intention instead of fear and urgency, we become a steady presence in our kids' lives, not a voice they feel like they need to push against. And that's the relationship most of us want in the long run, isn't it? So let me recap these five things to ask yourself before you give your big kid advice.
The first is, is this actually advice or is it an expectation I'm attached to? The second is, what am I hoping this will create for me? What is it that I'm attached to here? Third, if this is really an expectation, is there a boundary here I can actually hold? In other words, what am I prepared to do if nothing changes? Four, can I sit with what I'm feeling right now without needing my kid to change first? And finally, how do I want to show up here regardless of what my big kid chooses to do? My friend, there is no perfect formula here. But when you learn how to show up with intention instead of fear and urgency, you invite a new type of connection with your big kid, one where you're no longer the parent telling them what to do, but increasingly the trusted partner whose advice is worth considering, but who your kid also feels trusts them to figure out their own path. My friend, all of this is easier said than done.
The questions I've shared today are simple, but they're hard to find the answers when you're feeling anxious or frustrated about what's happening with your big kid. That's where coaching becomes so powerful. In my Mom 2.0 program, we don't talk about these ideas in theory.
We take real situations from your life, the power struggles you're stuck in, and the boundaries you're unsure how to hold, and we find the answers that are right for you together. You get support untangling what's actually happening inside of you so that you can respond with intention instead of reacting from fear. You'll also learn when you need to sit with your own discomfort and how to build the self-trust in your decisions that allows you to show up as the mom you want to be.
So if you're ready to stop second-guessing yourself and start feeling confident in how you approach advice, expectations, and boundaries, I'd love to support you. You can learn more about Mom 2.0 through the link in the show notes. My friend, our kids are going to make mistakes.
They're going to struggle, and they're going to take paths we wouldn't choose for them. And that doesn't mean we failed. So much of what we carry as moms at this stage of motherhood is the belief that if we could just get it right, then we could protect our kids from pain.
But the truth is, their growth doesn't happen because we found the perfect words or consequences. It happens because our kids are learning how to navigate their own lives in their own time. What our kids need most right now isn't more advice.
It's a mom who trusts herself enough to stay steady, even when the outcomes are messy or uncertain. This kind of presence builds a relationship with trust. And trust is what gives your words weight when your big kid is ready to hear them.
So if you find yourself biting your tongue sometimes, or choosing your words more carefully, or even deciding not to say the thing you could say, that's not you giving up. That's you growing into a new version of motherhood, one rooted in self-trust and love. And I promise you, your kid will feel that, even when they don't say it.
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.
