MINDSET TRAPS OF PARENTING TEENS AND THE EMPTY NEST—TRAP #6: PERSONALIZATION—HOW TO STOP MAKING YOUR BIG KID’S EXPERIENCE ABOUT YOU | EP. 227
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 felt that knot in your stomach when your big kid seems off? You immediately start wondering, what did I do wrong? This reaction doesn't come from insecurity.
It comes from love. Especially in this stage of motherhood, when your role feels less clear and so much feels uncertain. It's easy to make your child's experience mean something about you.
Today, I'm continuing the mindset traps of parenting teens in the Empty Nest series with a focus on personalization. Once you understand why your brain keeps pulling you into taking responsibility for things that aren't yours to carry and how much that's costing you, you'll start to see a different way to stay connected to your kid without carrying so much guilt, anxiety, or emotional weight. This episode will change how you think about taking things personally so that you can let go of emotional responsibility and find real peace in this stage of motherhood.
Let's dive in. Hello, my friend. Tell me if you can relate to this.
Your big kid walks in the door and you can tell before they even speak. They don't look at you. They don't say hi.
You try to ask how their day is and they just seem annoyed. They head straight for the stairs and you hear the bedroom door close. And your mind immediately goes to asking, are they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Why do they seem like they can't stand to be around me lately? You feel it in those moments when you text your kid and they don't respond.
But you see that they've just posted on Instagram. Or there's that little green circle on their profile picture that suggests they're online. You know they've seen your text, but they're just choosing not to text you back.
Is it me? We all know what this feels like, those moments when you take your big kid's behavior personally. And look, I think we're often pretty self-aware when this happens, right? Because we feel it. Your kid gives you that eye roll or just doesn't seem interested in connecting with you or listening to anything you have to say.
And it doesn't feel great. In those moments, we might tell ourselves that our kids shouldn't be acting the way that they're acting. But we also judge ourselves for our own emotional reaction to those behaviors.
We can often try to rationalize, well, they don't mean it. They're just kids. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
And so we tell ourselves that we shouldn't take things personally. But the truth is, even beyond those moments, there are so many other ways we personalize that we're not always as self-aware about. And even more importantly, we often don't realize it's something we actually have a choice about.
For example, we personalize when we blame ourselves for our kids' behavior or the choices they're making. We take on guilt as if there was something we could have done differently to have avoided this behavior, that we should have raised them differently or done a better job giving them the skills that they don't seem to have. We can also feel guilty about the relationship we have with our kids that we wish were different.
Again, blaming ourselves for pushing them away or creating a situation where they feel like they need to pull away. Essentially, personalization is when we make our kids' experience mean something about us. We make it a judgment about our parenting, whether or not we've done it right.
We make it mean something about whether we're supportive enough or loving enough. We essentially make it mean something about our failure or success as a mom. And underneath all of this, we feel this responsibility to get it right.
Now, when I say personalization is about how we make our kids' experience about us, it can sound kind of self-centered. And that's actually not at all what I mean. What I mean is more that we place so much responsibility on ourselves to make it all look a certain way.
And we all have in our minds what it looks like based on our values and our hopes and our expectations of what we want for our kids and what we want for our relationship with them. So the truth is, this is deeply personal for us. I mean, let's be honest.
It's not as if all of a sudden you woke up one day and said, I'm going to make my kids' life about me. The truth is, for decades, you've organized so much of your life around your kid. Your child has been your responsibility.
Not every mother pours their life into raising their kids the way you have. But you took on that responsibility. And raising kids is a lot of work.
And there are a lot of things they need from us. There's a lot of effort required just to meet their basic needs as they're growing up. And I say this all the time, but I think it's really worth repeating.
Anytime you do anything over and over again, it becomes a habit. Think about how much we've internalized being responsible for our kids for decades. We started practicing this way back when we heard our kids cry in the middle of the night, and we felt responsible to wake up and check to see what was wrong.
When they needed new shoes, we felt responsible to make sure they got the next size up. When they were hungry, we of course felt responsible for feeding them. We felt responsible for every aspect of their life, teaching them basic life skills, teaching them how to do homework, how to be a nice friend.
There have been so many skill sets and so many ways we've been responsible for their well-being and their success. And look, there's a biological system within us that reinforces these maternal instincts to be responsible. When you bond with your child, your brain releases oxytocin.
When you meet their needs, you get ahead of dopamine. Over decades, our nervous systems have literally been trained to take responsibility and respond to our kids' needs. I will never forget my son's first smile, because to me, that was a turning point in my view of myself as a mom.
Up to that point, it had been eight weeks where my son had been crying endlessly. I was exhausted and not sleeping and just feeling so overwhelmed. And here's this beautiful little baby who was giving me absolutely no positive feedback until that moment when that little guy gave me his first gummy smile.
And it was like, yeah, I'll do anything for you. I already felt responsible for him, but suddenly now it was like my love for my son and the positive feedback I was getting from him, it cemented it. And we've been living in and having our efforts reinforced by this feedback loop for decades.
I also want to acknowledge that it has been about us. It's been about our effort and our contribution and our constant desire to love and support our kids and help them be the best version of themselves. And for so long, that has been our role.
That's why I want to be clear when I talk about this, because I think we can tend to look at ourselves and think, why am I making this about me? Why am I taking this personally? And I think it's worth reflecting on the reality that up to a certain point in parenting, making it about us was actually really beneficial, both for us and for our kids. I mean, thank goodness we took on that responsibility. Look, there are many kids in the world who have been abandoned by their parents, and that has not been our kids' experience.
So up to a certain point, us making their experience about us, it really did benefit them. The problem comes when at some moment in time, our kids start needing their life to be about them. They start needing it to be driven by them.
And that's when we start to notice something isn't working anymore. There's some shift in our relationship that doesn't feel as fulfilling and rewarding anymore, because our kids want their life to be about them. And meanwhile, we're still running from the same default presumption that it's about us, that it's our responsibility.
So let's look at all the different ways personalization shows up. First, we can take our kids' emotions personally. I have a client who loves her girls and would go to the ends of the earth for them.
But when either of them struggles, they come to her and they tell her everything that's going on. And it's almost like a fire lights up in her brain. It sends her into a panic mode, because it's like they're reaching out, they're struggling, they need help.
And this mom, like many of us, is a fixer. She's willing to do whatever it takes to support her kids. So she rolls up her sleeves and she just does it.
The problem is, her kids are both now in their 20s. And they're, of course, facing the challenges of growing up and being on their own. And look, I want to say that it is so natural and normal for us to feel uncomfortable as we see our kids struggle.
I would never actually want to be ambivalent if someone I love was going through something. But the challenge is when we make their struggle, when we make their anxiety and their disappointment and even their feelings of failure, when we make it mean that we have to fix it, that we have to solve for it. The problem is, there are very few things in our teen or young adult kids' lives that we can actually fix.
I mean, if it were easy to fix, either they would have figured it out or we would flip a switch and figure it out for them. More often than not, the real challenges our kids go through are beyond our power to fix. And when we can't let go of that responsibility, particularly once we realize there's nothing left for us to do, it actually becomes a bigger problem for us if we can't figure out how to be okay until our big kid is okay.
Another way we personalize is that we make our kids' outcomes our responsibility. I have another client whose daughters are in college and just not applying themselves to the degree she wants them to. And this client has tried everything to motivate her kids and get them to understand the opportunities they might miss if they don't start taking things seriously.
The problem is, other than nagging and reminding, we often feel like we have very few levers we can pull to get our kids to change. In fact, I have a number of clients in this situation, whether their kids are still in high school, in college, or even back home after college, not quite sure what comes next. We can feel so much stress and anxiety around motivating our kids to self-actualize.
But what's interesting is that the reason it's so hard for us is in large part because we're making it about us. We're still taking responsibility for their motivation and their effort, even for the outcomes we want for them. Another way we personalize is that we make who our kids are becoming a reflection of us.
We make it about us in the sense that we take on the blame. I've had clients say to me, if they're acting this way, it must be that I've done something wrong, that I've failed. And yes, of course we judge our kids' behavior.
At times we don't like certain aspects of how they're showing up. But we blame ourselves too. We think there's something we should have done differently.
And look, every single one of us, including me, can look back and think of countless examples of times when we didn't show up the way we wanted to. Times when we look back at what we said or did and think, yeah, that wasn't exactly how I wanted that to go. And because we can find those times, those moments we regret, we can't help but make those moments feel like the reason we are where we are now.
Like the reason my kid doesn't want to spend time with me is because I was too needy or too emotional. Or if I'd just been more calm or set better boundaries, we wouldn't be here. This type of responsibility sounds like self-awareness.
It sounds like accountability. But the problem is, it's often more self-judgment than self-leadership. And really, leading isn't beating yourself up for the past.
It's knowing what's actually yours to take responsibility for in the present. I met with a mom the other day who was telling me about her challenges with her daughter. One of her chief concerns was that she doesn't feel like her daughter, who's a senior in high school, is prepared for college.
I asked her what specifically she was concerned about, and she told me she felt like her daughter was letting people walk all over her, and she wasn't standing up for herself. And she was very clear with me about how it was on her, the mom, that she had to figure out how to get her daughter to understand how to stick up for herself, and that it was her fault that she hadn't yet instilled that quality. Just notice how much responsibility is there.
But in fact, it's also self-judgment wearing the mask of love and responsibility. Instead, notice the difference if you were to simply say to yourself, I care so much about my big kid learning this skill, but the fact that they don't know it yet isn't my fault or my failure. So let's talk about the cost of personalization.
The first cost of this mindset trap is that you're carrying responsibility that isn't yours to carry. When our kids were little and they were in pain or struggling, responsibility made sense because you could fix it. They weren't capable of figuring things out on their own yet.
But as our kids grow up, that line becomes much less clear. And there's also no simple formula for knowing when to hold on and when to let go. When should you give them a phone? When do you stop limiting screen time? What's the right curfew? How closely should you be monitoring their grades? There aren't any fixed answers to these questions.
Part of it has to do with readiness. But who gets to define readiness? We have a view as parents. Our kids have their own view.
And this is one of the reasons boundaries feel so hard, because we think that there's a right answer. So when I talk about letting go of responsibility, I don't mean letting go of caring. And I also don't mean letting them do whatever they want, or even letting go of your guidance and support.
What I do mean is letting go of the responsibility that is no longer in your power to carry. Specifically, your kids' emotional experience, their moment-to-moment choices, their outcomes, their motivation, even the way they think about themselves and the world. None of that is in your control.
And when you make yourself responsible for fixing or directing it, the cost is this constant weight of emotional responsibility. And it's heavy. You're worrying all the time.
You're feeling guilty, intense, walking on eggshells. So the first cost is, this feels terrible. The second cost is your kid feels pressure.
They feel pressure to be a certain way, to feel a certain way, or to figure things out faster, because they sense that their experience affects how you feel. But your emotional experience also isn't their responsibility either. Often the reason our kids pull away isn't because they don't love us.
It's because we're still holding on in ways they can't untangle themselves from unless they create distance. And they don't yet have the emotional maturity to say to us, Mom, I love you, but I need to do this on my own. And the reality is, they may not reach that maturity for a long time, but they're going to need us to let go before that happens.
So when you take on emotional responsibility that isn't yours, you feel worse. Your kid feels pressure. And sometimes the only way they know how to respond is to pull away.
And meanwhile, your ability to feel okay becomes dependent on them changing, on them feeling better, or figuring it out, or making progress. So then you're waiting to relax. What's interesting about this mindset trap is that we often assume that it comes from insecurity.
Like we're just too sensitive or not confident enough. But that's actually not what's driving it. It actually comes from this dynamic in our brain that says, if I caused this, if I take responsibility for this, then I can fix it.
So when you think about it that way, it connects right back to the motivational triad, our human instinct to avoid pain, seek comfort, and conserve energy. And what's easier than feeling like we have control? If it's our responsibility, if we caused it, then we can fix it. And believing this reduces our pain, at least temporarily, because the hope that we can fix it brings relief.
And relief promises comfort. And believe it or not, blaming yourself, as painful as it sounds, actually feels simpler than sitting with uncertainty or letting go of control, especially when it comes to your kid's emotions, their choices, and their outcomes. So when you look at it through that lens, personalization makes perfect sense.
It's our attempt to find comfort and control and certainty in the face of a transitional moment that feels anything but certain or comfortable. And this is why letting go can feel impossible. Because it almost feels like we have to let go of the relationship we want with our kids or let go of how much we care.
But the real work here is learning how to stay present with your kid's discomfort without making it about you. It's letting them have their emotions and their challenges and even their mistakes while you decide who you want to be in response. And it's learning how to stay connected without blaming yourself when things don't look the way that you hope.
Because the truth is your kid's emotional experience, their choices, whether you agree with them or not, the way they pursue opportunities in their life, all of that belongs to them. You can't make them happy when they're not. You can't take tests for them.
You can't go on job interviews for them. You can ask. You can guide and offer your support.
But what they ultimately choose to do comes down to them taking responsibility for their life. And you can't carry that for them anymore, no matter how important it feels. Now, I don't want to lose sight of this.
You can set boundaries. But boundaries aren't actually about your kid. They're about you.
They're about how you choose to show up. And they don't guarantee that your kid will change or stop struggling. But they do change your experience of it.
Because boundaries allow you to decide with intention who do I want to be in this moment. And one very clear boundary I want to invite you to consider is this. Stop making your big kid's experience your responsibility.
You can love them. You can be there for them. If they need you, by all means, do whatever you can to support them.
But there comes a point where there's nothing left for you to do. And your power is in putting that responsibility down and learning how to sit with the discomfort of watching them figure it out on their own. Because what I've seen time and time again is that when we are able to do this, when we let our kid have the independence and the agency to be who they need to be, to feel what they need to feel, and even to pull away in the ways they need to pull away, while still holding clear boundaries about how we respond, something powerful happens.
We build trust. Because our kids begin to sense that we no longer need them to be a certain way for us to be okay. And that's what allows them to feel safe coming back to us for support, for guidance, and for connection when they're ready.
Learning how to create this, to show up as the mom you want to be consistently, especially when emotions are running high, is a skill, is a skill set. And my friend, this is exactly the work we do inside my coaching program, Mom 2.0. Because knowing what you're doing, personalizing, taking on responsibility, carrying this heavy emotional weight, it's such an important first step. But most of us struggle with the next step, which is, how do I actually put that responsibility down? Especially when my kid is struggling and I feel this urgent need to do something.
In Mom 2.0, I teach you a simple process to notice when your brain is making your kid's life mean something about you, and to separate your love from your emotional responsibility. My friend, the fact that we make our kid's life about us makes so much sense. We've been doing this for a really long time.
And you know what, dear child? You're welcome. Our kids are so lucky that we've built our lives around them. But now this chapter of motherhood requires a new set of tools, and it's inviting you to develop a different kind of strength.
Not the strength of carrying more responsibility, but actually the strength to put it down. So the next time your brain offers you that familiar thought, what did I do wrong? Is this my fault? I want you to pause and remember, you don't have to stop caring. You just have to let your kid's experience belong to them.
And remember that your strength and ability to care for and trust yourself belongs to you. You have more power than you think, my friend. Until next time.
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.
