PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS: WHY YOUR BOUNDARIES AREN'T WORKING, AND WHAT ACTUALLY DOES | EP. 233
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 walked away from a conversation with your teen or adult kid and thought, I need to set a boundary here? You're tired of the disrespect, or you're so done with reminding them. You want to see progress, and you don't want to keep getting in the same power struggles. Here's what most moms don't realize.
The problem isn't that you don't have strong enough rules. It's that you're thinking about boundaries in the wrong way. In this episode, I'm going to show you why your boundaries might not be working, and what actually does.
If you're ready to stop the power struggles, and actually create more connection with your big kid, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
I had a conversation with another mom recently. Actually, it's the kind of conversation I have with clients a lot, and I think you can probably relate. So this mom reached out to me because she loves her big kid, but she's been really frustrated with him for a while.
She told me, I just need to set better boundaries. And actually, I've never been good at setting them. So I asked her to tell me what was going on.
She told me her son had moved back home from college. He's sleeping till noon and spends a lot of time locked up in his room. He says he's looking for a job, but whenever she asks, he just says, I'm working on it.
But as far as she can tell, he's spending a lot of time scrolling on his phone or gaming with his friends. She finds herself annoyed every time she sees him not doing something productive. But again, whenever she brings it up to him, he just blows her off.
Sometimes he even gets angry at her for asking. So she goes back and forth between saying nothing and just getting really annoyed at him for small things that are just icing on the cake. She told me, I don't like who I am right now.
I feel like I'm constantly nagging him, but I'm also really annoyed and resentful. I feel taken advantage of, and I don't like it. Your kid might be younger, but I'm guessing there have been times where you've felt the same.
Maybe your high school kid rolls their eyes at you or is pushing back, or your middle schooler is glued to their screen. Maybe your kid's blowing off school or really testing limits. Whatever the challenge, as moms, we tend to go to the same place.
I need to set better boundaries. Typically, when we say this, what we really mean is that we need to get our kid to change. We want them to be more responsible or more respectful, less glued to their phone.
That's really the problem that we're solving for. But at the same time, it's worth recognizing that the real reason this is such a challenge for us is because of how we feel when our kids aren't doing the things that we really think they should be doing. I mean, if I were to tell you a story of how my son was gaming 24-7 in middle school and how frustrated I was at him at the time, you'd most likely empathize with me, but you wouldn't feel frustrated.
And look, on the one hand, you could be thinking, of course I'm not frustrated about your kid because, well, he's not my kid. It's different when it's your own kid. And yes, that's absolutely true.
But it's not different just because it's my kid and not your kid. It's different because of the pressure and sense of responsibility we each put on ourselves when it's our own kid. Look, when it's your own kid, it doesn't just feel like he's gaming.
It feels like he's lazy. He's not being productive. He's going to be doing this for the rest of his life.
Or I'm a bad mom for letting him do this. Whatever you think as you observe your big kid not doing what you really think they should be doing, those thoughts create something inside of you. Anxiety, frustration, resentment, fear.
That's the part that's so uncomfortable. It's not just the behavior. It's how your interpretation of the behavior makes you feel.
And so when we say, I need to set better boundaries, we're not just responding to the behavior. We're responding to our own frustration and fear. Essentially, there's a big part of us that's motivated to get this to stop feeling so bad.
We don't want to have to feel frustrated or like we're walking on eggshells. We're sick of feeling like the bad guy when we're just trying to help our kids be successful in life. Most of us, without even realizing it, have tied a part of our identity as a mom to our kids' behavior.
Somewhere along the way, we internalize this message that being a good mom means having responsible, respectful, and successful children. Or that being a good mom means that you have a close relationship with your kid. And look, I want those things too.
I think it's natural for all of us to want those things. But when a big part of our sense of peace, and even accomplishment as moms, is connected to our kids' behavior and outcomes, our kids sleeping until noon isn't just them sleeping until noon. And an eye roll isn't just an eye roll.
It feels like it means something more. Really, that it's a signal that we're getting it wrong, that we're letting them get away with something, or that we're falling down on the job to get them moving in the right direction. These aren't small things.
In fact, the stakes feel really high. So look, it makes so much sense that we as moms put a lot of pressure on ourselves to guide and support our kids. And I want to give us credit here for a second, because thank goodness for our kids that this is true.
I mean, for all of the times that I've worried about my kids and pointed them in the right direction, saved them from making a big mistake, I want to say to them, you are welcome. I mean, we've been doing this with our kids for a really long time. And I'd love to think that along the way, that's been a real help to them.
But when you get to the point when your big kid starts pushing back against your guidance and direction, it's suddenly like all of the strategies we used to use to help our kids be okay stop working. We haven't stopped being dedicated to helping our kids be the best version of themselves. But suddenly they act like we're the problem.
It's honestly a challenge to everything that we've worked so hard to do to support our kids. Are we really supposed to let that go? Look, I don't think I've ever met a mom who's told me she wants to control her kids. But let's be honest, one of the really hard parts of this transitional phase of motherhood is that we lose control.
When our kids were little, we had it, or at least we had more of it. And that's in large part because our kids didn't question our authority back then. And ultimately, we did have so much more power to be able to call the shots.
Our kids didn't spend time outside of school with other kids we didn't like. And if we wanted something cleaned up, it was typically a toy or something we could threaten that would get them to comply. Now, shockingly, we can ask and threaten all we want, and our kids can still look at us like they don't care, that we're ridiculous or annoying for asking.
And even though we think the reasons we're asking them to do whatever we want them to do are reasonable or even important and obvious, there are times when no matter what we do to try to convince them, we can't change their mind. Honestly, it's no wonder that so many of us are at our wits' end with our kids and feeling like boundaries are the answer, because there has to be some way to get them to see, right? But let's be honest, when we're feeling this pressure, this anxiety and frustration driving our need to get our kid to change, we often unintentionally grab for control. We tighten the rules, or we lecture, or we nag, or we threaten consequences we're not even sure we'll enforce.
Or sometimes we turn passive aggressive. We're exhausted and sick of fighting, but we're not willing to let it go. So sometimes our pulling back can even feel a little retaliatory, almost like, I'm done reminding him, let him fail, maybe that'll teach him.
So we push, we pull back, or we feel caught in the middle, not wanting to push, but waiting for that opening, when you can have that conversation when they're in a good enough mood that maybe you'll get through to them. My friend, I'm guessing you know from personal experience that all of this is exhausting. Because in your mind, if you could just get your kid to change, to listen, to get their act together, then you'd finally be able to relax.
And again, it's not that you want to control them. You don't wake up thinking, how can I control my kid today? But what you want is relief. You want the tension in the house to go away.
You want to be able to let go of the second guessing. Honestly, you just want to feel like everything's going to be okay. But when your peace depends on your kid's behavior, control starts to feel like the only option.
And I want to invite you to see how much this is a trap. Because my friend, what you're really grabbing for isn't control. What you're really trying to accomplish is to calm your own fear and frustration.
So what does all of this mean when it comes to boundaries? Because even if all of this is true, we still want guardrails, right? We still want to guide our kids and point them in the right direction. You already know that the all or nothing approach isn't working. Intellectually, you know you can't force change.
But you also don't want to throw up your hands and say, forget it. Neither option feels acceptable. So you stay stuck in the middle, trying to find the perfect words or the perfect consequence that will finally get them to see.
You're trying so hard to get it right, but your focus is still on whether they comply. And when your kid's compliance determines whether or not you feel successful, then your sense of peace in the situation is dependent on something entirely out of your control. This is why I want to offer you a different way to think about boundaries.
Instead of thinking of a boundary as something you put on your kid, I want to invite you to think about it as a decision you make about how you will show up. It's deciding ahead of time how you're going to handle the situation. And this is very different than trying to make someone else behave.
When a boundary is about changing your big kid, it sounds something like, you need to do this, or you can't do this, you need to speak to me this way. All of this is about the other person. And you have absolutely no power to make that happen.
You're essentially making a demand that your big kid can honestly just ignore. And you know from experience that they often do. But when you think about a boundary as something that you do, it sounds more like, I'm not going to keep reminding you, or if you speak to me disrespectfully, I'm walking away.
It could also sound like, if you choose to do that, here's what I'm going to do. Do you hear the difference? The first set of examples is about demanding that the other person change. The second is about deciding what you will do.
Period. Now here's the uncomfortable part. Even the best boundaries do not guarantee that the other person is going to change.
But they do mean that you stop tying your piece to the other person's behavior. Because no matter what they do, you have decided ahead of time how you're going to respond. Setting boundaries is actually so much more than a parenting strategy.
It's so much more than rules and consequences. What boundaries actually are, are an opportunity for you to decide, I'm not going to let this behavior dictate my emotional life anymore. Okay, so I'm guessing you're listening to this and thinking, all of that sounds great, but how do I actually do this? What does that actually look like when my kid is gaming all night, or not cleaning their room, or when my kid is living back home after college and not getting a job? Here's the thing to remember.
When you're triggered by something your kid is doing, it feels like the behavior is the problem. But this is where I want to invite you to dig a little deeper. Because if you're really honest, it's not just the behavior.
It's what the behavior means to you. When your 20-year-old is back at home sleeping until noon, you don't just see someone sleeping. You see a kid who should be doing something more productive.
You might even be thinking, he's never going to get out of here and make it on his own. Or alternatively, when your teenage daughter rolls her eyes, you don't just see an eye roll. You're thinking, she doesn't respect me, or we're losing connection.
And look, these thoughts, these interpretations of what's happening, they happen automatically. And they feel so true. When they happen, you're not just dealing with the behavior.
You're grappling with your own fear and frustration about what that behavior means for them and for you. And you know what's even harder about all of this? Sometimes the boundary you think you want isn't actually the boundary you're ready to hold. Let me explain what I mean.
You might say you want to set a boundary like, if you're living in this house, you need to have a job. Or if you can't limit your scrolling, I'm taking away the phone. And those boundaries actually sound reasonable, right? But the complicated part is you don't just want compliance.
You also want connection. You want your kid to launch, and you want them to still talk to you. You want them to be responsible and hold them accountable to being the best version of themselves.
And you don't want to damage the relationship. And when those two desires feel like they're in conflict, that's when things get messy. Enforcing boundaries sometimes means that you need to sit in the discomfort of your big kid not being happy about it.
For example, one of my sons once came to me and asked to go on a fairly expensive trip with his group of friends. I spent some time thinking about it, and I decided for a number of reasons the answer was no. First of all, it was expensive and not something I was willing to pay for.
I also had concerns about the lack of chaperones. Needless to say, when I told my son no, he wasn't happy about it. But I had decided ahead of time that that was going to be okay, that he got to feel however he needed to feel about it.
This is an example of a boundary that feels fairly straightforward. It wasn't fun, but the decision clearly aligned with my values. The boundary I was setting was also not reactive.
I wasn't telling my son no out of anger, and I clearly articulated the reasons to my son. But if I'm honest, there have been other times where my approach to boundaries was not as straightforward. And maybe even more importantly, where my reasons for the boundary weren't as clean and calm.
For example, I mentioned before that my son was gaming all the time in middle school. In fact, every time I heard him gaming, I started thinking, does he not have homework? Does he care about anything else? Then I'd hear the language he was using with his friends. And all of that was frustrating enough.
But then my mind took it a few steps further. He's never going to focus on school. He's being lazy.
He'll never be successful. I could see my mind going down rabbit holes of worst-case scenarios. I went from irritation to anger.
And my son's reactions to my attempts to curb his gaming were only making me more angry. We were having daily fights about the gaming, and it felt terrible. Here's the thing.
Screen time is a reasonable thing to have limits around. But I wasn't approaching them in a way that was calm and steady. I was reacting from my anger and my fears about my son's success.
And I was doing this over and over again. And if I'm honest, I hadn't even really decided for myself what was a reasonable amount of gaming. So I was all over the place in terms of how I was communicating my expectations.
One day, I'd say, OK, just finish your homework first, and then you can game. And the next day, I'd say, no gaming during the week. And then I'd hear him using foul language, and then I'd say, that's it.
You're done gaming for the week. My limits and consequences were all over the place. And I'm sure that my son learned that he could wind his way into more time because it was clear that I was going to back down.
I had never taken the step of asking myself, what is reasonable here? And why is this so important to me? What do I really want to accomplish? And what consequences am I reasonably willing and able to follow through with? I didn't do any of that. I was just reacting to how I felt in the moment. And our kids don't know how to respond to these types of boundaries.
In fact, the way they experience it is actually more like just one of mom's moods. One day you're calm about it, the next day you're furious. So instead of learning, oh, OK, this is the expectation, and this is the consequence of not meeting it, our kids are learning, I need to read my mom.
I need to try to figure out how to get what I want. And look, if you tell them they can't get their way, it kind of makes sense that they might be annoyed. But just think about how more likely it is that they'll react and get defensive or push back if we're showing up from a place of anger.
And my friend, I say this with so much love, because I have done it myself. But sometimes when we're showing up, our boundaries look like us trying to calm our own anxiety and frustration by controlling their behavior. In the case of my son's gaming, I wasn't setting limits from a place of thinking, I know you love gaming and I know you have fun with it, but 12 hours a day is excessive, so let's agree on X number of hours a day, and then I'm turning off the internet.
End of story. I love you. I get it that you're angry.
I wasn't doing any of that. Instead, what I was really doing was reacting to the voice in my head saying, if you don't fix this, he'll never be motivated, he'll never focus on schoolwork, and that means I'll have failed him. Notice how different the energy is here.
When you're parenting from fear and anger, everything feels urgent. But when you're parenting from a clear sense of your values and why they're important, you feel calm and steady. The hardest part of setting boundaries is actually doing the internal work so that when you communicate them, you're not trying to use it to manage your own fear and frustration.
When you don't do this, two things tend to happen. You either start enforcing a whole lot of expectations that don't actually matter that much, or you keep pushing on things you don't really have control over. Both of these come from not being clear about what truly matters to you.
This is the critical part that most of us skip. We spend so much time trying to figure out what to say or what consequence to enforce, but we don't slow down enough to look at what's really driving us. If boundaries were simply about rules and consequences, you'd be able to google it or ask ChatGBT.
But the honest truth is that boundaries at this stage of motherhood are actually about you and how you show up. It's learning how to separate who you are from what your child is actually doing. This is deep work.
It's actually work that requires you to get honest about the beliefs and the thought patterns that you've been operating from for years. The responsibility you feel to help your child be safe, happy, and successful. The pressure to get it right.
The belief that if your child struggles, you've failed. These are just a few of the examples of the mindset we bring to this role, and it shows up for each of us differently. So it truly requires you to get honest with yourself.
At the end of the day, this isn't just about the gaming, or the job after college, or the tone your kid uses. It's actually about the kind of relationship you want to have with your big kid. Really think about this.
Do you want a relationship that's built on fear and compliance, or one built on respect and honesty, even when it's uncomfortable? And my friend, this is also about the relationship you want to have with yourself. Because so often as moms, we tie our sense of worth to how well our child is doing. And when they struggle, we question ourselves, or we let too many things go because we're afraid of conflict.
The alternative is to understand that boundaries start with you. They start with you getting honest about what truly matters and why. This is the first step toward you showing up as the mom you actually want to be.
And this is the work we do inside of my coaching program, Mom 2.0. It's about being the mom you want to be, even when your big kid isn't being the kid you wish they were. And my friend, this changes everything. And not because your kid magically transforms overnight, but because you stop living on an emotional roller coaster.
You stop reacting from fear and tying your peace to their compliance. Instead, you create peace and confidence within yourself. And when you do this, when you show up differently, that's when your relationship with your big kid changes.
Not because you forced it, but because the energy between you is different. My friend, this work changes how you parent. It changes how you handle stress, and how you show up to these hard conversations.
And maybe most importantly, it changes how you show up for yourself. The truth is, your kid is not always going to agree with you, and they may not always like your boundaries, but they'll respond to your confidence and steadiness. And so that is the invitation.
Not to find the perfect words or the perfect consequence, but to choose who you want to be. And my friend, that is where your power is. 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.
