LETTING GO OF HOW YOUR BIG KID REACHES THEIR POTENTIAL—WHY THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT THEIR FUTURE MIGHT BE HOLDING BOTH OF YOU BACK | EP. 239
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 looked at your teen or adult child and wondered, are they going to be okay? When our kids struggle, it's easy to believe that their choices today will define their entire future. In this episode, I'm going to help you understand why that fear shows up, how our expectations about our kid's potential create stress and anxiety, and how to support your big kid without feeling like you have to control their path.
If you want to feel more calm, confident, and connected as your big kid figures out their life, keep listening. Hello, my friend. The other day I was talking to a mom who reached out to me in a panic because her son had just been expelled from high school.
Not suspended, but expelled. And she was absolutely beside herself. She kept saying, what's this going to mean for his future? You could hear it in her voice, how scared she was.
Because the story her mind was telling her was, if he gets expelled, he won't get into college. And if he doesn't get into college, his whole life is going to be harder. And the part she didn't say, but I imagine was also going through her mind, was that if she didn't do something to fix this, she'll have failed him.
As painful as it is, imagine being in that moment. Your child, the person you've spent years loving and guiding and worrying about, suddenly does something that feels like it could derail their entire future. Maybe you've been in one of those moments already.
And it makes so much sense that our minds would go into panic. And not only that, but that we'd already be projecting out into the future, imagining every possible way this moment could define the rest of their life. This mom was so sure that the worst case scenario was not only possible, but inevitable.
But the question I kept coming back to as we talked is, how can you actually know how it's all going to turn out? How can we actually ever know what the impact of this moment will be on our child's potential? Maybe the challenges you faced with your child haven't looked exactly like this. But I'm guessing that there have been times that your big kid has run up against some challenge or made a questionable choice. And you've wondered, are they going to be okay? Are they ever going to figure this out? Maybe your kid is unmotivated in school, or your college kid is lost and can't seem to choose a major.
They don't want to go to class. Maybe your adult child is living back at home, not working toward independence in a way that you imagine that they would. You see these things and you can't help but worry.
What if they never reach their potential? And sometimes, it's not just worry we feel, but constant anxiety, even panic. We don't want our kids to fail or not make their way in the world. It goes against everything we've been striving for as their parent.
I think there's something about being a parent that rewires your brain. Because the moment your child enters the world, it's like new neural pathways form in your brain, driving this deep responsibility you feel to protect them, to guide them, and help them grow into capable, independent human beings. For years, decades really, you watch out for danger.
You teach them how the world works. You help them learn how to do everything from walking and tying their shoes to how to be responsible for homework. You teach them to say thank you and how to be a good friend.
We want to protect our kids, but we also want to help support and guide their potential. We want them to be happy, to have friends and meaningful relationships. We want them to find something they care about and build lives that feel purposeful and fulfilling.
I have conversations with mom every single day who carry this responsibility like it was never even a question that it belonged to them. And believe me, I get it. But it's so interesting to consider how this happens.
Obviously, when our kids were babies and toddlers, we have to do everything for them. They're not capable of taking care of their own basic needs, no less figuring out their potential. But we see that potential in them before they do.
We want them to learn how to walk, and to read, and to learn how to share and be polite. With every passing year, they conquer new skills, and we take it on ourselves to ensure they're tackling the next set of goals. We start worrying about grades, and then trying to figure out how to get them to take school seriously.
We want them to learn how to take tests and study. We try to teach them how to navigate friendships. We want to guide the choices they make so that they make smart ones.
And we don't want them to get into trouble or run with the wrong crowd. We don't want them to get hurt or to put themselves in unsafe situations. And it's interesting that we often go into parenting our tweens and teens with the unquestioned assumption that we need to set expectations and put up guardrails.
Because for years, that's how we've parented. When our kids are little, our involvement really does shape their outcomes. If we don't teach them how to brush their teeth, they don't learn.
If we don't make them go to school, they don't go. If we don't set limits, they don't yet have the maturity to set them for themselves. So over time, we start to believe that our job isn't just to love our kids and guide them, but that our job is to make sure that things turn out well for them.
And again, for a really long time, we did seem to have that power. When our kids are little, our reminders and expectations and rules, they actually do help shape our kids' behavior. We really did feel like we had control.
Until we don't. Until our rules and reminders stop working. And for every kid, this looks a little different.
But at some point as our kids grow up, their choices start to carry more weight than our expectations or preferences. They begin to have experiences and influences that are separate from us. They have friends and teachers and social media that are exposed to opportunities that we can't control.
And they make mistakes that we are powerless to prevent or help them avoid. But even though we're losing control, if we ever had it, our brains don't take us off the hook for feeling responsible. So even as our kids become more independent, we're still holding this belief that their success or failure is our responsibility.
And this is where things start to get tricky. Because while our instinct to guide and protect them hasn't changed, our kids are becoming more and more responsible for their own lives. They make their own decisions and choices.
They approach their lives in ways that often look very different than what we might want for them. Sometimes they apply themselves less than we think they should. Or take risks we wouldn't have them take.
And sometimes they make choices that feel like they could completely derail their future. And that's when our mind starts projecting out into the future. That if they keep going like this, they're going to mess everything up.
That they're going to mess up their future. But not only that, but I need to do something to fix it. But here's what I want to invite you to notice.
What's driving our fear is a very specific picture of what success is supposed to look like. We have ideas about how our kids should handle school and how motivated they should be. We have ideas about what their path should look like, when they should figure things out, and how responsible they should be, what kinds of choices they should be making.
We're not just invested in our kids reaching their potential. We're invested in a very particular version of how that potential should look. And I'm not talking about wanting our kids to be lawyers or doctors.
It's more about how we think they should be showing up in their lives right now. That they should be trying their best. That they should care about that future, whatever it is.
And that they should be making choices that move their life in that positive direction. And when we don't see that happening, it becomes very stressful for us. One way to think about this is through a framework developed by a psychologist named Abraham Maslow.
Maslow was trying to describe what motivates us. Not just what helps us survive, but what actually helps us grow and thrive in life. So he described human needs as a kind of a pyramid.
On the bottom are our basic needs. Things like food, water, sleep, and shelter. Once those needs are met, the next layer is safety.
Feeling protected. Feeling like the world around us is stable and predictable. Then the next layer of the pyramid is the need for belonging and connection.
We want friends and relationships. We want to feel like we matter to other people. Above that is the need for confidence and accomplishment.
We want to feel capable and respected. We want to feel like we're doing something meaningful with our lives. And then at the very top of this pyramid is something Maslow called self-actualization.
Which is another way of saying reaching your potential. Here's the interesting thing when you think about this as a parent. We want to help our kids achieve every layer of this pyramid.
We want them to be safe, to have friends. We want them to feel confident in who they are. We want them to succeed in school and work.
And ultimately, we want them to grow into the most actualized version of themselves. We're not just hoping our kids will be okay. We're hoping they'll be everything they can possibly be.
And honestly, I think that's a beautiful thing about being a parent. We are the one person in our kid's life who probably wants their success just as much as they do. Maybe even more sometimes.
But the problem is, our hopes and dreams for our kids also mean we're often comparing the reality of where they are right now, or where we perceive they are, against our view of what we think they should be doing instead. Meanwhile, our kids also want to achieve every step of that pyramid as well. They also want to belong and feel confident.
They want to figure out who they are and what matters to them. But the way they go about it often looks very different from what we want for them. Sometimes they prioritize friendships over school.
Or they make choices that are fun and exciting, rather than what might be productive or responsible. Very often, they take longer than we think they should to figure things out. And this becomes even more frustrating when we feel like we tell them how to move forward, and they don't listen.
Other times, they make mistakes. And at times, those mistakes are big enough that we feel sure that they won't ever recover. When you're in those moments, it can feel almost impossible not to step in.
In fact, just the other day, I was talking with a client about this. She said to me, I don't want to be a passive parent. She said she's seen other parents step back and let their kids make terrible decisions.
And to her, that feels like giving up. You're just standing by while your child heads down a path that could really hurt them. And I think a lot of us have that same fear.
Because when we talk about letting go, or allowing our kids to face the consequences of their choices, it can sound a lot like we're being asked to stop parenting. Like we're supposed to just shrug our shoulders and say, well, it's their life. I don't know many moms who would choose this.
The thing is, the reason we feel so compelled to help our kids reach their potential isn't because we want control over their life or choices. It's really more because we're afraid of what will happen if we don't step in. We're afraid that their bad habits are going to hold them back if they don't fix them.
We don't want them to miss opportunities or regret their choices later. We don't want them to get hurt or fall behind in a way that they won't be able to recover from. And when their behavior, or even more, the consequences they're already facing, start to make those worst-case scenarios in our minds seem inevitable, it feels impossible to just stand back and watch.
But here's something interesting to notice. When our minds start projecting into the future like this, we treat those imagined outcomes as if they're facts. We believe that if our child fails this class, their future will be limited.
Or if they make this mistake, their life will somehow be defined by it. But when you really step back and think about it, how often is that actually true? Just think about your own life for a minute. I'm willing to bet that the path of your life was not a straight line.
I'm sure there were times when you weren't sure what you wanted or what you were doing. I'm guessing there were also times where you made decisions that turned out to be the wrong one. Or times when things didn't go the way that you hoped.
There were times when you made mistakes and struggled. And yet somehow, you found your way. Not because everything went perfectly, but because you learned through the messy process of figuring out your life.
But when it comes to our kids, it's much harder to watch that same messy process unfold. And this is why navigating decisions around where to step in and when to step back are so complicated. When our children are little, the answer is usually clear.
If they run toward the street, you grab their hand. If they don't want to go to school or do their homework, there's typically something you can do to make them. But as they get older, you realize there's no more making them do anything.
And even more than that, the line between helping and getting in the way of their learning process is tricky to see. When do you step in and when do you let them figure it out? When do you push and when do you let go? When do you share your opinion or give your advice? And when do you keep quiet? With our big kids, there isn't always a simple answer to these questions. One thing I find really interesting when I talk to moms about their worries for their kids is that most of the time they aren't actually attached to one specific version of what their child's future should look like.
Of course, sometimes we have ideas based on what our kids have told us they want. Maybe they've talked about a certain career or a certain path, and we begin to imagine that for them too. But more often than not, we're actually open to a lot of possibilities for what their future could look like.
What we're much less flexible about is what the path is supposed to look like right now. We have a picture in our minds of how progress should look, that they should be trying harder, moving forward in a steady, responsible way. And when that isn't happening, we almost take it as a given that we should feel anxious about that.
One of the questions I often ask my clients in those moments is, what does your child's struggle actually have to do with you? And on the one hand, it can sound like a strange question because, of course, we're their moms. Of course, we care and we want the best for our kids. But when you really think about it, especially as our kids grow up, the truth is that their lives are their own.
Their potential belongs to them. And what they choose to do with their abilities and how they pursue their goals, how they learn from their mistakes, that's ultimately about them. And yet, if we're honest with ourselves, it can feel like it's about us too.
I've had some very honest and brave clients admit that they sometimes feel embarrassed talking with friends or family when their child is struggling. They hear about another kid's internship, or their acceptance into a certain college, or how well they're doing in school or at work, and they feel a little pang of jealousy or regret. And look, we love our kids no matter what.
But if we're honest with ourselves, we also compare how our kids are doing relative to other kids their age. And those comparisons can feel uncomfortable. Not even necessarily because we care what other people think, but because we're already thinking it ourselves, that my child isn't living up to their potential.
And that somehow reflects on me. It's also not how we pictured we would feel as our kid's mom, that somehow we're also not living up to our potential in this role. The problem with all of this is that reaching your potential is a messy process for our kids and for us as moms.
When we talk about letting go, it can sometimes sound like what we're supposed to do is stop guiding our kids, or stop saying anything when they seem to be flailing. And I'll be honest, I have never been that kind of parent. But what I've learned is that it's not my kid's job to live their life according to my expectations.
And no matter how many boundaries I set, I don't actually control the choices that they make. I can't control how hard they try, or how quickly they figure things out. So part of our work as parents is learning how to sit with the discomfort of reality not matching our expectations.
And from that place, making thoughtful decisions about how we want to show up. Sometimes that means saying something our kids might not want to hear. Sometimes it means offering advice even if they don't take it.
Sometimes it means stepping in and offering help even if they don't want it. But even more, I think it also means listening. So often we're so focused on our own ideas of what we want for our kids' paths, we don't hear how they're navigating it on their own terms.
We feel like they need to hear us, but we also have to be willing to hear them. As hard as it is to watch your child struggle, before stepping in or rushing to set a boundary to push them in a better direction, it's worth asking yourself, is this something that my child has asked me to help them with? Is this thing I think is so important actually important to them? Or is my urge to step in really about relieving my own anxiety? Recently, I saw a clip of Harrison Ford accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award. And in his speech, he said that in his third year of college, he was failing out of school.
He felt completely lost, and he had no idea what he was doing with his life. But somewhere along the way, he stumbled into a community of actors, and he found his people. Now, of course, that discovery eventually led to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and all of these iconic movies, movies that our kids will probably show their kids someday.
And as I heard him talk about his story, I couldn't help but think that I bet his mom was really worried about him in high school and college. I imagine there were moments when she wondered what was going to happen to him, whether he was ever going to figure things out. And there is no way that she could ever have imagined where his life was actually heading.
Now, I'm not saying that our kids are destined to receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. And actually, what we're thinking about what we want for our kids' future, most of us aren't imagining something that dramatic. Most of us just want our kids to be living into the fullest versions of themselves.
We want them to build a life that feels meaningful to them. But here's what I want to invite you to consider. If that extraordinary best case scenario feels impossible to imagine coming true, maybe the same is true for that terrible, very bad worst case scenario your mind keeps playing over and over again.
Maybe that future isn't inevitable either. What we're really living in is the messy middle, the part of life where our kids are still figuring things out, making mistakes, still discovering who they are. And maybe if we can open ourselves to the possibility that their story could unfold in ways we can't yet imagine, then it might be worth tolerating a little uncertainty now.
Because the truth is, their life is still unfolding. And letting go of how they reach their potential doesn't mean we stop believing in it. It just means we give them the space to discover it in their own way.
And maybe the most important part of this whole process is giving yourself permission to have your own back as a parent. Because it's very easy to believe that if you don't step in and guide your kid, that you'll regret it. But at the same time, you can also fear that if you step in in the wrong way, that you might push them away.
Parenting big kids is messy work too. Some days we're going to feel like we got it right, and other times we're going to feel like we got it wrong. And maybe part of our own growth as parents is learning to give ourselves the same grace we hope our kids will give themselves as they figure out their lives.
One of the things we do a lot of work on inside My Mom 2.0 coaching program is that moment when your brain starts spinning out about what your child's choices mean for their future. In my program, I give you the tools to slow those moments down. We separate out what's actually happening from the story your mind is telling you about it.
And from that place of clarity, it becomes so much easier to decide how you want to show up as a parent. Sometimes that means setting boundaries. Sometimes it means offering advice.
And sometimes it means stepping back and allowing your child to learn something on their own. But what changes more than anything is that you're no longer parenting from anxiety and fear about the future, but instead you're parenting from a place of intention and trust. Before I close, let me go back to the mom who reached out because her son had just been expelled from high school.
When we first started talking, her mind was completely consumed with what this moment would mean for his future. And believe me, I know how that feels. But also, just consider that none of us can know what the future will bring.
What we do know is that life rarely unfolds in a straight line. Sometimes the very experiences we're most afraid of become the ones that actually shape them into who they're meant to be. The only thing we can really do as parents is continue showing up with love and support, loving them, guiding them, and trusting that their story is still unfolding.
Letting go of how your big kid reaches their potential doesn't mean you stop believing in it. Sometimes it simply means trusting that their path, however messy it may look right now, is still taking them somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, it's somewhere better than either of you could ever imagine.
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.
