“I LOVE MY KID, BUT SOMETIMES, I DON'T LIKE THEM VERY MUCH”—THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK | EP. 244
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins.
Have you ever had a thought as a mom and then immediately felt terrible for thinking it? Believe me, you're not alone, and you're truly not a bad mom for thinking it. In this series on the thoughts us moms are ashamed we think, I'm exploring these thoughts and where they're coming from. Because when you shift from judgment to understanding, that's when everything changes. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
I was talking to one of my clients the other day, and she told me about how earlier that same day, she had had a really tough interaction with her daughter, and she was really angry about it. She told me, I feel terrible for saying this, but I don't even like my kid right now. But then almost immediately, she said, I mean, of course I love her, but she's just really hard to be around a lot of the time.
Then she said to me, you must think I'm a terrible mom. And I assured her, I do not. In fact, not only do I not think she's a terrible mom, I know exactly how she feels.
And I've talked to so many moms who felt the same way about their kid at times. You love them. You would do anything for them.
But there are those times where you'd rather be anywhere else but with them. Maybe you've had a moment like that too, where you walk away from an interaction with your teen or adult kid and you feel frustrated or drained, maybe even a little resentful. And that thought pops into your head, that I don't like this person very much.
But then you immediately start to judge yourself, thinking, what is wrong with me? What kind of mother thinks this? The thing is, we have this idea that if we're good moms, that if we really loved our kids, that we should always feel loving and connected to them. So when that's not what we feel, we make it mean something has gone terribly wrong. But here's what I want you to hear.
You can love your child with every ounce of your heart and soul, and still not like the way that they're acting. Those two things can and do exist in our minds at the same time. But we're quick to judge ourselves for that.
So instead of allowing it or getting curious about it, we make the conclusion in our minds that if I'm thinking I don't like my kid, something must be wrong with me, or with them, or with our relationship. And now you're not just feeling frustrated, you're also feeling guilt and shame. And my friend, that is exactly what makes this experience so much heavier than it needs to be.
So today, I want to unpack what's really going on when you have this thought, I don't even like my kid right now. Because this thought doesn't mean that you're a bad mom, it actually tells us something really important about what's happening in your mind, and in your relationship. So here's something we need to be really honest with ourselves about.
There are moments in this stage of parenting that are just really hard. There are those times when your teen rolls their eyes at you, like you're the most annoying person in the world, or when they completely shut you out and act like they don't want anything to do with you. All you've done for decades is love and support them, put them first, and they act like you don't deserve common courtesy.
Sometimes your kid might snap at you, or say things that feel incredibly disrespectful. Sometimes they lie, or hide things, or promise one thing and do the exact opposite. Or maybe with your kid, it's just a constant feeling of tension that you have with them.
Every time they walk in the room, it's like a black cloud follows them. They're moody, you feel like you're walking on eggshells whenever you're around them. Maybe every conversation feels strained or forced, or simple requests turn into a battle.
And I wish this ended with the teen years, but I have many clients with older kids who experience the same thing in different ways. Maybe your adult child barely responds to your texts, or only reaches out when they need something, and that's usually money. Or maybe they're pushing you away, blaming you for things that happened in their life, especially for things in the past, which you can't change.
Sometimes our adult kids move back home, and they act like you owe it to them. On the one hand, they want to be totally independent, but then they act like they're above the rules or household expectations, and yet they're under your roof, living rent-free. And sometimes it's just the way that they talk to you, the tone, the dismissal, and the lack of appreciation.
You can't help but think, after everything I've done to support you, this is what our relationship feels like? And the truth is, what makes it even more painful is that you remember how it used to feel, when they were little, when they wanted to be around you. You remember a time when your relationship felt easy, and close, and loving. And now it can feel like you don't even recognize this version of your kid.
How did we get here? So I think it's important to validate this thought. As painful as it can feel, when your big kid is acting like someone you just don't want to be around, of course you're going to think something along the lines of, I don't like them very much. The thought doesn't take away the love that you have for them, but it's simply a reflection of the frustration and hurt you're experiencing in those moments.
At the heart of these Thoughts Moms Are Ashamed to Think series, my goal is to strip away the shame and judgment you feel, and invite you to get curious. Because when you do, it's fascinating to consider how our brains work, and why they do what they do. Believe it or not, when you're thinking, I don't even like my kid right now, it's actually your brain's way of trying to help you.
Stay with me here. When you feel hurt, or rejected, or disrespected, or disconnected from your child, it's painful. And your brain is wired to protect you from pain.
So in those moments when connection feels really hard, your brain reacts by creating distance. And one of the ways it does that is by offering you a thought like, I don't even like them. Because consider this, if part of you doesn't like them, it feels a little bit easier for you to pull away.
It's almost like your brain is saying, let's not care so much right now, because this hurts. And when you think about it, this is how we operate in every other relationship in our lives. If there's someone in your life who's constantly negative, or dismissive, or hard to be around, what do you do? You create distance from them.
You avoid them. And if you have to interact with them, you keep those conversations short. If there's a friend who starts to make you feel judged or drained, you naturally start pulling away from them.
And here's the thing, we don't feel bad about any of that. We don't sit there thinking, what kind of person am I for not liking this other person? No, we actually trust that instinct. We actually think, of course I don't want to be around someone who makes me feel this way.
But when it comes to our kids, all of a sudden those same human instincts feel completely unacceptable. Because now it's not just a person, it's my child. And we have this belief that as a mom, we should never have these negative feelings toward our kids.
So when that same human instinct to pull away comes up for us, we don't see it as protection. We actually see it as a failure on our part, that there must be something wrong with me. But just notice, it's not the instinct that's wrong.
It's simply the judgment we layer on top of it that creates that shame. We don't see this as our brain's way of trying to protect us. Instead, we take the thought at face value, and then we judge ourselves for having it.
And now it's not just, I feel disconnected from my kid right now. It becomes, I shouldn't feel that way, that there's something wrong with me. And now what started as a moment of pain with your big kid turns into guilt and shame and even more disconnection, both from your kid and from yourself.
Here's the thing. If you don't take the time to get curious about what your mind is doing here and start to build some compassion for it, you will keep reacting from this place without even realizing it. And more often than not, we blame it on our kid.
Because of their behavior or what's happening in your relationship. But what's actually driving so much of this experience for us is what's happening inside of our minds. And sometimes what those are are patterns or shortcuts, essentially interpretations our brains default to.
And when they keep you stuck in pain, I call these patterns mindset traps. In the past on this podcast, I've talked a lot about how there's a part of your brain that reacts automatically to protect you. It's that primitive part of your brain that essentially triggers a fight or flight response anytime you feel triggered or threatened.
But then there's another part of your brain, a more evolved, higher functioning part of your brain that allows you to take a step back and observe what's happening in your mind. And because your brain has the ability to do this, you can actually take a step back and notice your brain's automatic reactions. But rather than continuing to default to them, you can start to choose how you want to respond, potentially in a different way instead.
Now I'm willing to bet that you've done this unconsciously many times. For example, let's say your big kid says something obnoxious and for a split second, you feel that surge of anger and this instinct to snap back at them. You feel it in your body, like you're gearing up to react, but then you don't.
You pause, you take a breath, and maybe you think something like, me escalating this right now is not gonna help. And so instead of reacting, you say something like, why don't we talk about this later? This is a simple example of you using your higher brain. It's you interrupting that default primitive response and choosing on purpose how you want to show up.
So when I talk about mindset traps, what I'm really doing is helping you see how that protective part of your brain doesn't just react, it also interprets what's happening. Because your brain isn't just trying to create distance from the pain, it's also trying to make sense of it. And again, it does that very quickly, automatically, without you even realizing it.
So your brain offers you that thought, I don't even like my kid right now. That's the protective response. But then your mind goes a step further.
It starts telling you a story about what all this means. And those stories are what I call mindset traps. They're the patterns your brain uses to explain what's happening.
So when we look at that thought, I don't even like my kid right now, what's happening underneath it? Well, there are a couple of really common patterns that your mind can fall into. The first one is what I call the personalization trap. You can think of it as mom guilt or simply taking things personally.
So consider this, when a stranger is rude to you or obnoxious to you, it's clearly about them. You don't make it mean anything about you. You typically just chalk it up to them having a bad day or just not being a nice person.
But when it's your kid, now it feels personal. Their behavior or their attitude, it doesn't just feel unpleasant. It feels like a reflection of you.
Like if they're acting this way or treating me this way, I must have done something wrong. You start to think that their behavior is evidence of the failure of your parenting or how your relationship is broken. And I know those thoughts feel so true in the moment.
But also, notice what they create. When you're taking things personally, you're not just frustrated with your kid's behavior. Now you feel hurt and rejected, maybe even attacked.
And that's exactly why your brain goes to that thought, I don't even like my kid right now. Because in a strange way, it gives you a little bit of relief. It's like an emotional escape hatch.
It offers you a way to pull back from the pain, maybe even to feel a little bit more in control. It's almost like your brain is saying, this hurts too much. Let's step away.
But then almost immediately, you feel guilty for pulling away. And then maybe even more frustrated with your kid for putting you in this position. So you end up stuck in this loop.
Judgment, anger, shame, resentment. And it all feels terrible. A second mindset trap at play here is emotional reasoning.
And this one is so subtle. It's when your brain takes how something feels and turns it into what must be true. So it sounds something like, I feel disrespected, so my kid is disrespectful.
Or I feel disconnected, so maybe we don't have a connection in our relationship. Or this simply feels bad, so something must actually be wrong. Now look, your emotions are always valid.
They are real and they matter. But your emotions are also not proof that something is objectively true. They're simply a reflection of the thoughts you're having about what's happening in the moment.
So let's look at what this means with a tangible example. Let's say your big kid does something you don't like. Of course, your immediate reaction is, I don't want this.
I mean, it would be so much easier if our kids would just do what we want them to do. But because our immediate reaction is negative, our mind can fall into the trap of thinking, this feels bad, so something must actually be wrong. So now instead of just sitting with that thought that I don't want this, your mind goes to, this shouldn't be happening.
This is a problem. And now you can't relax or feel better until you get your kid to change. And that is the trap.
Because now your emotional experience is completely tied to your child's behavior. You need them to be more respectful or more responsible or to connect with you in a better way. You stay stuck in frustration and anger.
And now layer this on top of everything we just talked about. You feel bad. You believe that means something is wrong.
You take it personally, make it mean something about you. And then your brain tries to protect you by pulling away, thinking, I don't even like my kid right now. My friend, when you get stuck in this loop, it impacts how you show up with your big kid.
Sometimes that looks like trying to fix them. You essentially feel that urge to correct them or lecture them. You start thinking about boundaries and rules and consequences to get them to do better.
Because it feels like if they would just change, you could feel better. Other times we react by pulling away ourselves. You might avoid your kid or stop engaging with them.
Because it honestly just feels easier than dealing with the tension and the attitude. And sometimes you start seeing your child through the lens of everything they're doing wrong. You start to expect that attitude.
You're always bracing for the next conflict. And what I've seen time and time again is that our brains can even discount those moments when connection is there or when our kid is generally doing what we want them to be doing. Because we're so focused on all the ways that are not meeting our expectations.
My friend, if you see yourself in any of this, it doesn't make you a bad mom. It simply means you're a human reacting to pain. But if you keep falling into these patterns, it creates more tension and more disconnection.
And I'm guessing that you see all of this. I know in those times in my life when I've been here with my boys, I've felt it. How my pulling away or my reactions to them were only creating the opposite of what I really wanted.
And then it just felt like more evidence of my failure. So the question really becomes, how do you step out of these patterns when they feel so automatic? The answer isn't what most of us think. It's not about fixing your child or finding the perfect consequence.
It truly starts with understanding your own mind. Learning how to recognize these patterns as they're happening. It's building the skill of using your higher brain to see how your brain is actually trying to protect you.
Seeing clearly those times when you take things personally and recognizing the other person's behavior isn't about you. It's understanding how easy it is to believe that because something feels bad, something must be wrong. And when you build that awareness, you create space between what your big kid does and how you respond.
And in that space, you get to decide, who do I want to be here? Not as a reaction to how they're showing up, but simply as a reflection of the kind of mom you want to be. My friend, this is a skill. It's not something you just should be able to do.
In fact, no one has ever taught us how to do this. But this is the skill I teach my clients inside of my coaching program, Mom 2.0. What I help you do is not just to understand this intellectually, but I teach you a simple, repeatable process and how to apply it in your real life. In those moments when your kid says something that triggers you, or when you get angry and your mind has the instinct to react or pull away, I help you slow those moments down and understand what's happening for you so that you gain the power to choose how you want to show up in a way that actually aligns with the relationship you want to have with your child.
The goal isn't to never feel frustrated. It's to stop letting those moments define the relationship you have with your child. And this is what allows you to feel more connected to them, even when they're not showing up in the way that you want.
So the next time you find yourself thinking, I don't even like my kid right now, you can even start to notice how quickly your mind wants to go to questioning what kind of mom you are. And instead of going there, just pause and notice how your brain is trying to protect you. Recognize that this is what it feels like to love someone deeply and feel hurt by them at the same time.
This thought simply means you're a human being having a real, messy emotional experience in the most personal and demanding role of your life. And when you learn how to meet those moments, not with judgment, but with awareness and compassion, that's when you gain the power to stop reacting from pain and start showing up from who you actually want to be. And that, my friend, is what creates the connection you've been wanting all along.
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.
