PARENTING TEENS AND WHY IT'S SO HARD TO STAY PRESENT FOR THEIR WINS | EP. 257
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 caught yourself rushing to the next worry even in the middle of a win for your big kid? One of the things no one talks about when it comes to success is how hard it can be to actually stay in it. We spend years working towards our kids' goals, worrying about whether they'll make it. And then the moment they do, our minds are already rushing ahead to the next challenge.
In this episode, I'm sharing the three ways we rob ourselves of the win and what it would look like to finally just let yourself be present for it. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
The other day, I got one of those calls from my son that you just dream about. I was actually tied up when he called, and by the time I got to my phone, I realized I'd missed three calls from him. Immediately, my heart was in my throat.
You don't get three calls from someone you love without going straight to the worst-case scenario. So I felt myself bracing as I redialed. I called him back, and my immediate question was, is everything okay? There was a pause on the line, and my son said, I did it.
And my brain had a hard time understanding what he was talking about. I did what? Are you in the hospital? I was still trying to work out in my mind what was wrong. And then he said it again, and he reminded me of the context, what he'd been working toward.
And it was like the whole world stood still. Something my son had been working toward like a madman for the past three years had come to fruition. After so much heartbreak and so much disappointment, so much picking himself up by the bootstraps and just putting his head down with absolutely no guarantee of success, and he called me, and he said, I did it.
As a mom, I don't think there's a better feeling in the world than hearing in your child's voice that sense of accomplishment and pride and joy of finally proving something to themselves that felt so unattainable when they first set out. It is such an incredible gift. And the truth is, we don't get these gifts that often, or they often feel smaller, and in some cases, non-existent.
We'll celebrate that our kid got through another year of school with a decent GPA, or that they did really well in a tournament, or that they performed in a school concert or the school play. Maybe they got that summer job. We feel proud, but it's amazing how fleeting that feeling can be.
I think part of it is that there's simply just always another mountain to climb. But I also think, as moms, the other challenge is this. We are so well prepared to brace for the worst, but we're not nearly as practiced at embracing and being present for the best.
Even as I'm still pinching myself in disbelief that my son accomplished this enormous goal, I find myself already jumping ahead to the future, to the challenges ahead, to what this new opportunity is going to mean for him, and how he's going to face new challenges that aren't going to be easy. The truth is, new opportunities in life don't come with a smooth broad ahead of them, no matter how hard you work to get there. They just come with a new set of challenges, new skill sets that they have to learn, and new obstacles that they don't even know how to anticipate yet.
And it was really amazing because within 24 hours of getting this incredible news, I got a text from one of my clients. She told me she was over the moon because her child, who had really struggled through college, had gotten a job in his dream field. I could feel her relief through her words.
And she joked that if she'd just known that this was how it was all going to turn out, she could have saved herself years of tears and worry. And this beautiful mom had already gotten herself to the point where she'd let go of so much of that worry. She was willing to be present for her child's experience, no matter what that path looked like.
But now, all of her fears had been put to rest. And yet, even in that text that she sent to me, part of her message was, I hope he can do it. I hope this works out.
I so understand what she means because my mind was going there with my son too. My friend, it's so fascinating to consider that we have an intolerance for success. I mean, we spend our entire lives trying to be successful.
Trying to be successful as a mom, in our careers. We spend our lives as moms trying to help our kids be successful. But no one ever tells you about success.
That it's not something you achieve and you just stay there. You don't get to ride that wave once you've reached it without another care in the world. In fact, success just invites a whole new set of challenges into your life.
And I don't say any of this to diminish the value of striving for success. I mean, striving is part of our intrinsic motivation. We're always seeking connection and personal fulfillment and purpose.
It's an intrinsic part of the human experience that we want to reach our potential, even when we have no idea how to do that. You could even look at motherhood this way. Becoming a mom might have been one of your goals in life.
And ironically, no matter how hard the process of becoming a mom was, whether it was challenging to conceive or whether you had to adopt, whatever path to motherhood you took, that hard work was only step one. The moment your child came into your life, you could have thought, I did it! I achieved it! And yet, I don't think there's one of us who stays in that place very long. Because we're immediately pulled into the reality that being a successful mom requires you to actually be a mom every single day.
It becomes your new normal. And every passing year, as your child evolves, there are new challenges to tackle. And this is also true for our kids as they move through their lives.
Everything we focus on in high school, the grades, the activities, the friend groups, the college process, it feels so intense and all-encompassing when you're in it. And then you realize it's just one step in a much longer journey. You don't graduate and say, I did it! And you're done.
Whatever comes next just becomes the next reality they've got to find success in. There are so many rungs on the ladder of life. And I think what's fascinating is that as moms, more often than not, our mind is already trained on the next rung up the ladder, whatever that is for your child, before they've even finished climbing the rung they're on.
It's hard to sit with the success our kids are in right now without looking ahead to everything they'll need to do to be successful in whatever comes next. And you've probably heard me say this before, that this is just what we do as moms. When our kids were learning to walk, we were already looking ahead for them, clearing their path, making sure there were no sharp corners.
And we're still doing that. We're still looking for the sharp objects in their lives, still thinking ahead. What can I clear out of their way? What can I warn them about? How can I make sure they don't mess this up? So much of our job as a mom has felt like being that voice on their shoulder, guiding them, making sure they don't fall.
But as I sit with this, as I notice my brain's tendency to want to jump ahead to what the next six months will bring for my son, I'm reminding myself to let that go. Because this accomplishment is so monumental that it feels like an even greater reminder to simply be present with this success. And maybe even more than that, to be present for every single moment along the way.
Today, I want to share three ways I think our intolerance for success shows up in our lives. Because I think these are patterns that are actually somewhat predictable. And so once we can see them and recognize them in ourselves, this is when we can start to shift them.
So the first way we rob ourselves of the win is that we rush to the next worry before we've let ourselves feel the reality of success. And this is exactly what happened to me within hours of my son's call. And it's also what showed up in my client's text right in the middle of her celebrating.
Here's the thing, we are so well prepared to brace for the worst that we've never really learned how to brace for the best. Our whole lives as moms, we've been anticipating danger, trying to stay one step ahead of the hard thing. And we're really good at that.
But we're not as adept at embracing and being present for the best. And so even when the best arrives, even when your kid calls and says, I did it, your nervous system doesn't quite know what to do with it. And within hours, sometimes minutes, your brain goes right back to what it knows, scanning for the next problem.
The finish line just becomes a starting line before we've even crossed it. So I want to invite you to really sit with this. When was the last time your child did something that made you genuinely proud, and you let yourself just be in that feeling without almost immediately jumping to the, but what about? For a lot of us, it's been a long time.
And that's worth noticing. The second way we rob ourselves of the win is that we miss the small wins because we're waiting for the big one. Those small wins, those decision points along the way where our kids applied themselves in ways we couldn't see, where they buckle down, even when we weren't really sure that they were, we don't know how to celebrate those because the results aren't tangible yet.
When I reflect back on everything that was required of my son to achieve this success, there is no doubt in my mind that so much of what he did to get here happened behind the scenes, in moments I couldn't see, in decisions I didn't even know about. There was so much going on in his experience that I missed. And of course, a large part of that is because I can't read his mind.
I'm not in his head. So I wasn't necessarily part of his decision-making process on a day-to-day basis. But what I see so often in my clients is that they're so busy looking ahead at the rungs of the ladder, worrying about whether or not their kids are going to reach them, that they can't fully be present for where their kids are.
The truth is our kids' experience often looks very messy. It looks like them making decisions we don't agree with, and often not applying themselves in the way we wish they would. But whether we realize it or not, our kids are actually also striving to reach their full potential.
We just often don't see what those steps look like. The truth is, my son's success was not built in that moment that he called me. It was built in every small decision, every small moment of effort that he put in along the way that accumulated to the success.
And it's so easy to discount those moments when you're worried about whether or not your child is going to be successful. So my friend, what would it mean for you to start noticing the small wins for your child right now? Not the ones you're hoping for in six months, but the ones happening right now. The fact that somewhere in their life they are trying.
The fact that they got up this morning and kept going, even when it's hard, even when it looks messy. It's worth considering how these small wins might be accumulating for them. The third way we rob ourselves of the win is we confuse preparing our big kids for the future with being present for them right now.
Now this might be one of the hardest ones because so much of what we do as moms feels like love. And of course it is love. But there's a version of us working hard to prepare our kids that actually keeps us from being present with our kids in the moment they're actually in.
Soon after my son called me, my first instinct, even in the middle of my joy, was to start thinking about what he'd need to navigate next. What could I help him see that he might not see yet? And with that mental energy and doing that, I was essentially skipping right over that moment, moving past this present joy in order to protect his future. And the truth is, if I had jumped in immediately and started trying to share my concerns, my son would have felt that.
He would have picked up so quickly on my love coming with worry. It almost can feel like our pride comes with a but. And the risk can be, if we're always meeting their small wins, and even worse their big wins, with this hint of worry, with this need to warn them, what it can actually do is make them less likely to bring their wins to us.
Because if every good thing gets redirected to what's next, the win starts to feel a little hollow. Maybe even worse, that we don't think it's good enough. What our kids really need in those moments, what all of us need when we've worked really hard for something and it finally pays off, what we need is for someone to just be there in that moment.
To say, I see you. I see what you did. And I am so proud of you.
Full stop. That is a gift that we can give to our children. But only if we're willing to put down the forward rush, even temporarily, into the worst-case scenarios.
My friend, whether your child is in the midst of a big win, or if you're listening to this and thinking about your kid and they are so far from any kind of win right now, where you don't see any evidence of them making meaningful progress toward that goal you have in mind for them, either way, my invitation to you is this. Really consider that whatever your child is doing or going through right now, is their process of becoming who they are. We don't have a crystal ball.
And I know it can feel completely unrealistic to convince yourself it's going to be okay, when a lot of the evidence might point to an alternate outcome. But at the end of the day, your child's success, whatever that means for them, is going to depend solely on their effort, their attention, their small daily choices. I really know how hard it can be to let that go, to give that responsibility back to them.
But the danger we put ourselves in as moms is this illusion that we can somehow get them to that success by setting the right boundaries, or creating the right parameters, finding the right leverage to kind of nudge them in the right direction. The truth is, it's not going to happen unless they make it happen for themselves. So I wonder if our work as moms, especially now that our kids are older, is less about preparing them for the next rung, and more about simply being present for the small wins happening right in front of us, right now.
Even if that just means appreciating the way you see your child trying to find their happiness, trying to figure themselves out. It might not look pretty. In fact, it could look very different from what you want it to look like.
But can you be present for the small, everyday wins? Those small decisions that are evidence that your child is doing the hard work of becoming. Because someday, and I truly hope this for you, someday you're going to look back and think, it all makes sense. I can see, dear child, how you got here.
And what if you get to that point and realize you've spent a lot of time worrying when the small wins were right in front of you, the whole time. So the way I'm internalizing this is that I'm reminding myself to let that forward rush go, at least for now. My son did something extraordinary, and I want to be here for it, really here for it, and not one step ahead.
My friend, I know how hard it can be to actually live in what I'm describing, to stay present for the wins when your brain is already scanning ahead for the next problem, or to trust a process you can't see or fully control. Knowing this intellectually and doing this are two very different things. And this is exactly the work I do with moms inside of my coaching programs.
I offer both one-on-one coaching and a group experience where we go beyond the ideas I talk about in this podcast and actually apply them to your real life with your real kid in real time. Because it's one thing to hear this on a podcast and think, yeah, that makes sense. But it's something completely different to catch yourself in the moment when your brain is already three steps ahead and have the tools and the support to bring yourself back.
The moms I work with come in anxious and stuck in their heads and exhausted from trying to manage what they can't control. And what changes through this process isn't their kids, it's them. They start showing up differently, more grounded and present, more like the mom they actually want to be.
And if that resonates with you, I would love to support you. But here's what I want to leave you with today. We think so much about preparing our kids for success.
But what if the deeper work, the work that actually changes your experience of motherhood, is learning how to be present for that success when it actually arrives? Because the truth is, success isn't a destination your child arrives at and stays in. It's a moment in a much longer journey. It's a moment that becomes the new normal.
And then the next chapter begins. And if we begin every one of those moments already looking ahead at the next rung, we miss the win. We miss our kids in the win.
And maybe even more importantly, we miss the chance to let them know that we see them, not just where they're going, but who they are right now. The small win your kid had today, that matters. Even if it's quiet, even if it doesn't look like much, and especially if you're not sure what it's leading to, what if you let yourself celebrate it anyway? Because someday you're going to look back on this chapter and think, I can see how they got here.
And at that moment, I want you to also be able to think, I was present for it. I didn't miss a thing. 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.
