HOW TO GET YOUR TEEN TO OPEN UP—A PARENTING TEENS MINDSET RESET | EP. 259
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.
Do you ever find yourself wishing that your big kid would just talk to you? Like, really talk to you? Not the one-word answers, or the, I'm fine, not the door closing before you even had a chance to ask how their day was. Just your kid actually opening up. And maybe there are those moments, rare moments, where they do.
Where they come to you with something real, and something in you knew, this is the moment, and you still felt like you couldn't quite get it right. Maybe you said too much, or you asked one too many questions, or you heard yourself giving advice when what they really needed was for you to just be there. My friend, getting your big kid to open up isn't really about finding the right words or the right moment.
It's about what's happening inside of you when that moment comes, and why the version of you who you really want to be in that moment, the calm, present mom who just listens, can feel so hard to access when it actually counts. In this episode, I'm going to talk about how to find that version of yourself more consistently. So let's dive in.
Hello, my friend. The other day I was scrolling through Instagram, and I came across a post. It was written by a therapist, and she'd asked a group of teens a simple question.
She'd asked them, what do your parents do that makes you want to open up to them? So naturally, I was really curious about what these answers were. And so let me read through a few of them, just because they're worth really taking in. The teens said things like, my parents don't freak out.
They ask if I want advice before just giving it. They talk to me when nothing's wrong, not just when there's a problem. They don't tell everyone my business.
They apologize when they mess up. They try to understand even when they disagree. And they don't make everything about them.
So as I was reading through this list, on the one hand, I thought, yes, that is exactly the type of mom I want to be. The one who my kids feel comfortable coming to. I already know I don't want to be the mom who freaks out.
I want to make them feel safe enough to tell me the truth. But at the same time, I know both from my own experience as a mom and from working of hundreds of moms just like you, how genuinely hard it can actually be to show up this way, even when you want to, even when you're trying your best to do this. And here's what I think is really important to recognize.
I don't think most of us are struggling because we don't know what our kids need. In fact, most of us, when we hear a list like that, are already nodding our heads. We already know this intellectually.
So the problem isn't lack of information. The problem is actually what happens inside of us in the moments when our teen actually comes to us. Because there's a big difference between knowing how you want to be and actually being able to access that version of yourself when things feel hard, when your teen says something that scares you, or when they make a choice that goes against everything you want for them.
The truth is, at times when they finally do open up, your nervous system can go into fight or flight before you've even had a chance to think. And my friend, that's not a parenting skills problem. It's actually a mindset problem.
And that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about three thought patterns, three very understandable, very human ways that our minds respond when our teens need something from us. And these thought patterns can end up getting in the way of us showing up as the mom we really want to be.
Now, I want to be really clear about this before I go on. These are not character flaws. These are not evidence that something's wrong with you if you see yourself in them.
In fact, I want to make the case that these patterns make complete sense, given everything you've been through, everything you've been responsible for as a mom, even everything you've practiced over years and years of loving your kid. Because here's what I find so interesting about this stage of motherhood. The same wiring that made you such a devoted, involved, present, and successful mom when your kids were little, that same wiring can actually work against you now.
Not because it was wrong then, because the truth is, the way we parented our kids when they were little kept them safe, kept them learning and thriving. But what your teen and your adult kid needs from you has fundamentally changed, and our nervous systems don't automatically get that memo. So let's talk about what's actually getting in the way of us showing up the way we want to as a mom.
The first mindset I want to explore is, it's my job to fix this. Now, I see this in almost every single mom I work with, including myself. It is this deep, almost automatic belief that when something's going wrong for your big kid, it's your job to do something about it.
And you can probably feel this in your body, right? Your big kid comes home, and they're upset about something, or they finally tell you about something they've been keeping to themselves. And before they've even finished talking, your brain is already scanning for danger, trying to figure out what's the problem? What do I do? How do I fix this? And my friend, this basic instinct is coming from love. This is you being the mom you have always been, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
But let's go back to what those teens said. They don't freak out. They ask if I want advice before giving it.
They don't take away my freedom every time I mess up. What they're describing is a parent who can be present with them in the hard moment without immediately going into problem-solving mode. And for so many of us, that is genuinely difficult to do, because we've spent years equating doing something with being a good mom.
And so just staying still, just listening, not jumping in, it can feel like we're failing as a mom, like we're being passive when we should be doing something. But here's what I've noticed in my own life and in my work with my clients. When our big kids feel that energy coming off of us, that we need to fix this right now energy, they don't feel safe.
They feel like their honesty has just created a situation they now have to manage. And so they stop talking. So the question I want to offer you is when your big kid brings you something hard, a confession, a mistake they've made, or a struggle they're going through, what is the first thought that moves through your mind? Is it, I want to understand what's happening for them? Or is it, I need to do something about this? Because those are very different starting places.
One comes from being present. The other comes from fear and anxiety. And your teen can feel the difference even when they don't have words for it.
So the shift here isn't about doing less or caring less. It's about pausing long enough to ask yourself, am I stepping in because they actually need me to or because I need relief from this feeling of helplessness? That one question, even just asking it, can completely change how you respond in that moment. And just to be clear, I'm not saying there's never a time to step in.
There absolutely is. But often the most powerful thing you can do in those first moments is simply be in that moment. Let them feel like coming to us didn't just create more problems.
The second thought pattern that often stands in the way of us being the mom we want to be is a thought along the lines of, if I back down, I lose ground, that I'll look weak. Now this thought isn't driven by fear. It feels more like principle.
It's this belief that if I back down, if I apologize, or if I just listen without correcting them, I'm somehow losing ground with my big kid. That softening equals weakness. We can also sometimes feel like admitting what we got wrong means that they won't take us seriously.
And so this shows up in subtle ways. We can feel reluctant to apologize, even when we know we could have handled something better. We can feel the urge to get the last word in, to make sure they really understand our perspective before the conversation is over.
We can also fall into a tendency to question their take on things or bring it back to our own experience because we genuinely believe we have something important to offer them. And I want to say again, all of this comes from love and from our real investment in our relationship with our kid and their success. We want to matter to them, and we want to be a voice that means something.
And there is nothing wrong with that. But again, let's go back to what those teens said. They try to understand even when they disagree.
They don't make everything about them. They apologize when they mess up. What they're describing is a parent who can hold space for their experience without needing to immediately redirect it or correct it or insert themselves into it.
And here's the thing I think is really worth considering. When we're in that mode, when we're focused on making sure our kid hears our perspective or making sure we haven't lost ground or that we don't appear weak, we're actually not fully in that moment with them. We're really in our own heads, managing our own fear of losing influence or relevance in their life.
And again, our kids feel that. They don't always have the words for it, but they feel it. And what it communicates to them is this conversation is actually about my mom and not about me.
And this only encourages them to stop bringing things to us. So the question I want to offer here is this. Can you tell the difference in the moment between genuine guidance and the need to protect yourself? Because sometimes when we think we're teaching our kids something, we're actually just trying to make ourselves feel less certain, less irrelevant, or maybe even more less afraid that we're going to fail them, that they're going to end up on a bad path and it will somehow be our fault.
And the irony is, and I say this with so much compassion because I've been here too, is that holding on tighter actually creates the distance we're most afraid of. The moms I work with who have the strongest relationship with their kids are almost always the ones who have learned how to be a little bit vulnerable, who can say, I didn't show up the way I wanted to, or help me understand how you're seeing this. It's the mom who can be curious before they're certain.
My friend, humility doesn't weaken your influence with your big kid. It is genuinely the foundation of your relationship with your kid, because it signals to them, I'm not here to be right. I'm here to be with you.
And that is what makes them want to come back. The third pattern of thoughts that can hold us back from showing up as the mom that we want to be with our big kid are thoughts around fear of losing our connection or closeness with our big kid. This shows up for us when our teens go quiet.
They stop wanting to connect. They spend more time in their room. And so something in us starts to worry.
Are we okay? Did I do something wrong? So you find yourself reaching out a little more, trying to check in with them. It's why we agonize over the fact that they don't text us back right away, or they give us those one-word answers that we hate. And when they do finally open up, you can find yourself feeling the urge to ask one more question than you really meant to, because you're so relieved that they're talking, you don't want to stop.
This fear also drives us to connect more when things feel uncertain or worrying, and sometimes less often when everything seems fine. Because when things are fine, we feel like we can finally breathe, that we don't need to check in. But when our big kids go quiet, when it seems like they're pulling away, that silence starts to feel like a pay attention to.
Ultimately, underneath all of this is this fear that we might be losing our kid, that we wonder if the closeness that we used to have is just slipping away, and that the more independent that they become, the less they're going to need us, the less they're going to connect with us. Because we imagine the less they need us, the further apart we'll get. And thinking back to that social media post, what the teen said was, they open up because my parents talk to me when nothing is wrong, not just when there's a problem.
And their questions don't feel like an interrogation. What they're describing is a mom who doesn't need the relationship to constantly prove itself. Someone who can sit in the quiet without hearing it as a problem.
A mom who shows up when everything is fine, and not just when something seems to be wrong. And my friend, I understand this tension so much. The truth is this stage of motherhood asks something really hard of us.
Our kids are pulling away, which is developmentally appropriate, we know. It's what they're supposed to be doing. But it doesn't always feel that way when you're inside of it.
The truth is, to us, it feels like loss. It feels like the relationship you've poured yourself into for almost two decades is changing in ways that you can't stop. I've had so many women say to me, you pour your heart and your soul and your life into this human being, and they just get to walk away.
And my friend, when something feels like loss, of course we want to hold on. That's just human. And so we react to that loss and that urge to hold on by checking in a little bit more than maybe our kid wants to, or asking more questions than they're really wanting to answer.
We try to find reasons to connect. And all of it comes from love. But here's what I've seen happen time and again with moms that I work with.
When our big kids sense that our being okay depends on them, that our peace requires them to respond to us the way that we want them to, that we need them to be talking and letting us in, it becomes a weight that they don't know how to handle. And so they do the only thing they know how to do, which is to pull away and to try to create a little bit more distance so that they don't feel that pressure. But when we feel that distance from them, when we observe them pulling away, we get more anxious.
And we reach out a little more. And then they pull away a little more. And that gap between us grows.
Not really because either of us want it to, but because the very thing we're doing to try to get closer is the thing that's subconsciously pushing them away. And this cycle is one of the most heartbreaking things I see in my work. Because the moms that I work with desperately love their children.
And I have no doubt that somewhere underneath the pain and the attitude, those kids desperately love their moms back. And both those moms and those kids are losing each other through a pattern that neither of them shows or even fully understand. So here's what I want to invite you to consider.
The connection with your big kid isn't just made in those moments when you chase it. Connection is built in those ordinary days when you're just sitting next to them, even if they're scrolling on their phone. In those moments when you're around them and you don't need anything from them.
When you can just let there be silence and it's okay. My friend, just think of the power of not needing your kid to show you the relationship is still there in order for you to believe that it is. And this is actually when trust grows, when you give it room to breathe.
Because here's what I truly believe. Our kids still need us, but they need us to be different than we used to be. And one of the most powerful things that you can do, and maybe the most powerful thing, is to give them space to let them be who they need to be and let them have their own life.
Even if that means pulling away and have them know that it won't cost them their relationship with you. My friend, this is what keeps our big kids coming back. Not us pulling them closer, but more in us trusting that we can let go and not lose them.
Now my friend, when you take a step back and you look at all three of these patterns together, there's something really interesting that you can notice. The three patterns are the urge to fix, the fear of being too weak with our kids, and the fear that we're losing them as they pull away. Those are three very different feelings and experiences, but they're actually all pointing towards the same thing.
All three of them are about us. They're all about our emotional experience in those moments with our big kid. It's about our fear, our discomfort, our need to feel okay.
And I say this not at all as a criticism. I want to be really clear about that, because this is not about us being selfish or being a bad mom. It's truly about being a human being whose nervous system is trying to protect her and her child.
Think about what we've been doing for the past 15 or 20 years. We have been responsible for keeping another human being safe, happy, on track, and growing, reaching for success every single day. And we have poured ourselves into that role.
And for a really long time, the strategies we use, stepping in, guiding, staying close to them, staying alert, those strategies worked really well. I often look at my boys and think about my urge to protect them and to micromanage their lives. And I want to say, you want to know what? You're welcome.
There is no doubt that they have stayed safe and were successful early on in their lives because I was there to support them. These strategies produced results, but they also gave us a sense of control and competence and purpose. And now we're in a stage where those same strategies are starting to cost us more than they give us.
Stepping in to fix things when our kids don't want us to doesn't produce the results it used to. Trying to stay close to our big kid can actually create distance. And we used to feel like we had control, and we're realizing we don't anymore.
And so it's no wonder that this is incredibly disorienting. Of course our nervous systems don't know what to do with this. And look, we're reaching for the tools that used to work because those are the tools that we know, they're the ones that we've practiced.
But here's the invitation I want to offer you. What if the work at this stage of motherhood isn't about learning a new set of things to do with your teen, that it's actually not about setting boundaries or enforcing consequences or getting them to open up? What if the work is truly about learning how to create a sense of safety inside of yourself first? Because the mom those teens were describing, the ones they felt comfortable opening up to, I guarantee you she isn't calm because her life is easy, or even because her kids are easy. She's calm in those moments because she's learned how to stay connected to herself even when things feel hard.
That mom can be with her big kid's confession or their struggle or their distance without her nervous system taking over and causing her to react in ways that don't create the results she wants. That mom can hold space for her big kid because she's already holding space for herself. And my friend, this is a skill.
It's not a personality trait you either have or you don't. It is truly something you can learn. And it starts with getting curious about what's happening inside of you in those hard moments instead of immediately trying to manage everything outside of you to feel better.
And if you want help building that skill, this is exactly what we do inside my Mom 2.0 coaching program. I never tell you how to parent your teen, but I do help you understand what's happening inside of you in those hard moments so that you can show up as the mom you already know you want to be. My friend, when I saw that post on Instagram, the list of what teens say makes them want to open up to their parents, what I thought was most moms already want to be every single thing on that list.
Most moms I know already want to be this for their child. They want to be the mom who doesn't freak out. They want to be the mom who listens before jumping in with advice.
Every single one of us wants our child to feel safe to come to us with the hard stuff. We all want to be that mom. So it's not that we don't know who we want to be.
The challenge is it's hard to access that version of ourselves when in those hard moments, everything in us wants to react from our fear and frustration. So the next time you're in one of those moments with your big kid and you can just feel something in you starting to ramp up, that urge to fix or protect or hold on, see if you can get curious about that feeling before you act on it. Consider that the question isn't really what do I need to say right now, but more what's happening inside of me right now.
Because when you can answer that question, when you can recognize that what you're feeling is fear or helplessness or that old pull to be needed, you get a choice. You get to decide how you want to show up, not from your nervous system's default settings, but from the version of yourself who already knows deep down what your big kid needs from you. As you get curious and consider which of these patterns you recognize in yourself, the urge to fix, the fear of being weak, or the worry that you're losing connection with your big kid, just notice these patterns with curiosity and not judgment.
Because wherever you see yourself in that, that is not your failure. It's actually a starting point. And here's what I know to be true after working with moms through this exact kind of work.
The mom your big kid is hoping for, she's not some far-off ideal. She's not the mom you're going to be someday if you just do enough work. She is already inside of you, and you've been her before.
In those moments when things feel easy and when you're calm, that mom already exists within you. The work is simply learning how to access her more consistently, even when things are hard, even when you're scared, even when your big kid brings you something or reacts in a way that shakes you to your core. Your big kid doesn't need you to be perfect, my friend.
They need you to be someone they can come to. And that is already who you are. You just sometimes need a little help remembering that.
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.
