“I CAN'T STOP WORRYING ABOUT MY KID”—THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK | EP. 288
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.
Do you ever think, why can't I stop worrying about my big kid? And maybe there's a part of you that feels like there's something wrong with you that this is true. Because you know your kid is growing up, and you also know you can't control everything anymore. You're also aware that constantly checking in on them or worrying about what could go wrong probably isn't helping anyone.
And yet, you can't seem to stop. So if this is you, I want you to know that I get it. Because I've been watching this happen in my own brain over the past few weeks.
My youngest just started at his new college. He transferred in as a sophomore. And he started late because his school is up north, and for some reason they don't start classes until mid-September.
And so while he's not new to the concept of college, and he's matured so much over the past year, I still found myself worrying. And those first few days he was there, I'll admit it. I probably texted him more than he needed to hear from me.
And when we talked, I found myself giving him unsolicited advice. And I did that thing that you may do too. I tracked him.
You know how you do this? You check your kid's location to see whether they're in their room too much, or whether they've gone to the dining hall at the right times. Or maybe you look to see whether or not they're in class, or whether they're doing something that looks appropriately social and engaged. Or alternatively, that they're not out too late.
And if your kid is still at home, this might look like tracking them to make sure that they get to school on time, or to make sure they're not speeding in their car. Maybe you want to make sure that they are where they said they'd be. And part of it is that you want to make sure they're being responsible, that they're with the right group of friends, or not up to something that they shouldn't be.
And when you really think about it, the ironic part about all of this tracking is that even though we see that little icon on our phones, and it absolutely gives us some data about where they are, and maybe even where they've been if you use Life 360, the reality is you have absolutely no idea what your kid is actually doing in those moments. But notice how, in your mind, you've created a picture of what it would look like if everything were going well. If he's making friends, he should be here.
If she's being responsible, she should be there. For me, this looked like if he's having a good college experience, surely he wouldn't still be in his room at 12.30 in the afternoon. So one day, I checked his location around 12.30, and he wasn't in the dining hall where I assumed he should be at 12.30. Now, I don't actually even know where the dining hall is on this campus, but I could see that he was in his room.
And then 45 minutes later, he was still in his room. And immediately, my brain started going, aren't there orientation activities he should be going to? And when is he going to eat? And maybe the ultimate question was, is something wrong? It's amazing how quickly our brains can create an entire narrative about our kids' life based on one tiny piece of information, a dot on a map on our phones. And I did this when my kids were in high school, too.
Maybe your kid's at the house of a friend that you really like, and so you think nothing of it. But then their little dot is at the house of one of those friends who you don't totally approve of. Or maybe it's back with their boyfriend or their girlfriend again, and they're not your favorite people.
Now suddenly, you have opinions. Why are they there? What are they doing? And who else is there? And I want to admit to you that I do this because so many moms come to me almost embarrassed to tell me that they do it, too. They'll say, I know I shouldn't be checking.
I know I need to let this go. But I just can't stop worrying. And I think that last part is really important to notice because I don't actually think the tracking is the real issue.
And I don't even think that the worrying itself is the real issue. I think the interesting question is, what are we hoping all of this information is going to give us? Because when I was checking my son's location, I wasn't really trying to figure out whether he'd eaten lunch. What I was looking for was some piece of information that would allow me to think, he's okay, he's making friends, this is all going to work out.
I was looking for something outside of myself that would allow me to finally put down my worry. And I think we do this as moms all the time. We look for the evidence that says, you can relax now, your kid is okay.
But the problem is, there is always another piece of information to check. I felt so much about how different this was for our parents. Not only could they not track us, they couldn't even call us unless they knew where we were.
Remember those dark ages when we had landline telephones? And if you told your parents you were going to a friend's house, and then you left that friend's house, that was pretty much it. They had no idea where you were or how to reach you. And when we went out at night, there wasn't even really an easy way to call home to say we were running late.
I guess the more responsible among us could have always found a payphone or called from the friend's house before we left. But who wanted to wake their parents up in the middle of the night to tell them they were breaking curfew? My approach was probably more along the lines of, I'm going to be in trouble either way, so let me just try to sneak in really quietly and see how this goes. Our kids do not have that luxury, because we have an unbelievable amount of information about them.
And yes, of course, they can turn off their location, which, by the way, doesn't exactly help our anxious minds feel any better. Because now it's, wait, why did they turn off their location? What are they doing? Why don't they want me to know where they are? And it makes me wonder sometimes, were our parents better off not knowing? Not necessarily because they worried less. I mean, I'm sure they worried.
But they also didn't have the option of constantly checking for evidence that their worry was justified. They had to learn to live with not knowing. I remember coming home at six o'clock in the morning once.
It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I'd been away at school for a whole year, and I was used to doing whatever I wanted. And apparently that meant I decided I could come home whenever I wanted when I was back at home too.
And I will never forget walking in the house at six in the morning, and my mother was sitting in the living room wide awake. She obviously had absolutely no idea where I had been and no way to reach me. I can only imagine what those hours for her were like.
She probably spent the entire night waiting for me to come home, wondering if I was okay. And then, of course, she felt a moment of relief seeing me walk in the door. But that relief was very quickly replaced by quite a bit of anger that I'd kept her up all night, which now that I'm a mom, I completely understand.
And my parents had no problem coming down on me when I messed up. There wasn't a lot of agonizing over whether I was going to be upset with them. It was pretty much, you broke the rule, here's the consequence.
I'm not trying to be your friend. I think parenting was different in a lot of ways back then too. But one of the biggest differences I want to focus on is that our parents were forced to tolerate not knowing.
We aren't. In fact, we can know so much where they are, where they've been, if they're on their way home. We can even see whether they've read our text and just chosen not to respond.
We have so much data. And you would think that all of this information would make us feel safer. And sometimes it does.
But I also think that all this information gives our brains so many more opportunities to worry. Because the anxious mind is incredibly creative. It can take almost any piece of information and make it mean something.
And often what our minds make that data mean is something negative. Your kid is in their room, they're isolating themselves. They're out till two in the morning, they're partying too much.
They haven't texted, something's wrong. They text too much, maybe they're not making friends. They're studying all the time, they're too stressed out.
They're not studying enough, they're going to fail. The problem is that our minds are really good at turning information into a problem. And this is what I started noticing in myself those first few days my son was at school.
I kept looking for data that would allow me to put down the worry. And I know as a coach intellectually that I don't need that information. I can remind myself, this is his journey, he's going to figure it out.
I know all of that. And yet the urge to check can still feel so compelling, almost irresistible. Because what I'm really looking for isn't his location.
I'm looking for relief. And I think this is so important to recognize. Because when we ask ourselves, why can't I stop worrying about my kid? We often assume the answer is that we care too much.
Or maybe that we're too controlling. Or that we're bad at letting go. But I don't think that's it.
I think a lot of the time, worry feels so hard to stop. Because we've gotten into the habit of trying to resolve it. We feel anxious, and then immediately we go looking for something that will make that anxiety go away.
We're looking for more information, or a text, or a phone call, a location, maybe a good grade, or a cheerful voice. We want evidence that they're doing what we think they should be doing. We want evidence that they're safe, that they're happy, that they're moving in the right direction.
And oh, by the way, evidence that they want to connect with us. And when we get that evidence, that piece of data that we're looking for, for a moment, it works. We can finally think, okay, good, I can relax.
But then something else happens, or nothing happens, and the worry comes right back. Because reassurance can calm worry for a minute, but it can't give us what we're really asking it to give us. And that's certainty.
And when more data doesn't give us the certainty we're looking for, there's another thing we tend to do. We start trying to manage our kid. We tell them what they should be doing.
We give them advice. Or we remind them, or we point out the consequences. And again, I do this too.
I tell my kids all the time what I think would be an effective way for them to go about their lives. And I try to be self-aware about how often I do it, because I've noticed how easy it is to become that broken record. You know, that Charlie Brown teacher.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I'm fairly sure our kids start to hear us that way after a while. It's just, mom's worried again.
Mom thinks I should be doing something differently. Or she thinks she knows the better way. And meanwhile, they know that they can go out into the world and actually do whatever they want when they're not with us.
And that's one of the hardest parts. Because so often from where we're standing, it seems incredibly obvious what they should be doing. Of course, you should get more sleep and go to class, apply for the job, get to school on time, put yourself out there, need people.
Of course, you should get help if you're struggling. And it goes without saying that you shouldn't do anything that puts your safety or your health or your future at risk. I mean, it all feels so obvious to us.
And then your kid doesn't do it. And so your brain goes, what are you thinking? I've had a number of clients over the years have this battle with fake IDs. Lots of kids seem to have fake IDs.
And yet it's illegal. So we tell them, don't have a fake ID. And then maybe they tell us, mom, I don't have one.
And we're fairly sure that they do and that they're using it. And it feels so stupid to us. So we tell them and we hope that they'll listen.
Just like we tell them not to vape or not to drink and drive, not to get into a car with someone who's been drinking, not to do all these things where the potential consequences feel huge. And sometimes they do these things anyway. And this is where I think we can start to bump against something really uncomfortable.
Because when our kids were younger, there were so many things we could simply stop. Consequences worked. And we could actually physically prevent them from doing certain things.
But as they get older, that changes. You can tell your 19 year old not to use their fake ID. You could even take one away from them.
But that doesn't prevent them from getting another one and using it whenever they want. You can tell your 22 year old not to stay in a terrible relationship. But that doesn't mean they're going to break up with the person.
You can tell your kid to go to class, to stop vaping, apply for that job, or make better choices. You can say all of it. But you can't actually make another human being do anything.
And this is where so many of us reach for boundaries. I had a woman say to me recently, I've tried boundaries and setting expectations and they're just ignored. But then she said the downside of letting go felt worse because she was afraid that if she stopped pushing, her kid was going to go into a downward spiral.
And I completely understand that fear because the stakes feel so high. If I stop reminding or stop pushing my kid, if I stop trying to get my kid to do the thing I think they should be doing, then what happens? Am I just supposed to stand by and watch them make a mess of their life? But I think this is where we need to be really clear about what a boundary actually is. Because a boundary is not, you need to do this thing because I think it's the best for you.
I mean, if you say this to your kid and they listen, amazing. But our kids often don't just do the thing we want them to do just because we tell them to do it. So I want to invite you to think about boundaries differently.
A boundary is actually a decision about you and what you will do. For example, a boundary is I'm not going to give you the car if you're drinking or I'm not willing to pay for that. A boundary might also look like saying if you speak to me that way, I'm going to end the conversation.
These are boundaries that work because they're about your decisions. But you need to be out there and make better friends or you need to study harder, get to class, stop vaping, stop using that fake ID. Those may be things that you desperately want your kid to do, but they are not boundaries.
They're just attempts to influence another person's behavior. And sometimes we can influence them. Sometimes they even admit eventually that we were right, but sometimes they don't change.
And when they don't, notice what happens inside of you. It's not just I don't like this choice, but rather they're not listening to me. They're headed down a bad path.
This is only going to get worse. Suddenly their decisions become another data point that our anxious minds use to solidify our fears. See, I should be worried.
I can't let this go. I need to do something. We think our worry is being caused by what our big kid is doing or what they're not doing.
And look, I get it. The worst case scenarios our brains put on repeat can be so scary. But notice how often we're worrying in moments when nothing is actually wrong in that moment.
Our kid is in their room. They haven't applied for the job. They're still dating that person we don't like.
They haven't made the choice that we think they should make. But our brain is already 10 steps into the future, thinking of those worst case scenarios of what this is going to turn into. So I want you to consider that sometimes the worry isn't only about your kid.
It's also being fueled by this belief that I should be able to influence what they do. If I were a good enough mom, I would know how to say this to them so they'd hear me. I would be able to set the right boundary or find the right consequence.
If I were a good mom, I would be able to explain this to them in a way that finally gets through to them. Somehow it would mean that I could get my kid to make the choice that I believe is best for them. But when we can't do this, our brain interprets that lack of control as danger.
So now I'm not just worried about my kid. I'm worried that I'm not doing enough to prevent that thing that my brain has convinced myself is inevitable. And my friend, this is exhausting because our minds are so good at projecting these problems.
And now every time your kid makes a choice you don't like, you're faced with the choice that they're making that you don't like. And you have the belief that you're somehow supposed to make them choose differently. And maybe this is one of the reasons you can't stop worrying about your kid.
Not because there's something wrong with you, but because part of you still believes that worry and vigilance and reminding and checking that this is what's standing between your kid and something going terribly wrong. And that's the part I want to invite you to start questioning. Because your kid is going to make choices.
Some you'll love, some you won't. Some may turn out beautifully and others might have consequences. But at a certain point, your job may no longer be to control all of those choices.
Your work is actually learning to recognize what belongs to you and what belongs to them. So maybe the next time you notice yourself checking in on them or feeling that urge to remind them, or when you find yourself running those worst-case scenarios on repeat in your mind, instead of asking, how do I get my kid to do this differently? Try asking, what am I afraid will happen if I don't? And maybe even, what would it look like to trust myself to handle that if it actually happens? Because that's where I think the real work of letting go starts. It's not letting go of your kid.
It's not even letting go of your hopes and expectations for them. Or your right to step in when something truly does require your attention. Maybe instead, it's letting go of the belief that you have to control their choices in order to be a good mom.
Or even that worrying harder somehow keeps them safer. My friend, this work is about learning how to love your big kid without caring responsibility for a life that ultimately belongs to them. If you recognize yourself in this episode, this type of letting go is exactly the type of work I do with moms inside of Mom 2.0. We talk about the real moments when your kid is pulling away or pushing back or struggling or those times when they're making choices you would definitely not make for them.
And we work on building your ability to trust yourself to know when to step in, when to step back, and how to stop caring responsibility for your big kid's life. The power of this work is that you learn how to feel calmer and more confident and even more connected without needing your big kid to change first. You can find more information about Mom 2.0 through the link in the show notes.
My friend, you do not have to worry harder to be a good mom because your worry is not what keeps your child safe. And your vigilance also doesn't guarantee they'll make the right choices. In the same way, loosening your grip doesn't mean you're abandoning them.
It means you're learning to trust that their life belongs to them and that you have the capacity to handle what comes without trying to prevent every imagined hard thing before it happens. You can love your big kid without carrying their life on your shoulders. This is what letting go really looks like.
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.
