POWERLESSNESS. WHEN YOUR CHILD PULLS AWAY.
Welcome to The Small Jar, a podcast where we explore how to intentionally design the life that you want in the space between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 15.
Hello, friends. I want to take a moment to thank you for listening. I've been so happy to see the steady increase in listeners, and I am incredibly honored that you would spend this time with me.
I hope I'm giving you a chance to have many aha moments that make your days a little bit lighter, because sometimes things don't feel light and easy. They can feel heavy and serious and painful. This week, I experienced a lot of difficult emotions, and I think one of the most challenging has been a sense of powerlessness.
As I watch my kids grow up, I get to experience so many beautiful emotions. But on the flip side, I also feel a wide range of challenging emotions, like worry, fear, anxiety, and frustration. As I sit here thinking about where these emotions come from, they are all related to power, specifically not having power or control, feeling helpless, inadequate, ineffectual.
When we worry or feel fear, we are typically imagining a negative future outcome that we want to avoid. We don't want to feel pain or disappointment later, so we feel worried now. And as I've said before, this worry feels so important and useful, because if we can imagine all of the awful future outcomes, we can somehow avoid them, right? And when we feel frustration, we're typically looking at a situation and thinking of all of the ways it should be better.
And if we could just change the circumstances, we would feel better. We don't think about these situations as being related to power, but stick with me for a moment. I'm going to use an example of kids, but you could easily insert partner, boss, co-worker, friend into this equation.
So our teen and adult kids don't always act in the way we want them to act. Frankly, most adults don't always act in the way we want them to act. With our kids in particular, it can seem even more challenging and surprising, because when they were younger, we were generally able to make them act according to our wishes.
We would set the rules and the boundaries, and if our kids didn't follow the guidelines, there were consequences. For a long time, we've had a view about how our kids should show up, and we had a great deal of say about that. We had power.
And we don't really want to think of it that way, but if we're honest, if part of control is being able to influence others, we had it, at least on a relative scale. Now, of course, as parents, we're only using this power for good, for our kids' own good. We want what's best for them, after all.
The rules we set up are in their best interest. And by the way, we've known them their whole lives. We know what they like and what they want in life.
We remember the time that they said they wanted to be a doctor, or when they were really interested in writing stories. We'd like to think that we know who our children are, and sometimes they comply with us really well. But enter the teen years, and they stop complying.
And this doesn't even have to mean that they're going off the rails, doing drugs, and skipping school, although that is a possibility. Even more, they start questioning the idea of what is in their best interest in a way that starts to conflict with what we've always wanted for them. Now, this could happen at 13, or 16, or 21.
If this hasn't happened to you with your child yet, well, save this for later. When our children seek independence, it is perfectly normal for them to pull away and question everything, including our motives and rules. This can be as subtle as the independence they get when they first start to drive or leave for college.
As normal as it is for our kids to explore their independence, it can feel incredibly painful for us as parents. We experience worry, fear, anxiety, frustration, and of course, we attribute all of our negative emotion to what our children are doing or not doing. And so we're in a catch-22.
In order to feel better, we have to change what our child is doing, but we have little control over what our teen or adult child is doing. We're powerless. Powerless over them, powerless to feel better, powerless to change the circumstances, and ultimately, we believe, powerless to change the negative trajectory of the future, which is really why this is such a problem for us.
We think we know what's best for our kids. What is this dream for you? When you think about your child or children, what is best for them? If you could paint a perfect image of what their life could look like in the future, what does that look like? Dream big for them. Is that a particular college or caliber of school, a particular profession? Is that being in love with a particular type of person? Having a certain number of friends, a robust social life, not being lonely, maybe earning a certain level of income, being independent, self-sufficient, that they're healthy and safe, not addicted to substances, that they take care of themselves physically, that they're respectful to us, that they call us regularly, that they don't take unnecessary risks, that they are just happy, that they feel successful.
But notice if you really do this exercise, notice that this is a story that you have for your own child's happily ever after. Sure, it could be based on characteristics you feel you know about your child. This could even be based on hopes and dreams your child has actually communicated to you, that they want to become a lawyer, or have more friends, or to be more happy.
And of course we're going to hope that they won't be doing things that are clearly dangerous or life-threatening. Wherever the story of the ever after has come from, we want it more than anything for our kids. Think about what that would mean for you and your child if your dream came true for them.
Really think about it. If they got into the perfect school, and got the perfect job, and were making the right amount of money, and had all the friends they wanted, a romantic life of their choosing, all that aligned with our own hopes and dreams for them, that sounds like nirvana to me. Perfection.
We would see our child was happy and successful because that's what happy endings are all about, right? If they could achieve this perfect dream state, then we could know that they would be happy and successful, and maybe, maybe then we could stop worrying so much about their future. Returning to reality, how often has life turned out perfectly for you? Even if there are a long list of things in your life for which you are deeply grateful, is your current life a reflection of every single dream you and your parents had for you when you were 17 years old? In some ways, maybe yes. In other ways, I'll bet absolutely not.
In fact, there are likely some things about your life that you could never in a million years have predicted, some of them wonderful, some of them terrible. For example, my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was three. At the time, I thought the world was ending.
In retrospect, I've been grateful that this is a disease that is manageable. However, of all of the things that I worried about and spent time agonizing over during my boy's first few years of life, I never once worried about one of them getting diabetes. We can worry about a long list of terrible future outcomes, but that list will never be complete.
Without a doubt, there will be things that bowl us over and take us totally by surprise. Death, disaster, illness, disappointments. It's understandable that we worry about these things happening, but my point is that we can never predict exactly what might happen or when.
We have no idea, but we spend so much time worrying about specific scenarios and trying to avoid those specific scenarios. The vast majority of the things you worry about will never happen. Let's think of the other perspective, that there will be a long list of things that happen in our lives and our children's lives that are beyond perfect, beyond our wildest dreams.
We could never have imagined that things would work out as perfectly. I know I have always thought that about my children, notwithstanding the moments when they were crying and nagging and not complying. In the peaceful moments, when you think about the gift that your children are in your life, who could have ever imagined that this particular human being would come into the world in exactly the way that they did? Perfect, but beyond anything you could have ever imagined.
Imagine your own life as a series of roads. Each time you reached a fork in the road, you had to make a decision. You took a path that led you away from some other possible reality.
Maybe the decisions were where you chose to live, the profession you pursued, the person you married, whether or not you decided to stay home with the kids, the number of kids you had. There are some choices you can redo, certainly, but it would be literally impossible to return to an earlier fork in the road and remake the same decision to try to achieve a different outcome because you are a completely different person now that you've traveled the path behind you. If you return to redo an earlier decision, you will still be traveling a different road than the one you might have chosen earlier.
Thinking about this way starts to make you realize how powerful certain decisions can be. For example, if I hadn't gone to school where I went to school, I might still have moved to New York after college, but I might not have been asked by a friend I met in college to join the firm I joined where I met my husband. It's possible, but infinitely less likely.
My life would be completely different. I would be a different person. And here's the crazy thing.
I have absolutely no idea what that life would have looked like if I would have been happier or less happy. I wouldn't trade my current life for any other imagined reality. But my point is more that the life I've lived to date is the culmination of a series of twists and turns in the road that have led me to where I am now, and I could never have predicted the outcome.
It's kind of mind blowing when you think about it. I also think about all of the things I worried about in my teens and 20s. And frankly, the things I remember my parents worrying about for me, none of the bad things, not one of the bad things that I worried about happening or not happening back then have come true.
Not one. That's not to say that nothing bad has ever happened, but it just so happens that none of the specific things my parents and I worried about ever came true. My dad was convinced I was dating the wrong person in high school.
Convinced. There was no changing his mind. He was certain that my future with this person would be terrible, unacceptable.
But we broke up. And not because my father didn't approve of the relationship, we just grew apart. And despite all of his worrying, that terrible future, whether it would have been true or not, didn't even come close to becoming a reality.
The reason it's so interesting to consider this when it comes to our kids is that we can be so certain about what's right and wrong for our kids. Because we know how powerful certain forks in the road can be. We've seen that from our own lives.
If we marry the wrong person or married too young, we know everything about how that didn't go well. Or if we're successful in a certain kind of way, we for sure know how much hard work is required if our kids want to replicate that same level of success. And maybe it will require even more work on their part.
It all feels so heavy and serious. The stakes seem so high. When you are at your lowest point, worrying about your child, what's the category that you're worrying about? Their health and safety? Their social life? Grades in school? How they apply themselves at work? Managing their finances? Their mental health? Their relationship with you? Whatever the area that brings up the most fear, frustration, and worry for you, how do you wish things were different for your child? What would that perfect path look like if you could wave a magic wand? Go to that place.
What does it feel like for you when you imagine your child there? That they're healthy, safe, thriving, socially happy, connected to you. God, we think life would be so much better if we could just select that door for our child. Life would obviously be better for our child and better for us too, right? Because if we could know our child was happy, healthy, safe, and thriving, we could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
We could feel happy and at peace. Box checked. Mission accomplished.
Now think of this same category, the category that you worry about, but rather than going to the best case scenario, what's the worst case scenario? We think our child would be unhealthy, in danger, lonely, unhappy, unsuccessful, disconnected from us. In fact, this may be where you are with your child right now. We may not even need to project too far into the future.
We see our child struggling now. Or we predict that this is where they'll end up if they stay on their current path. And if things are really bad, it doesn't take long for us to go to that absolute nightmare scenario.
Death, suicide, addiction, complete loss of the relationship, loss of your child, it's agony to even consider. If it's even the slightest real possibility for your child, it's the worst thing we can imagine. We would be willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to avoid this pain for our child and for us.
If it were that easy, we would have all signed our life away to the devil many times over. The problem is there's no guarantee. There's no document you can sign or deal you can make that will guarantee your child or you will be saved from the worst case scenario.
And there is no amount of worry and fear that will make the nightmare scenario not happen, if that's what's destined to be. And look, I'm not saying that we don't try to protect our children or do everything that is actually in our power to keep our children safe. Absolutely not.
We will continue to do everything in our power to support our kids. But here we are again, back to the concept of power, powerlessness. Just as we could have never predicted when we were teenagers, the path that would have brought us to where we are now, we also have no power to predict the future outcome of our own child's path.
We have no power to predict the future. Who's to say that the very thing that is the most challenging to your child and you right now isn't the very thing that creates the most opportunity for them in the future? How are we to know? What if your child's current struggle is building the strength and resilience that will carry them through an even greater challenge in the future? We want to argue a bit though, right? But really, if they don't work harder in school, they will limit their opportunities. And if they don't try to make friends, they will certainly be unhappy.
If they don't learn to manage their money, they'll become deadbeats. If they try drugs, they will become addicted. They could die.
Not only that, you might be thinking, but I am absolutely not going to give up on keeping my child safe or encouraging them to do and be their best. Because even if I can't predict the future, I know their current path isn't the right one. I know better than they do.
They're blinded by their inexperience, their youth, or their infatuation with their boyfriend, or whatever we think might be clouding their vision of reality, their understanding of the dangerous line they're walking. To us, it can be very black and white. Make the right choice, success and happiness, wrong choice, failure, disappointment, and pain.
But what I want to encourage you to see is that that is your vision of reality. We see the world our way. Our children will see the world their way.
How can we really know who's right? And how can we possibly really know what our child is going through, what they're thinking? We imagine we know because we've known them their whole lives. So we interpret how we think they're thinking and have a lot of judgment about that, and them, if we're honest. And we impose our interpretation of what they're thinking and our certainty about what is best for them.
We impose all of this on them, meaning it shows up in every conversation or recommendation we have for them, the boundaries we set for them, the way we encourage them and verbally praise them. So as our children begin to form their own individual sense of who they are, it's inevitable that at some point their vision is going to diverge from our vision for them. Enter worry, anxiety, fear, frustration for us, for our kids, frustration, anger, defiance.
Both of us blaming the other person, thinking they are making me feel this way, just awful. But we're both feeling this wave of negative emotion because we are thinking the other person should show up differently, both of us doing the same thing. We want our kid to just listen to us.
Please, just listen. Our kids want us to just listen to them. Please, just listen.
We want our kids to act and show up in a certain kind of way because we're certain that if they just follow our guidebook, that the path to happiness and success will be more certain. But we might be wrong. We are actually probably wrong.
We are at least wrong in the sense that there is not one path to happiness and success. Our kids are trying to figure out their own path to happiness and success, but they actually may not be as limited in their view of what is possible for them as we are. They're not worried that every choice will end up with a binary outcome, door A success, door B failure.
They don't see their choices as black or white, and they're actually not wrong about that. They just want us to give them the freedom to make those choices. In fact, whether we like it or not, they are going to exercise the freedom to make those choices.
If at the end of our lives, our child has made choices that were not our choices, but they feel happy and successful, whatever that looks like for them, how can we argue with the path they chose? And if they don't end up feeling happy and successful, will we love them any less? Will we remind them we told them to pick door A? Or will we be there to support them no matter what? Because guess what? We all feel unhappy and unsuccessful some of the time, maybe even half of the time. So it's not even possible to save them from that reality. But maybe, just maybe, the trials they're going through right now that seem like the end of the world right now are the very thing that will make them strong enough to overcome the trials of the future.
How are we to know? So if we're powerless to predict the future and powerless to direct our children's lives in a way that will guarantee their safety, happiness, and success, how can we avoid feeling powerless? Do we just have to be resigned to that reality? Over the past few weeks, I've been challenged by a few things related to my sons. To bring a little bit of levity to the situation, I've been singing the refrain of Carrie Underwood's, Jesus Take the Wheel. I purposely sing it as off-key as possible.
It helps, actually. I was having a sleepless night worrying about my older son a week or so ago, and so I was wide awake at 2 a.m. when my younger son realized he had left his insulin kit at the gym. Luckily, it's a 24-hour gym, so we piled into the car in our pajamas, 2 a.m., drove to the gym.
As we drove, I sang Carrie Underwood's refrain, and we both laughed. Jesus take the wheel. The very thing that was causing me so much anxiety with one son was the very thing that allowed me to be fully present and available to help my younger son when he needed me.
Jesus take the wheel indeed. Whether or not you are religious, the message is the same. We are not in control of the future.
The only thing we have control over is how we show up, and the way we show up is entirely driven by how we interpret the circumstances of our lives. When we see our children, whatever they are saying or doing, and we think it's a problem and that there will be long-term negative consequences, we feel anxiety and fear. And when we feel this way, we try to control our children to avoid the negative consequences.
We try to convince them they're wrong, that they're doing the wrong thing, that they need to try a little harder, but we rarely win. We almost never get them to do exactly what we want them to do, and then we're left just feeling powerless and in pain, constantly worried. We are literally powerless to end our own pain because we're projecting their pain in the future.
It's insanity, but we do it to ourselves time and time again. The only way to feel better is to change them, but we can't change them, so we don't feel better. Catch 22.
So here's what I want to leave you with. The only thing we have power to control is our own emotional life. It doesn't feel that way because we're so used to thinking that we can't be happy unless our children change, unless they're happy, safe, and successful.
But we take our power back when we learn to differentiate where we have control and let go where we do not. We can advise them, we can encourage them, we can support them, but we can't control them. They might find happiness and success in a way that we could never have imagined.
Our children will find a path, their path, and we will love them no matter where that path takes them. We will be there to support them no matter where their choices lead. Happiness and pain, success and failure, life and death.
We find our power in realizing how beautiful that dichotomy is and in the possibility that we could be wrong about what's right for them. There is beauty in our powerlessness, and there is power in our understanding that. If you are interested in learning how to take the power back in your own emotional life so that you can feel better and show up in exactly the way you want to show up for your child, reach out to me for a free session.
You have more power than you think. Until next time, friends.
Thanks for listening to The Small Jar Podcast. Please visit us at www.thesmalljar.com, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at smalljarcoach, and subscribe to this podcast. Remember, you are the author of your story.
