The Game Parents Cannot Win

Lina’s son gets out of the car, wearing the rumpled clothes he found on his bedroom floor, his open backpack dragging behind him. It’s been a rough morning and she’s just happy that he found his stuff and got to the car on time so neither of them would be late.

But as she watches him heading toward the school, a jolt goes through her and suddenly she feels intensely conscious of the other parents in the drop-off area.

She feels kind of sick to her stomach.

“I should have insisted he grab a clean T-shirt… Other parents will think he’s a loser and won’t want their kids to hang out with him… The teachers are probably stereotyping him already… People will think I’m a terrible mom. “

The thoughts keep spinning while she’s at work, later while she’s making dinner and especially when she’s trying to get to sleep. She tries to distract herself, to force herself to stop, but it doesn't work.  She runs through all the possible thoughts of the other parents, ranging from reasonable to irrational and highly unlikely. Inner voices tell her what she should have done at a volume that makes her feel nauseous. 

And in that state, she can’t remember that he’s been having trouble sleeping and really pulled it together that morning. Or that she's giving him the responsibility for his laundry and he’s still hit and miss with it. Her focus completely shifted to how he might be judged, instead of the good reasons he went to school looking like that.

When you care more about what other people think than what you think about your teenager, you end up putting a lot of your energy into worrying and rehashing. We all do it - prioritizing external validation over our own inner knowing - and we all know that it leads us into that frustrating pattern of overthinking and becoming more and more disconnected from ourselves. 

And what follows is anxiety.

Giving precedence to what ‘they’ think or want is a game that parents cannot win because it pulls you out of alignment with yourself. This could look like

• Comparing your kid to other kids (a.k.a. comparing yourself to other parents)

• Concentrating on what your kid wants and dismissing what you want

• Replaying a scenario for days

• Putting your needs at the bottom of the list

• Following the high school counselor’s suggestion even though it doesn't feel right for your kid

• Weeping or seething about how your young adult is never going to be as bright, nice, successful, etc. as other teens seem to be

• Seeking out more and more information about what you ‘should’ be doing as a parent e.g. listening to way too many parenting podcasts

• Trying to explain or excuse your teenager to others

• Secretly hoping that someone will have the magic answer to 'fix' your kid

• Strategizing for hours about how to satisfy the preferences of the soccer coach, biology teacher and your teenager’s boss all on the same day

• Doubting your parenting decisions, changing your mind, backing down

• (add yours here)

When you give more attention to what works for other people than what works for you, you will be pulled down the overthinking drain.

Practices for Focusing on Your Own Wisdom

1. What do I really think?

 I'm a synthesizer and peacemaker. Those qualities serve me well in most of my life but, in some scenarios, they get in the way of saying (or knowing) what I think. When asked for my opinion or preference, my brain does this thing where it automatically scans what’s been expressed so far and considers how to best promote harmony with others. When my sister says she prefers Thai food to Vietnamese, I feel an instant pull to agree. When my son says he’s on top of his finances and it's obvious he's not, there’s an urge to hold my tongue.

And so, I’m doing a simple practice when asked what I think: I roll my tongue twice around my mouth. It sends a message to my brain that we’re not just going to follow the same old pattern and go along with others.

Then I ask myself: What is the truest thing I can say right now?

2. What’s my intuition drawing me toward right now?

  Learning to hear our intuition is a lifelong project. When your teenager isn’t doing well and the doctor suggests changing their medication, how do you connect to your deep-seated knowledge and what you sense as right for your kid?

Stand or sit with your spine straight, take some gentle breaths and envision your head, heart and gut coming into alignment. Breathe into your belly, each breath creating a bit of space between your organs and warming its fluids. Put your hands on your belly and place your question there: What feels right? Then wait for a ‘gut’ answer that pulls you toward something that feels like a ‘Yes’ down in your bones.

Trying to please everyone is a game you cannot win, dear one. There’s no way to know what everyone else wants, needs or thinks. And trying to satisfy them only leads to tossing and turning, regrets, self-doubt, stomach aches, headaches and more.

How you can win is by remembering that you are the one who must decide how to live your life. You can place your attention on developing your relationship with your own impulses and honouring that deep down feeling of what’s right for you. 

And when you follow that inner guidance, you won’t need to spin and ruminate – because you’ll know.

Photo by Adam Kring on Unsplash