Parents of Struggling Teens and Young Adults
Parents of Struggling Teens and Young Adults
It’s increasingly about them, our kids. They’re approaching 18, or are already, but it’s not easy. It’s about their choices and their wishes, but we’re the ones who are endorsing whatever that is by paying the money that floats it all. Do I intervene, do I do something, do I let it go, do I wait until they ask me, do I trust that they’ll be able to figure it out, can I rely on them knowing what they need when they really need it? If I push for them to take time out of college or high school, will I damage their prospects? Will it create problems in their academic record or resume, will they feel I messed up their social world? Will they be treated differently by others if they spend time getting themselves together? Will we be treated differently as a family by others? What if I ask them to do the wrong program? What if it doesn’t work? What if they lose trust in me? What if I lose the connection I have with them in trying to do the right thing?
These are how the double binds of parenting teenagers and young adults who are struggling tend to sound at 2am. One foot on the brake, one foot on the gas. Analysis-paralysis. Ironically, just feeling this way tends to create some of the feared disconnection and strife that you’re trying to not-create.
You are not alone. But you have to connect to others to find direction. Otherwise, you’ll stay stuck, while burning enormous energy worrying. Worrying without doing is a dead end. But, you might not be a worrier. You might be action oriented. You might feel held back by others’ uncertainty. Regardless of which end you tend towards, work through the following:
You need to know if there are any promises you made to yourself, maybe to do with the way you were raised, or about what kind of parent you said you’d be, planned to be, wanted to be. Think back to the way you were raised and take a few minutes to write all of this down:
Of your parents’ successes and failures with you, what are the events from which you derived wisdom, whether as something you wanted to do or become or precisely what or who you didn’t?
When you became a parent, what do you remember as your views or philosophies of what kids needed, what kind of parent you wanted to be, and who they needed to become as kids to make it in this world?
What are your takes on those things now?
What of these views, beliefs, expectations, and anticipations do you see yourself operating from?
What other views are missing from this list that drive you?
What of these patterns is working?
What does not work, even if it’s other people who make them not work?
Keep writing. Do you need to shift? Are you hanging onto ethics and principles that sound good, that maybe were good in another scenario but have stopped producing good in your current one? If it looks like you need to shift, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is correct. Commonly, it means that all parties need to find a new way of approaching each other, and perhaps life itself too. What lesson is Life, God, Experience trying to teach you? That’s the question to live into. And you know the lesson doesn’t finish until you’ve learned it.
