Evolving Parenting

Thanks to some recent events in my family, I've been spending time learning about and thinking about the evolution of parenting. Evolution here can mean more than one thing, and in this case I'm going to focus on two meanings of the word - childhood-scale evolution and society-scale evolution. Parenting necessarily evolves on a personal time scale, simply with the aging of your child and you. Parenting has also evolved as our discovery, understanding, and acceptance of the human condition has evolved. Hopefully we can do some exploration together on these ideas.

Childhood-scale Evolution

It is likely not controversial to say that parenting an infant is significantly different from parenting a teenager. Babies enter our worlds with us at the center, with us as the sole providers of life-giving sustenance. There is an essential species-preserving connection in play. Lucky families can use the ensuing years to layer a blanket of loving connection onto that biological strand, but it isn't a requirement for the species to continue.

As the child grows, their capabilities expand. This extension and expansion of capabilities brings the child increasingly into the world as their own entity, increasing their sphere not only of understanding but of influence. Most adults, perhaps yourself included, have traveled through that process of changing from dependent to independent.

Those final steps before breaking free from parents, those last steps of adolescence, tend to be a source of conflict in the family.

From the parent perspective, the teen is reckless and needs to be protected from themselves.

From the teen's perspective, the parents are unnecessarily controlling and unjustly distrusting.

This is now an impossible problem, since both sides are arguing different problems entirely.

Perhaps underneath all of that is a foundation of parents who are increasingly upset by what seems to be an ever-increasing lack of obedience on the child's part. That disgust the parents are feeling toward their defiant child manifests as short tempers and the desire to clamp down EVEN HARDER to press the child into submission once again. This is where we win, right?

Adolescents, especially 16/17 year olds are on the cusp of living as independent adults. They have been progressively growing their own sphere of awareness and influence, as we all have. They are nearly ready. Just about there.

So why do we parents think that an obedience-focused relationship is the best shape of the relationship with the adolescent?

Do you have an obedience-focused relationship with other adults? Imagine being in a job and your boss took an obedience-focused approach with you (sorry if this is your current truth). No excuses, come in at 8 on the dot, produce X amount of work per unit time, and let me constantly dangle arbitrary-seeming penalties for messing up or wanting something different. No arguing, no disagreeing, no discussion.

Not sure about you, but I would not tolerate an environment like that.

So when the entirety of our relationship with our teens looks like a set of consequences, then we are setting ourselves up with a teen who hates our guts and wants nothing more than to escape the hellscape of our regime.

Perhaps consider next time you have an opportunity to build one step in your relationship with your teen, that maybe approaching them as the 94% adult they are [1] is more correct than trying to hold on to an old model that probably didn't even work well when they were little.

[1] 17 / 18 = 0.94444 = 94%

Connection Required

So What To Do? The key is connection.

Back to the worker/boss example, think about or imagine your favorite boss. Chances are that you felt respected by them, you knew they would listen to your ideas or concerns, and perhaps they were an active and enjoyable mentor. Spend a second thinking about that real or hypothetical relationship. What does it feel like inside you?

Can we be this figure for our adolescents?

That wonderful boss still had high expectations for you. You likely joyfully delivered, because you felt respected, appropriately challenged, and likely got helpful feedback along the way that helped you improve. Out of the trust and mutual respect that connected you both, you delivered your best, and that was understood and appreciated.

So what is the first thing you can do to start building this kind of relationship with your teenager?

It Starts In You

That boss who trusted you had to first trust herself.

One thing that holds us back is the fear of feelings. We may hold back from being who we are because we are afraid of what disapproval from others might feel like.

Similarly, we may hold back from showing who we truly are to our kids in order to maintain an image of what we think a parent needs to look like.

But doesn't it seem better to model comfort in who we are, what we've done, who we've been and who we are trying to be to our kids? To highlight our common ground and find connection in loving support and understanding?

We can connect through our shared experiences of being a fallible human, and we can be their model of a person on a path of humble learning, improvement, and forgiveness.

By showing your imperfection, sharing your stories of when you learned a lesson the hard way, and accepting that your kids are going to mess up and that's just a part of life, you model that it is ok to be a human. By trusting yourself enough to let your guard down, the doors to connection are opened.

Only through connection exists the possibility of healthy influence.

The Best We Can Hope For

Note the absence of the word "control" above. Parents who think they can control their teens are delusional or setting themselves up for failure. The anxiety around this lack of control leads many parents to unhealthy or unhelpful strategies, mostly centered around the goal of increasing their control over their teen.

Of course this focus is toxic and will only lead to disconnection between parent and teen.

So given the absence of direct control, our goal as parents needs to be one of influence.

Influence can show up in healthy and unhealthy forms. Some people might imagine influence as a form of control, i.e. influence via looming consequences. This is just a semantic mask over an ideology of control that ineffective parents will lean on.

Actual healthy influence is borne of loving respect. Would you allow yourself to be influenced by someone that you didn't think trusted or respected you?

Looking back on the "good boss" example above, think about what you feel from that boss that made you want them to be your mentor. That is influence by choice. Think of how you can show your teen those same feelings.

Only on that foundation can your influence actually be received.

The Role of Consequences

All the above isn't to say that we should throw away expectations, rules, and punishment. We still have the job of protecting our children, and we should do so as best we can. Rules and consequences are a part of the toolkit in the above, but the whole point here is that they are not the only tool we have as parents to keep our kids on the right path, and chances are consequences are likely not the tool we should be reaching for first.

By establishing a strong connection of mutual trust and respect, we give ourselves an opportunity to help our teens that we would not have otherwise. It gives us tools and steps to insert between transgression and consequence, and perhaps even lets us more skillfully communicate our lessons learned to our kids.

When boundaries are crossed and consequence needs to be experienced, this foundation of trust and respect can help soften that moment on both sides. Such a relationship likely has less yelling and slamming of doors, and a better respect for the consequence.

Connection Connection Connection

So tap into that image of the good boss. Think about the environment you can create inside of your house that enables that kind of connection. But before you do that, tap into what kind of environment you need to create inside of yourself in order to enable that. Start there, and the rest will naturally follow.