It’s sometimes hard to see our preteen, teen and young adult children clearly some days. The truth is that they are moving and growing so fast!
When our kids were toddlers they were also moving and growing so quickly! One of the early lessons that we teach toddlers is “Stop, Look, Listen” before crossing the street. They wanted their independence, and it was our job to help them understand how to stay safe while exploring and exercising their newfound awareness of themselves as independent humans. What a joy and wonder that was to behold! What were we teaching them? We were teaching them self-care.
Have you said “Stop” “Look” or “Listen” to a teen recently? Stop? With any luck they learn to come to a full and complete stop when they come to a stop sign. Look? They remember to look when they cross streets still, although parents often bemoan that what they seem to be looking at most of the time is a screen. Listen? To their parents? Do you hear me laughing? Sometimes they do, but often, since they know everything, listening to us is not a high priority for them.
And we go to this:
A Parental Career Shift
No hard hat required.
The parenting teens years are years when it is now our job to stop, look and listen.
Stop-Slow down, then full pause stop. Look at them! They’re growing up!
Look- Look at what is actually going on- not what might happen, not what is happening to other kids near or far, not what we are imaging might be happening that we don’t know about. Find the strength in the stop to look! There is a wonderous opportunity to see our kids, perfect, imperfect and all.
Listen-If we can take the time to stop and observe then we can ask them questions and actually listen to their answers.
If at any point in the above you feel overwhelmed, stop again. Look for a professional-an ed consultant, a coach or a therapist. Friends and family are great, but just as we don’t necessarily go to them with the things that we bring to a therapist, nor do we use them as our personal trainer, it’s important to understand that professionals have expertise and knowledge that friends and family might not. Often it is the really good friends, we have found, who suggest a professional- not because they don’t love you or are sick of listening, but because they understand the value of a specialist.
Feeling like you can do this? Give yourself time to practice these new job skills!! Rome wasn’t built in a day. Six pack abs that are created in a week aren’t honestly earned. Still to this day I read parenting books and think despairingly “Ohhhh, I so blew it!” And, did I mention? Our kids are doing great. When they’re not, they let us know. When parenting preteens and teens it is our turn to trust that we did okay. It is not their job to reassure us, and during these years? They will often be happy to do the opposite. And, that, while hard for us, is their job, to be independent, as we taught them to be so many years ago.
We are best served and better parents when we are aware of what we are teaching and modeling.
Proud Parenting Moments Change
Some of my very proudest parenting moments are when my kids call because they are having a hard time. And hard times will come if our children are living their lives fully. Relationships, be they romantic, personal or at work, can get sticky.
I have received two “Hi mom, I’m okay, but the car is not.” calls and as I write that I am just filled with gratitude, and yes watery eyes. The important part, they are alright and no one else was hurt either, is all that matters. In both cases the car was totaled. One car was ours, the other belonged to our young adult child. In one case the driver at fault was one of our beloved children, the other time our child was not at fault. Neither time were drugs or alcohol involved. The sun blinding the driver was the cause of one accident and the other one was probably a result of the driver’s age- which was ninety, not nineteen.
I do the best that I can to be a trustworthy, safe, non-judgmental, not anxiety ridden parent. It’s work, but it gets easier the longer you’re on the job and I succeed- most of the time. Are we accountable to ourselves? Are we modeling that? Are we stopping at stop signs? Am I looking honestly at my own behavior? Was that a rolling stop- literal or metaphorical? Am I willing to hear my kid point out my rolling stops without getting defensive? Do I see myself clearly? Do I see them now, as who they are?
Are we remembering our new position, our new role as our children grow up? The other day, a mom of a fifteen-year-old expressed a desire to “stop the insanity”. We explored her daughter’s urgency for an immediate answer and mom’s immediate response which was “No, so and so’s mom might allow that, but I don’t.” Full stop.
Mom was frustrated by being “put in this spot again and again and again…and again.” We brainstormed other options and she came up with a new response that she felt comfortable with “Do you have ten minutes to talk about this issue?” That was the “Stop”. If daughter got huffy as fifteen years olds sometimes do, mom would say “I appreciate your asking. It sounds like you’d like to come to some resolution, let me know when would be a good time for you and I will set aside time so we can talk? It would be nice for both of us to find a better solution that the one that we have now. Thank you for listening.”
When we do sit down to talk with our kids, it is our turn to listen. Personally, I still jump in too soon because I am still alive and still learning. When I don’t jump in, when I sit quietly and patiently, or quietly biting my tongue? When I stop, they speak and I can look on with love and I listen. That’s when I learn even more about that amazing human kid, no matter which kid.
The truth? Crossing the street of life? We never know what’s coming down the pike next. I can’t. You can’t. We can listen and learn and make plans – for ourselves.
Think of yourself at fifteen, twenty, how many things in your life today are exactly like you imagined they would be, how many things happened that were not what you expected?
Our job, as we parent preteens and teens, is changing. We kept them safe for a long time. Our new mission, should we be willing to accept it, is to make home a safe place to land as they go out and explore the world.
