Maintaining Parent Hope and Agency in Troubling Times
- drleoniewhite
- Mar 24
- 5 min read
Like a lot of people, I’ve recently watched the show “Adolescence”. The filming and acting were amazing and brought to life authentically a captivating, poignant story about an incredibly important issue/dilemma that families are all facing.
It was captivating, and also as a parent and a professional, very hard to watch.
There are a lot of posts going around at the moment about this show being a call to arms and a wake-up call, about how much parents need to learn, and what they need to do or do differently. And lots of sharing of information, like what incel means and what certain emojis mean. Typically, I love information sharing and I have appreciated reading these posts. I am a great believer in the power of knowledge and what as helping professionals we call psychoeducation.
But here’s the thing. Yes, knowledge is power … but only as long as it’s helpful, actually empowering, and supports your sense of agency instead of undermining it. And there’s a difference between knowledge and information. Information is just that … information. Knowledge is what you do with information. What you work out the information means and how it fits for you and your family.
The problem with information is that depending on how it’s delivered it can invite us as parents to let in feelings of self-doubt, self-blame, feel shame and not good enough, and direct our energy in unhelpful ways … sometimes resulting in even bigger problems and stuck patterns. Information can also invite a single story, or a blinkered view, and not take into account the complexity that is real life. This can shut us down instead of opening us up to possibility, to hope and to moving forward.
A post about Adolescence that I really appreciated was Steve Biddulph's on the 16th of March: “Oh my heck, this is a moving and tragic story, and very much directed at the harm done by online misogyny getting into the heads of such young boys. Mapped onto our deficiencies in raising boys in adolescence, which are cultural as much as anything - parents doing their best but not having the support around them, and schools failing to really engage with boys' worlds. (with wonderful exceptions). Gripping and heart-touching television that makes anyone who is a parent soul-search. We have to stand together to fight the poison that the internet injects into our cultural veins.”
Why did I appreciate this post so much? I felt that Steve spoke to the multilayered complexity of this situation: online misogyny, cultural problems with raising boys in adolescence, parents not having adequate support, schools struggling to engage with boys’ worlds and needs. Steve moved beyond a single story.
There are so many contributors to our kids’ and teens’ well-being and actions. And yet, even though it’s complex and complicated it can be easy to accept invitations to “parent guilt” and “self-blame” that rob us of our parenting agency and hope.
Yes, absolutely I believe life is about learning and growing and doing better when we know better, but I am worried that this show and the hype around it …. the information around it … may well undermine parent confidence, hope, and efficacy. Parenting has become an anxious endeavour in this century, interestingly with rises in anxiety correlating to the advent as early as the 1920s of parenting books and information and the growth of parenting information, books, manuals, classes, social media groups, and TV programs. It seems that as we get access to more information, as parenting becomes professionalised, parents can be even more susceptible to the pressure to “get it right” and direct all their energy toward their children.
And so I encourage you to be open to information and the call to help our young people, and then to take responsibility for yourself as a person and a parent, and to focus on what is in your control … which is yourself, working out your parenting values and principles and practicing acting in line with these, and working out how you will respond to your kids and teens when they inevitably push limits, have big feelings, and get online where unfortunately yes there is real risk.
How will you move forward with the information Adolescence has triggered instead of getting stuck?
How will you use your energy to maintain or grow your relationship with your teen? Because make no mistake, you can always grow and build your relationship no matter what age your teen or adult child is and no matter what has happened in life.
What I don’t want is for parents to beat themselves up, get frozen feeling overwhelmed by online dangers, get reactive and stuck in conflict cycles trying to protect their kids, or lose hope. What I want is for parents to remember this message from family therapist Harriet Lerner
“We are responsible for our own behaviour,
including the responsibility to be the best parents we can be.
We should be there for our child, seek help when we need it,
and never give up on a son or daughter.
But we do need to give up the magical fantasy that if we just do or say the right thing,
we can determine how our child will think, feel, and behave.
Nobody has that much control over a human being.”
Harriet Lerner, 2004: 127
I encourage you to ask yourself:
What do I want to do with the information generated by the show Adolescence (and future shows)?
How will I turn the information into knowledge that is helpful to myself and my family? (Given that I know my family best.)
How do I want to move forward with this information in ways that maintain hope?
How will I resist self-blame and parent guilt and move forward with family life in ways that are in line with my parenting values and principles, and my best hopes for myself as a parent?
How can I manage feeling stirred up about this so that I can be present and be my preferred parent self?
What do I know about myself and my family that will help me navigate what I am learning.
If you’d like more information on the control myth and what to do about it, you might find this blog helpful
And remember, as parents and carers, you are doing the best and hardest job in the world, and you deserve (and need) to look after yourself and practice self-compassion and self-care. This is the first era in time when kids are being parented in the smartphone age with instant access to the internet. We do have a lot to learn, and we do need to protect our kids, but in order to do this we have to look after ourselves, tend to our nervous systems when we get stirred up, resist invitations to anxious reactions, and access our best thinking and best self.
Hang in there, you are not alone.
Leonie :)
Dr Leonie White - Clinical Family Therapist and Psychologist
Helping people grow, connect and thrive in life’s unique journey.
Please note - this article is educational in nature and does not constitute therapy advice.
Please seek help from a professional if you require support.
Photo Attributions:
Adolescence photo - from Netflix site
Hope photo Unsplash via Wix
Reference:
Lerner, H. (2004). Fear and Other Uninvited Guests: Tackling the Anxiety, Fear, and Shame That Keep Us from Optimal Living and Loving. Harper Collins Publishers: New York.
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