“The power to parent is slipping away.”
Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate
It’s interesting to think about power in parenting and what if anything a parent has power over. After all, we simply can’t control another person, even our kids and teens, and even if it’s with our best intentions and the utmost care, concern, and love. But here’s the thing. When I say power, I don’t mean force, pressure, tactics, coercion, or rewards. And that’s because in parenting our “power” comes from our relationship.
It's our relationship with our kids and teens that gives us the opportunity to influence them and help them grow into the best possible version of themselves.
A solid, connected relationship makes all the difference in:
Supporting big emotions
Responding to spicy words and challenging behaviours
Setting limits and boundaries
Instilling values
Developing life skills
Developing resilience
Getting through tough times and challenges
Moving through losses
Enjoying your kids and your kids enjoying you
Developing an emotional language and emotional regulation
Self-worth
Identity development
Learning to make responsible choices
Learning to take ownership of mistakes and learn from them
Managing stress
Having good relationships throughout life
Relationships really matter for our kids’ and teens’ health, emotional well-being, and development. Relationships with kids and teens can also be really tricky and depending on what’s in your backpack of life it can be trickier for some of us than others.
What’s a backpack of life? The “backpack of life” is a backpack that we each carry around that can shape how we are in life, parenting and relationships. The “Backpack of life” is a helpful family therapy metaphor for what we carry with us through life – all the experiences and lessons life hands down to us and gives us over time. The positives, the challenges, the scary. Amazing experiences and adverse experiences. Our backpack of life can influence us directly and also subtly.
Find out more about the backpack of life in this clip
Here’s some common parenting relationship mishaps that get in the way of solid, connected relationships:
1. Lots of love without leadership and limits. As parents, we do need to steer the ship with loving, respectful leadership. This gets hard when things go awry, and especially if you are really worried about your child and if they have a health or mental health difficulty, but things can come unstuck without leadership, no matter how much your tween or teen tells you they know best 😉
2. Too much independence and disconnection. A sense of belonging really matters in family life and can get lost in the business of work, school, extracurriculars, and different competing demands. It’s also easy to become disconnected when times are tough, and you are finding your kids challenging and saying and doing things that you really don’t like and that can be hurtful. But it’s in tough times that our kids and teens most need us and when we need to step in as the bigger person with grace. Sometimes the biggest difference in navigating family life is made by finding ways to connect to our kids and teens as the wonderful, unique humans they are.
3. Forgetting to have fun and enjoy your kids. Sometimes stress, pressures, changes, and challenges get us focused on the “work” of parenting and life, but the “work” will go easier and smoother if we keep a positive connection and fun in family life whether in small moments sharing a joke, playing, or downing tools and having a trip to the park.
A connected relationship with your child or teen is a huge advantage to them in terms of resilience. Having a parent or carer who sees you, loves you and enjoys you matters. One way to build connection is to enjoy them.
Yes, really, just enjoy them!
And one of the most common mishaps I see in parent-child or carer-child relationships is an overfocus on behaviour that leaves everyone trapped in a conflict cycle feeling stressed and miserable. I often see relationships suffer when parents become stuck in a repetitive cycle of focusing on problems e.g., big emotions or challenging behaviours, and trying to control their young person’s behaviour or make their young person feel happy and calm. Let’s face it, we love our kiddos so of course we would want to do this. It makes logical sense…. but over focusing on problems just doesn’t work, for anyone.
Don’t get me wrong, emotions and behaviour need to be responded to and supported. But in the absence of a solid, connected parent-child relationship focusing on behaviour usually ends up in a conflict spiral and impacts both parent’s and kid’s sense of self worth and efficacy.
In the words of Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, “Parenting was designed to be power-assisted”. That power doesn’t come from parenting strategies or techniques to manage behaviour, no matter how logical they seem or how well they worked for the people who suggested them to you. The power comes from the relationship. And it’s the relationship that actually enables any strategy or technique to have a chance of working. It’s our relationship that helps us get our kids' attention, elicit their good intentions, activate their respect and secure their cooperation.
So I invite you to:
Take some time to connect to your parenting values and principles. These will act as your compass and help you navigate parenting.
Look after yourself and practice self-compassion. This will help you weather the storms of the best and hardest job in the world… parenting.
Practice observing yourself and noticing when you are being pulled into being reactive, losing connection to your parenting values and principles… and trying to control your child. Then practice settling yourself so that you have the brain space to connect to those values and principles and decide how to respond to your child thoughtfully and gracefully. It's your response you are responsible for, not a magical ability to "control".
Have fun with your kids and enjoy them regularly, in small moments like a joke or tickle, in bigger moments like going for a walk, out for a smoothie, or playing PlayStation together, and in whatever big ways fit for you e.g., a day at the beach, museum or mini golf, or binging your favourite shared show.
If you’ve been having rough times work hard to see through that to find moments to enjoy them. It matters and will make a positive difference. Kids need to have experiences of being the “apple of our eye”. In those moments when we are connected and enjoying them our brain is switching on important parts of their brain, and we are communicating our love in ways that help grow their sense of self worth and their resilience.
Remember your kids love you, even when they don’t show it or directly tell you otherwise. It’s easier to see the love your kids have for you when they are younger, and they actively seek you and want to connect. It can get harder to see the love they have for you as they become teens when their developmental task is to become more of an individual and increase connection with peers, but they love you just as much as when they were little and they need you just as much. Always work hard to not take it personally when your kids have difficult behaviours, big feelings, or use mean words towards you. Their brains are still developing.
At the risk of mixing metaphors, parenting is a rollercoaster with curveballs.
But always remember that while you can’t control the ride or what’s thrown at you, you can choose where to invest your energy. And investing in your relationship with your kids and teens might just give you the “power” you need to grow them up into great humans on the ride.
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:
Photos from Vecteezy Pro
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