I'm in the midst of realizing a big parenting mistake I made early on with my fifteen-year-old daughter. I want to share it with you because it seems to be a mistake that many of us are making. Many of our parents made it with us — and depending on our age, our grandparents may have made it with our parents — so it's becoming the norm, more so with each generation. The cost is huge: we are damaging our kids, and lessening the chance that they will grow up to be fully functioning, mature adults.
The mistake we're making is allowing our kids to bring each other up. We as parents are handing over this important job because our society — through the media and through cultural norms established over the last few generations — has made it hard to maintain our attachment with our kids past early childhood.
I recently realized this mistake, and how pervasive it is, when my daughter started showing signs of depression and anxiety. She's a freshman in a huge public high school and has some learning issues, so I knew the transition would be challenging for her. What I didn't expect was her intense need to be with her friends and her wish to disengage from me in every way possible. Okay, so she's a teenager, that's to be expected, right?
Wrong!!! They need us more than ever, not to hold their hand as we walk with them to school, but as a strong presence who they can look to for love, encouragement, and support. If we don't continue to have intimate moments with them, to encourage them to open up to us and to need us as their allies, they will look to their friends for this. The problem with this is that they still need to attach to adults — and if we aren't present and able to get past their rejection, they will become more and more fixated on their friends. This is fine to a degree, but the problem comes when they reject our wisdom and support for that of their peers.
Yikes! We are letting children bring up children in a wider and wider swath of our society. With the help of movies and TV shows that portray adults as idiots or worse, and the mass media that exploits peer imitation for profit, parents and other adults are being pushed out of kids' lives more and more.
For a lot of kids, like my daughter, who has always been very social and peer-oriented, it has become nearly impossible to have a healthy relationship with their parents at the same time as having one with their peers. I recently realized I felt like a jilted lover. She was so cold and unable to look me in the eye, had very little to say to me, and didn't want to do anything with me (unless it involved shopping or restaurant meals) — to the point that I felt so rejected I didn't want to spend time with her any more. Some of the thoughts that went through my mind were, "Fine, go hang out with your friends all weekend!", "Stay in your bedroom and don't come out unless you need food!" "Have your friends come over and stay in your room the whole time — I don't need them to say hello or goodbye — let alone talk to me!"
The thing is, I was not ready to accept this, especially when I realized that she was spiralling down, having a really difficult time emotionally. Fortunately, I read "Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers" by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Neufeld and Maté make it abundantly clear that we are failing our kids by being so hands-off: they can't mature, they become emotionally hardened, and more of them become bullies or victims or hypersexual. They cite studies that show how much healthier adolescent children are who have close relationships with adults. Reading the book has helped me see where I went wrong and ultimately how to regain my relationship with my daughter. She really does need me!
At this point, I'm carefully working to be emotionally available to my daughter when she asks for it, and she's asking me more and more. I've been taking every opportunity to spend time with her in ways that she's open to and when I catch myself asking pointed questions or nagging her, I back off. I'm working on ways to involve her more with other caring adults and engage her with family get-togethers and get-aways with just the two of us. It's going to be a gradual process, one in which I have to be patient, but I'm so glad I've begun to reclaim her! She's a wonderful person and she deserves to become a happy, secure adult.
So as your kids go to day care, school, or sporting events, find ways to maintain your relationship with them. Encourage mentor relationships and family gatherings and multi-generational social activities. Keep them away from technology for as long as possible and limit their time with friends. Seek help from a homeopath for the many emotional and physical symptoms that come up. Find a therapist, for them and for you - this is a stressful time in so many ways! I'm constantly learning ways to disengage from the drama and let my daughter have her emotions. She's learning how to manage them and I don't need to feel responsible!
And above all, love them and engage with them, even when they push you away!
Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 11:16AM