How emotionally invested should you be when they don’t follow your advice?
I spent a weekend in jail. I was 18 years old and I was picked up for underage drinking. Monday morning my mom picked me up outside the courthouse along with a friend who was unfortunate enough to have joined me for the weekend “rest”. I won’t ever forget my experience of that weekend and the endless hours of playing spades with other jailbirds. However, one memory stands above them all. It was mom’s answer to a friend’s question.
The weekend in jail was spent feeling pretty miserable in my heart because I was exposed as being this partyer and that wasn’t the image I wanted to portray or adults to see. When I got in mom’s car I was heavy with shame and guilt for what happened. I felt stupid. So what I expected was a long lecture from my mom about the error of my ways. That is not at all what I got. It was quiet in the car for a spell and then she started to laugh. Not the reaction I expected. I swear to you this has never happened before. I think my friend was taken back to because he asked why she was laughing. Specifically he asked “aren’t you worried about what people will think about you after what your kids did?” Mom’s immediate response was “I’m not worried about how well I parented until my kids are 30”. That one sentence was momentous for me. It created a paradigm shift in my thinking about my parents and parenting.
Twice a month I work with parents of adopted children. Parents who adopt children from dysfunctional homes often struggle with kids who do not take discipline well. The oldest is a budding teenager whose developing brain is getting him in trouble with the opposite sex and adults. Both of the boys display some variance of oppositional behavior. An ongoing discussion between mom, dad and me is the parents’ reaction to the bad choices the kids make. Between the two parents, mom is more reactive emotionally when her sons, currently the eldest, do something “stupid”.
The dad asks; “At what point do we recognize this behavior as normal and accept it? I don’t remember exactly how I was at his age. Who is to say I wasn’t the same way? Of course, he’s doing things that are getting him negative attention by his peers at school, but isn’t that part of this teenage awkwardness?”
This point was brought up because mom gets upset when the boys continue to do dumb things even when she’s told them they were dumb. He brought this up because the mom spends a lot of time and energy giving the boys advice. The sons still make those dumb decisions creating the very problems she warned them about. She feels upset and exasperated, thinking they are rejecting her good advice to the point of saying they don’t care. She believes she’s responsible for making them make good choices. She must try harder, yell louder, become more visibly angry, and take things away; whatever it takes to get their attention to make a change.
Parents are always giving their kids advice and it takes a lot of effort; especially, when the child doesn’t appear to want it. I know that a lot of parents want to help their kids avoid a bad situation or to educate them. I remember when I first got into therapy I wanted to be able to tell kids what I knew. I thought I was going to change the world with my wisdom. What a surprise when they did not listen but just went ahead and did what they wanted and then bad things happened. I was frustrated. Imagine if it was my kid that I was trying to help and they ignored my advice and even openly rejected what I said? I would be angry and upset. The stakes are higher now because surely it’s a reflection of my skills as a parent. I may even fear what will happen. Will my child end up in prison? Will they die? Will they be scarred forever? My hair is turning grey thinking about it!
What did my mom do to help her cope with her children? Faith was an answer but, more so, it was knowledge in human behavior and knowing what is in the immature mind. She had faith that all that she said and all that she taught and all of the rules and disciplines were going somewhere even if it may not have been evident at the time. Sometimes there is just too much immature human nature in the way before the spirit inside can use the wisdom. She continued to teach and she didn’t give up. It was a seed that was being planted and waiting to take root. There are just some problems that require the right conditions before that seed can grow. We aren’t God and we don’t truly know the condition of the human heart, soul and spirit to be able to predict when or how a person will choose to change their behavior. What we can do is plant seeds every day. We can create conditions where the seeds are being planted in soft ground and not hard ground. Hard ground is developed when there is no water, or nutrients (nurturing). Nurturing is relationship. Relationship allows seeds to be planted for the day when the right conditions are available. And when that day happens the child, regardless of age, has the seeds to draw from. There are prisons full of people who were never given seeds and very well may want to change but have nothing to draw from. I encourage parents to put aside frustration and continue to develop relationship even in the face of “stupid” behavior so you will have fertile ground to plant your seeds of wisdom. Do not let fear or anger of rejection spoil your relationship and make your child’s ground hard.
