This was first published on KSL.com
Question: My teenage daughter rules the house and if she’s not happy, no one is happy. She is so difficult when she doesn’t get her way, it’s sometimes easier to just give in and not ask too much of her. I choose my battles and don’t let her walk on me about the big stuff, but I think I’ve become a doormat on the little stuff. She knows how to manipulate me with guilt to get what she wants. I hate it, but I don’t know how to change the pattern. Any advice? Answer: Most teens use a great deal of manipulative and attention seeking behavior on their parents, and many parents, due to their fears of failure and loss, get played. When your fears of failing as a parent or losing your child get triggered it’s hard to see the situation clearly and respond in a way that really serves your child. Instead, you may find yourself giving in, reducing your boundaries or even allowing yourself to be manipulated into doing or purchasing things in order to feel safe. (Obviously, there will be some of you, who feel very comfortable enforcing strict boundaries and saying no to their teens. This article is directed at the parents who get walked on or manipulated and may not see it.) We often see a cycle of guilt and fear in our Parenting Bootcamps, where parents, subconsciously create and contribute to cycles of manipulative behavior, as a result of their fear. Coaching these parents to function in a fearless state, stops this over-compensation and enables them to put well thought out, balanced and productive boundaries in place. These boundaries enable them to love and support their children without drama or being sucked into psychological games. Eric Berne M.D. published an interesting book in 1964, called Games People Play. In it he describes the subconscious games people use to make themselves feel better or get what they want. All parents should be familiar with these maneuvers teens (or adults) may use. Watch for these games in your home in your children and in yourself: (You may be where they learned it.) 1) The Shame and Blame Game. This is where you are critical or judgmental towards other people and project your shame (your fear of not being good enough) onto others, because if you can cast them as the bad guy, then you must be the good guy. At least that is what it feels like in the moment. In reality, putting other people down only makes you feel better temporarily, because focusing on their shame doesn’t really take yours away. If you have a teen that is critical and/or complains about everything and everyone, they may be having a self-esteem crisis, and they may need professional help to change the way they determine their own value. When they are more secure they will be less critical. 2) The Self-Pity Card Game: This happens when someone calls you on your bad behavior and you immediately play the self-pity card and talk about how bad you have it. You are really asking people to excuse your bad behavior and feel sorry for you instead of being mad at you. You may say things like, “I’m sorry, but everything is going so wrong for me right now, I’m having a horrible day, I have no friends, or I’m just so depressed. That's why I behaved badly.” They use self-pity to manipulate their way out of being responsible for their behavior. This is favorite of “drama prone” teens and works well on loving, caring parents. You must watch for this and validate their hard time, but do not remove their responsibility for their behavior. You can’t let this game work or you will encourage more of it. 3) The Sympathy Card Game: This happens when they constantly talk about how bad they have it or how terrible and/or worthless they are. This is a game to get validation from other people. People play this game on Facebook when they leave posts like “Worst Day Ever” but they don’t leave an explanation about what happened. They do this because they are subconsciously fishing for validation. This game is a subtle and immature way to get attention. If you see this in your teen, it is a sign they need some help with their self-esteem though and trust us, you cannot fix this with compliments or praise. It’s a deeper issue and may require some professional help to change the way they value all people and themselves. 4) It’s Their Fault That I Can’t… This is about blaming others for making it impossible for you to do something you should be doing. Teens often blame the teachers for their bad grades, their parents for their bad attitude and their friends for their sadness. The payoff here is they aren’t responsible for anything. You must insist that your teen be responsible for everything they do, think or say, and for every situation they have created in their life. If you don’t they will become a powerless victim and spend their entire life there. Again, this may require a professional help (or someone other than you) to show them the truth or teach you how to handle being the bad guy. 5) You Don’t Love Me: This is a common game with teens, as it is really good for manipulating parents. Parents feel guilty (especially if they have been working long hours and already feel like they are letting their family down) so they have to give the teen what they want, to prove their love. If you are seeing this in your home, don’t give in on this one, but show an increase of love and attention in a healthy way somewhere else. Here are some questions to ask yourself to make sure you have healthy boundaries and a healthy connection with your teen:
When you don’t know what to do… just ask questions and listen. Don’t say anything but, “Tell me more. Help me to understand what you are feeling.” If you haven’t created a safe place or listened well in the past, you may have to apologize for that and promise to just listen now. Then, validate your child’s feelings, while at the same time enforcing strong boundaries as to how you and the family must be treated and what behavior is appropriate. Good communication, trust, and mutual respect (and seeking professional help early on) are the keys to a healthy relationship with your teen. You can do this.
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This was first published on KSL.com
Question: My husband and I have six children and have always had a happy home, or until the last few years anyway. We have always been a close family but the last few years we can’t seem to connect well with our older kids. I understand that the changes of puberty and high school can be overwhelming but my older children seem to be angry, disconnected and impatient with us and their younger siblings. What can I do to diffuse all this hostility and connect my family again? Answer: The real reason that anyone behaves in a badly is they are scared of failure — not being good enough, or loss — the fear of missing out, being mistreated, or being taken from. It is these fears, which cause us and our kids to feel grouchy, angry and even mean at times. During the teenage years, children are experiencing more fear and insecurity than ever before. They are also going through a natural process of starting to pull away from the family, so they can eventually become independent adults. The two of these factors together can make for a great deal of moody anger and rude behavior. Anger, frustration and negativity that come across as misdirected rage towards the family, are really suppressed fear. When anger and fear are shut down, not accepted or pushed aside they can be suppressed, which can lead to exaggerated and explosive behavior. Just like happiness and sadness, frustration and anger are emotions that require validation and time. We must validate the feelings that come up in our older children, listen to them, and honor their right to be experiencing this and feeling the way they do, instead of just correcting them. They must be allowed to be angry, scared and grouchy at times. However, guidance is often needed to teach teens how to process and express their anger in acceptable ways. You must understand the huge boil of emotions they are experiencing at this time, and focus more on connection than correction. Suppressed anger can look like these three behaviors in your teen — denial, withdrawal and brooding.
Suppressed anger and the behaviors associated with it can be corrected as you move your teen out of fear into greater trust and love. There is a great worksheet on our website that steps you through an Emotional Autopsy to process emotions. I highly recommend you get it and look for ways to show your teen how to use it. If they are interested in trying it, take a picture of it with your phone and text it to them. (But only do this if you have asked if they are interested and say they want it.) You can also help them to experience less fear by teaching them (by example and the things you say) the two important principles below, which help lessen fear.
Another great way to connect to your teen is to make sure you get some one on one time with them every week. Make this a time of fun and be engaged in learning about your child’s life and mindset, instead of just approaching this time as disciplinary correction or getting to the bottom of their issues. Take them out for food (they love that) and make sure there is no lecturing or interrogations. This is a time to listen and validate their right to be where they are and think they way they do. You might want to make sure you have our Validating Communication Worksheet and study it beforehand so you handle this right. Like all of us, children and especially teenagers want to be heard, accepted and acknowledged. Listen to them and invest in the relationship. Speak about your concerns from a place of vulnerability (sharing your fears) instead of your authority and really make the effort to show up consistently each week. Share with your child how you see every situation in your life an opportunity to learn and how this helps you come out of fear and into greater trust and love. Some great questions to ask teens when you are together include:
Be patient with these conversations and drop your expectations or attachments to a specific outcome. Trust that with greater connection your child will feel safer and safer. Anger and misdirected rage take time to heal. Your child may also need some professional help to gain some new skills for dealing with their thoughts, emotions and experiences at school. Check out some of the coaching options we offer for parents and teens. Feel reassured that the foundations you continue to lay down for your children are never in vain. No matter what the age of your children, they watch you and your behavior as an example and crave connection and validation from you. Do your best to make sure your language and your behavior heal instead of hurt. Commit to validating and continue to pour into your relationship with them. Here is a link to access many other articles and tips for dealing with teens. You can do this. Master Life Coaches Kimberly Giles and Nicole Cunningham run www.claritypointcoaching.com and offer coaching workshops and classes for both parents and teens. Question:
Starting school this year has been rough for my son. He has terrible anxiety and stresses over everything. We can’t seem to convince him, no matter what we say, that his fears are unfounded and he is OK. He is having some panic attacks too, and I’m starting to wonder if he needs medication, but I really really don’t want to go there. Do you have any suggestions for helping him have less anxiety? Answer: There are some things you can try before resorting to medication. I’m going to give you suggestions that could help change your child’s fear-based thinking on both the conscious and subconscious levels.
You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and is a master coach and speaker. Question:
I read your article last week about parenting and I have a question about it. I can see that I am control focused and I have probably damaged the relationship with my kids because of my high expectations and need for obedience. I think they have lost respect for me too, and think they can never do anything good enough. This has even made them a little passive aggressive, so they tell me what I want to hear to my face, then turn away and do whatever they want. It’s almost like in trying too hard to have control, I now have even less. Is there anything I can do at this point to turn this around? Answer: First you must ask yourself if you want control and obedience, or if you are willing to let that go, for self-driven, responsible, wise children who respect you. It’s super easy, as a parent, to want obedience and control, because these make you feel safer, but in the end I think you will agree that you don’t really want blindly obedient sheep who are easy to control. You want strong, wise, independent children who make good choices for themselves — right? The reason you subconsciously like control and obedience is that when children misbehave, it triggers both your core fears, failure and loss. Bad behavior makes you afraid you’re failing as a parent (or afraid what others will think of you) and it creates your greatest fear — losing them. So, controlling them seems less scary. When these fears get triggered in you, your autopilot subconscious reaction (that comes before you have a chance to think) is usually to get angry, emotional, controlling or self-focused. In this place you aren’t even capable of seeing what your child needs in that moment. You are too focused on you. In this place you usually yell, control, punish or push to get whatever you need to quiet your fear. When you parent like this (from fear) your children will feel it and they know this whole thing is all about you and what you need to make you feel better. This isn’t about them or coming from love. This is what makes them lose respect for you. Fear is never respect. Fearless strength, wisdom, love and compassion are. I think you would agree that blind obedience isn’t really what you want. What you really want are happy, wise, well-balanced, mature children who respect you and have a healthy connection with you, which gives you some influence in their lives to help them. So here are some tips to create that: 1) If you want your kids to respect you, you have to be respectable. Respectable means you have control over your subconscious reactions and think before you speak. It means you are mentally and emotionally mature and wise. A respectable parent is a conscious parent, who is showing by example that good decisions pay off and create happiness. You must be someone who practices what you preach and deserves respect. If you struggle with this, I highly recommend some coaching or counseling to work on your fear issues and learn some tools and skills for making your own life better. 2) If you want your kids to respect you, you must be respectful. This means you show them the same level of gracious, kind, mature behavior you would use with peers or adult friends in your life. (But this isn’t about being a lenient friend instead of a parent.) It’s about treating every human being, even the ones in your house, with courtesy and respect, honoring their value as a human being as the same as yours. This means you will ask questions about what they think and feel, and really listen and even care about their opinions. It means you will include them in the process of setting rules and their consequences, because if they have a voice they will respect you and the rules more. If you want respect, you must give it. 3) Watch your attachments and make sure your attachment to “the connection you have with your child” is more important than your attachments to anything else. Most of us have some unhealthy attachments and care too much about tasks, things, ideas, control and approval. These attachments sometimes cause us to put these things before people. On our psychological inclinations chart (on my website) you will see that many of us are overly attached to these things: Ideas — We only feel safe if our family members fit the expectations or ideas we have about what they should be or do. Anything outside of that ideal feels unsafe. So, you may need conformity so badly you may hurt the people or sacrifice a connection for it. Your children may start to resent your ideals as more important than they are, which means they will further reject it. Approval — This means your sense of self-worth comes from what others think of you and/or your children. An attachment here will again make children lose respect for you because your neediness and people pleasing come from fear and weakness, not strength or confidence. Achievement/tasks — This means you attach your value to your performance and you are overly focused on doing everything and doing it perfectly. This may mean you put the projects you do for your family ahead of actually showing up for them emotionally. You may see sitting with them, asking questions and listening, as lazy or less important than cooking, cleaning or working. 4) Remember your children are here to teach you every bit as much as you’re here to teach them. Every problem, power struggle or misbehavior is your perfect lesson or chance to grow. I believe your specific children were sent to you, because your unique challenges are exactly what they need to grow. There are no accidents, and though you aren’t a perfect parent, you are apparently the perfect parent for them. If you mess them up, it will only be in the perfect way they needed to be messed up, so they can spend the rest of their life learning, growing and processing these perfect challenges for them. 5) Be authentic, vulnerable and real with your kids. Let them see you make mistakes, apologize, and learn. Show them you’re a struggling student in the classroom of life too. Let them see you get hurt, forgive, and find balance between caring for yourself and caring for others. Don’t be a drama queen though and subject them to emotional immaturity, but do let them see your heart. 6) Do more listening than talking. Have great conversations that don’t turn into lectures. Listen more because you are actually interested in understanding them, not just guiding them. Help them to explore their options in each situation and figure out why some choices are better than others. Tell them they are smart and should make good decisions for themselves, not for you. Have great conversations about what it means to have integrity, and be honest and responsible. These conversations aren’t about control, though, they are about being authentic and sharing why you have decided to live the way you have. Always ask permission before you talk, share or advise your kids. “Would you be open to letting me share something I’ve learned with you?” This is a great permission question, but honor it if they say no. 7) Understand your child’s unique personality, psychology, fears and values. You can do this by asking lots of questions or you can get some professional help to discover your child’s unique psychological inclinations. Armed with this knowledge you will know exactly what they need. You can rebuild a healthy connection with your child, but you may also need to sincerely apologize first. Explain how your fears of failure and loss have made you overly attached to control, approval, ideas, task or things. Let them know you are now committed to change that. Work on being more respectable and respectful and you will earn back their respect. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is hosting a parenting workshop on Aug. 25. Please visit her website for information. Question:
I have a son who is a very difficult child, and I really struggle to get along with him. That’s probably an understatement. He makes life harder than it needs to be and fights us on everything. He doesn’t do anything until I lose it and get mad or mean. I love him but I don’t like him, and that makes me feel terrible. Any advice on this would be great. I want to have a good relationship with him, but I don’t know how to change this. Answer: Children (and people in general) are easier to understand than you think, and if you can understand or get clarity around what makes them tick, you will then know exactly what they need and how to motivate and get along with them. In my work I have found there are 12 psychological inclinations or types of people (you can learn about them here), but to make understanding your child super simple in this article, I will divide people into two types, which apply to both parents and children:
Think about this for a minute, because you might already know. If you are a control-focused parent, you may be overly focused on tasks or things. You may like order and structure and everything in its place. You may run a tight ship and expect obedience. You may lose you temper easy or feel taken from, offended, walked on or mistreated quite often. You may have a victim mentality, at times, about the way life has done you wrong. You may be a perfectionist and be critical when things don’t go the way you think they should. You may have high expectations and might get frustrated or angry when a child doesn’t do what you ask and quickly. You might feel disrespected and try to demand respect. You might behave badly when you feel out of control. (All of these might not apply to you, but some of them will.) If your child is control-focused (which sounds like yours), you probably have power struggles every day. These children want freedom more than anything else. They may want or insist on making their own choices as much as possible. They might manipulate you to get their way, especially if you are a validation/approval focused parent. Control-focused children may also get passive aggressive if they can’t openly defy you without getting in trouble, and this could make them hard to like. These kids want respect and agency to find their own path, and they will often fight you for it. If you are a validation and approval focused parent, your greatest fear is failure, looking bad and/or criticism or judgment (not being liked or good enough). You may be quite strict because you are trying to prevent looking bad to others or you could be overly lenient and avoid discipline so your child will like you. If you are like this, your child can subconsciously feel your insecurity and might use these to manipulate you or disrespect you, especially if you get emotional or dramatic when you feel disliked or not good enough. You could also be overly focused on earning your value through your appearance, performance, property or popularity, and your children may feel they come second to your needs for yourself. They could feel this and resent it. Does this sound like you? If you have a child that needs validation or approval, they might do anything and everything to get your attention. If good behavior doesn’t work, they might try bad behavior. These kids need a great deal of praise and reassurance, and if they don’t get it or aren’t feeling important or special, they could act out. If you are a control-focused parent, who is often frustrated when not obeyed, you may be prone to frustration toward your child. To the approval-seeking child, this may feel like disapproval. If they feel they can’t ever please you, they may give up trying. They may fight with you because they resent not feeling more important. If you are an approval-seeking parent, you might make everything about you and forget to validate your child enough. Once you have figured out which dynamics are in play in your home, here are some tips for dealing with each other:
You can create this in your home if you accurately figure out what you and your chid need and focus on giving more of that every day. You will be surprised how quickly they respond and behave better when their needs are met. If you need additional help with parenting skills, I highly recommend getting some professional help. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and teaches parenting workshops. This was first published on KSL.COM
Question: Our adult daughter claims we have done more to our son than we have done for her. This is really hurtful to us, because we feel she has not appreciated what we have given her and her family. We have helped them each with different things over the years, but we are retired, in our mid-sixties, and we have bills too. We must watch what we spend. Yet our daughter feels we didn't do enough for her, she keeps bringing up the fact we gave her brother more. We don’t think this is true at all. How do we deal with this jealousy? Answer: Young children are often overly focused on whether things are fair and equal. They cry and complain if their siblings gets more than what they got. Ideally when they are very young is the best time to nip this behavior in the bud. Recently a friend of mine, Scott Bean, shared a great way to teach this to children. The first time a child complains that their siblings got more ice cream than they got, with empathy and love say, “It sounds like someone is having an appreciation problem. If you don’t appreciate what you get, then we’re sorry, but you don’t get any (and take their ice cream away). Let them know that in our home we care more about appreciation than fair. Life will never be fair, but we must always be grateful for what we have. It is your job as a parent to make sure they understand how the world works and it's never going to be fair, but we will each get whatever is the perfect classroom journey for us. (I would let them assume their ice cream is gone for a while, before asking if they are ready to appreciate what they had and give it back.) Obviously, this won’t work with adult children. With adult children all you can do is be very clear about who is responsible for each part of this appreciation problem and look for the right time to explain that ungrateful and complaining behavior won’t create what they want. Your main job or responsibility here is to find the right balance (that you feel comfortable with) between helping your adult children on occasion and taking care of yourself. You will know you have struck that balance right when you feel good about what you are giving and don’t resent or regret anything. If you are feeling “taken from” or unappreciated, then you are probably giving too much. Your gut will know what you feel good about. Also make sure that you aren’t carrying the responsibility for their financial problems. The responsibility for all their needs must stay on their shoulders with an occasional gift of help from you, if really needed, and if you can afford it. Your other job is to manage your feelings and reactions to their ungrateful behavior. No matter how they behave or what they say, your job is to stay calm, happy, wise and peaceful. If they are jealous or feel short-changed, that is not your problem or your business. It is not really even about you (though it may feel that way). It is really about their scarcity mentality, fear of loss and insecurity. Ultimately (since they are adults) it is not your problem to fix those — it’s theirs. You may ask permission on occasion to see if they would be open to an observation. If they are open, you can kindly point out that keeping score and complaining isn’t going to create what they want. It makes people feel unappreciated, which makes them less motivated to help you in the future. Explain to them that wild appreciation for everything you’ve done would work better. But whether she gets this or not, you are going to keep being fearless, loving, strong and confident that you are doing what you feel good about doing, from a space of wisdom and compassion. All that matters is you feel good about the help you have given — that must be enough. It is your daughter’s job to work on herself and her scarcity mentality. Fortunately she is in the classroom of life and the universe will keep bringing lessons until she learns how to be happy for others instead of jealous of them, and how to appreciate what she has instead of complaining about what she doesn’t. Trust the universe to this job. If your daughter blames you or is angry with you, again that is her problem, not yours. Your job is to stay loving, supportive and kind. Her job is to process disappointment and learn to solve problems on her own. It would be sad if she pulls back from you and gets defensive, but you reacting and feeling offended will only make it worse. Stay loving and happy, and let her process whatever she feels and work through it. There may be some people who read this article who have jealous feelings themselves. If you struggle with a scarcity mentality, here are a couple of life coaching exercises you can do: 1. Write your feelings on paper and describe them in detail. Instead of trying to stuff these feelings, embrace them fully and feel the pain they create as acutely as possible. Then ask yourself, “What are these feelings here to teach me? What kind of behavior are they encouraging? Why does my sibling’s happiness threaten me? Do their blessings take anything away from me? Does feeling jealous serve me at any level? Does it motivate others to help me? What good do these feelings do? What other options do I have?” Write the answers to these questions on paper. 2. Separate the ego/scarcity/fear part of you that likes jealous feelings from the spirit/abundance/ love part of you that doesn’t want to be here. Which side do you want to let drive your life? Who do you want to be? In every moment, you get to choose your state, and there are only two options. You can live from a place of love, abundance and peace or you can live from fear, scarcity and discontent. How do you want to live? You must consciously make this choice on a daily basis. Write down in detail the kind of person you want to be. 3. Make a written rule against comparing yourself with other people. There is no level where comparing serves you. Make an official policy against it and commit to choosing gratitude instead. 4. Remember life is a package deal and each person's journey comes with some blessings and some trials. If you had another person’s blessings, you would also have their trials. Make a list of all the problems you are grateful you don’t have, this will help you appreciate your life. 5. Carefully choose your thoughts — every thought matters. Choose to think only positive, loving thoughts about yourself and other people. In doing this you are choosing abundance and blessings for yourself. Choose to see the world as abundant and overflowing with enough for all. 6. Choose gratitude for what you have, every minute of every day. Gratitude is one of the most positive emotions you can choose. When you live from a place of gratitude, you are accepting all love and blessings from the universe and opening the door wide to receive more. Also remember, there are many people on the planet who have less and would be terribly jealous of you. Count every small blessing and embrace gratitude. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach, speaker and people skills expert. This was first published on KSL.COM
Question: Our adult child has the worst time making decisions and he hates change. He is always calling us or his siblings for advice on every little decision he has to make. We don’t want to refuse him, but we don’t want to keep making all his decisions for him. He is a great guy, but doesn’t date much either, and I think it’s related to not being comfortable making decisions about who and how to date. How can we help him gain confidence and still show our love? Answer: This is a good one for all parents. When our children are young we obviously must help them, but as they grow we must start empowering them to make more and more decisions on their own. This can be scary for parents because we don’t want our child to make mistakes, but we must let go if we want them to become independent adults and eventually leave us. When your children become teens they usually start fighting for more independence and control. This rebelliousness is supposed to happen and is a natural part of their growth. It must happen if they are going to break away from you some day. It is during this time (and when they are young adults) that you must stop giving advice, instructions and orders and start teaching them to think for themselves. Teaching independent thinking takes more time though than giving advice, so you will have to make a commitment to this. You will also have to become a little dumber. What I mean is don’t be so quick to give them answers and share what you know. Pretend you don’t know and ask them questions to help them think through the options. Ask them what they think? Brainstorm with them and bounce ideas around, and if necessary throw out some suggestions, but make them figure it out and decide what is best for them. Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.: This is what you must do. Be involved to show you care, but play dumb and force them to think through the options and outcomes by themselves. Ask permission to share the principles below (if relevent) and they will take the fear out of the decision-making process. There is also a great Decision Making Worksheet on my website you could also give to help them make confident decisions that match with their personal values. You might want to use it too. Principles that lessen the fear in decisions:
Here are some other tips for empowering others:
If he still struggles I would recommend some life coaching with a certified coach. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach, speaker and people skills expert. This was first published on ksl.com
Question: I have a teenager who I am struggling to have a relationship with. She is making bad choices, which is making me overly controlling, and this is driving a wedge between us. I don’t feel that she respects me and is openly rude. I want to feel closer to her, but my questioning and trying to connect just makes her angry at me. She is almost 18, so I don’t have much more time with her in my home. I really want to repair our relationship. Do you have any advice on how? Answer: You can build a stronger, more loving and respectful relationship with your teen and have more influence on her, if you will let go of your fears and expectations, and become a safer space of love, support and respect for her. Sometimes instead of providing guidance and leadership we just create power struggles and our relationships become full of anger, punishment and fear. When we parent from fear we tend to be overly controlling too. This type of parenting quickly makes you the enemy and pushes your child toward their friends for support. What your child needs from you is loving leadership. This is guidance with respect and it is more about empowering and encourageing them to be successful, than forcing them to do what you want. Think about your relationship with your friends or coworkers. If you showed up in these relationships focused on control and getting these people to be the way you want them to be, these people wouldn’t like you either. Of course parenting is different and requires stewardship, teaching and guiding, but this can be done from a place of respect and love, and you will have more influence on your child when you have a safer relationship of mutual respect. To be a loving leader parent you must remove the fears that cause you to be controlling, angry or critical, and you must change your parenting mindset to one of support and encouragement. Here are 8 steps to help you:
You can do this. This was first published on KSL.COM
Question: Our son was raised in the LDS faith and he has chosen to go the other direction and be in a same-sex relationship. What can we do as parents in this situation? He has gone so far as to take his name off the records of the church. Can you tell us how to help? Answer: There are some ideas, perspectives and tips, which may help you to experience less fear and more peace around this situation. 1) Work on your fears of failure and loss. You must work on eliminating your fears, because fear makes you selfish and incapable of love and love is the path to peace in this situation. The following points should help you experience less fear and clearly see what a love based approach could look like. 2) Remember human value is infinite and absolute. We are all irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, infinitely and absolutely valued, divine, children of God — all of us — without exception. We all have the exact same intrinsic worth as everyone else, no matter our beliefs, religion, race, sexual orientation or anything else. This means that your child and his life and choices don’t affect your value or his. You are not a failure and have no reason to experience shame about this. Everything that happens is just a lesson on love, but none of the lessons diminish your value. If you remember this idea you will have less fear of failure (fear that you aren’t good enough). 3) The real point and purpose for our being on this planet is to learn love at a deeper level. Everything God has inspired, created or allowed to be created here is here is meant to teach you, grow you and stretch you past your comfort zone, expanding the limits of your love. God created this universe and all the people in it with many interesting differences (including race, religion, culture, ideology, sexual orientation). Everyone on the planet is here (in the classroom of life) to both learn to love and to teach love. Situations like yours challenge you to stretch beyond the limits of your previous loving abilities, they help you learn love at whole new level. If you trust the process of your life and see everything as a lesson, you will have less fear of loss. You will accept your journey as your perfect classroom and not resist this experience as much. If you embrace the lesson as a beautiful opportunity to grow, you will find peace. 4) Whatever you do, don’t let fear divide you or push you away from your child. Make sure your love is bigger than your fear. God created all of us the way we are for a reason. Your job (with this now adult child) is to love, be compassionate, open, accepting and kind. This means embracing your son and his partner too, like you would any other child in your home. Spend the same amount of time with them, listen to them, care about them and don’t let the differences get in the way. If you have trouble with this and your fears of failure or loss overpower you, I highly recommend working with a coach or counselor, who can help you reframe and lessen your fears. 5) Remember love means respect. You can’t have real love without it. When someone has different beliefs than yours, respect means treating them the same way you would treat someone who agrees with you. You must honor their right to believe what they believe and respect their own path to goodness and God. 6) Love means caring for their needs and happiness as much as you care about your own. What your child needs right now is acceptance, support, validation of his worth, and reassurance. Giving him these must be a priority over his meeting your expectations. Trust God that all will be fine in the end, and if it’s not fine - it’s not the end. Trust that the God you believe in is loving and full of grace, wisdom and forgiveness. Trust you have nothing to fear because God is the author of everything. 7) Give up your need to be right. If you insist on taking the stand that your path is right and his is wrong, you will not leave space for a good relationship. You can believe that you are right in your mind — but you must focus outwardly on the beautiful, loving, kind, compassionate, hard working (or whatever other virtues your child has) person your child is. Remember that though he is rejecting your religion, he is not rejecting goodness, love or light. Just because he isn’t on your religion’s definition of the right path, he is still a loving, kind, giving person whom God loves every bit as much as he loves you. The bottom line is you must lose your fears through trust and love, and make sure your child feels respected, admired, appreciated and wanted every day. If you do this you will also like yourself better too. I promise it will feel right. Love without condition, listen without intention and care without expectation. This is the way to peace. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular life coach, speaker and people skills expert. This was first published on KSL.COM
Question: Our daughter recently told us that she no longer believes in God and hasn't for a long time. This came as devastating news to us. Although we were aware that she hadn't been attending church, we thought she was still a believer. I have read your article on When your child rejects your religion every day since and it has been helpful, but I am still finding myself having moments of great sadness, anger, and even panic. Your advice makes sense in my head but my heart is broken. I would like to understand how she came to this conclusion but don't want to put her on the defensive. The result is, I don't contact her as much, because I'm concerned my emotions will spill out. I am praying for her many times a day, as well as for the rest of our family. Any additional advice would be appreciated. Answer: If you are still experiencing sadness, anger and panic, are pulling back and even struggling to spend time with your daughter — you are still coming from fear, not love. I understand why this situation is triggering this fear of loss and failure in you. I really do, but those emotions aren't doing you or your child any good and they may make the situation worse. In the other article on this I explained why unconditional love is the answer when a loved one rejects your religion. The problem is that as long as you are entrenched in fear, you aren’t capable of love. If you can’t change your perspective and get out of fear, your child is going to see you and your religion as unloving. It isn't and you know that you're scared because you love her so much, but your fear energy could make her pull even farther away. You cannot let your fear be bigger than your love. You have to get you more fully in trust about this situation (and out of fear) so you are capable of showing up with real love, peace and acceptance towards your daughter. I encourage you to read and practice trusting the following idea every day for a while: I am not a failure and neither is my loved one. We are here on this planet to experience all kinds of interesting and painful experiences so we can learn and grow, but at no time is our value on the line because life is a classroom, not a test. This means our value is infinite and absolute. It cannot change no matter what we do. None of us have anything to fear. My loved one may sign themselves up for some interesting lessons here, ones I would rather not have them learn. That is not about me. They are choosing their journey and they will find their way through it and in the end it will be OK. I trust their value and mine is secure and that this is the perfect classroom journey for both of us. I choose to trust God, there is nothing to fear, and every experience here is a lesson. I choose to let God's love fill me up every day so I can share his unconditional love with others. I choose to shine with pure love every day. I have the power to do this because there is nothing to fear. (If you want to understand more about why life is a classroom not a test, read this article from December.) Trusting these truths will show your loved one that your religion and your God are based in love. The God you believe in provided a way for all to return safely. He loves us all. Being fearless about this will show her that your faith in God’s goodness, your love for her and your strength are all bigger than your fear. This will earn her respect for you and make her see your religious beliefs as beautiful and inviting. Love is much more attractive than fear. I also have a worksheet for frustrated parents on my website that might also help you with this situation. I encourage you to get it. It will ask you to identify your fear issues (that are really behind you being so upset about your child). You had fear issues about failure or loss (before this) and this situation with your child has just triggered them. This situation is therefore as much your lesson as it is hers. This is your chance to learn how to overcome fear and become stronger, more faithful and more loving. So, instead of trying to fix your child, work on you. Trust God more and choose to act from love and fully accept her as she is, even being proud of her and never say anything negative, critical or guilt-producing. You can do this. You are a child of God (a being who is the essence of perfect love). You have the love inside you to overcome fear. The worksheet will also ask “What does your child need right now?” The answer is your strength, faith, acceptance and love. She needs you to be strong enough to set your needs aside. (Your needs for her to fulfill your wishes, expectations and believe what you believe.) She needs to know you can let go of your needs and show up for her. Spend time with her and (the entire time) keep choosing to trust there is nothing to fear. Spend every minute you have with her building her up. Look for the highest and best qualities in her, and tell her what you see. Focus on her goodness as a person and let her know you are proud of her. This is putting love first. You can do this. “Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all His children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell or preach or teach, as I am in how you choose to live and give." — Cory Booker Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach, speaker and people skills expert. |
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AuthorKimberly Giles is the president and founder of Claritypoint Life Coaching and 12 SHAPES INC. She is an author and professional speaker. She was named one of the top 20 advice gurus in the country by Good Morning America in 2010. She appears regularly on local and national TV and Radio. Archives
March 2022
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