Parenting failures and other myths

I signed up for a really interesting webinar on connecting with teenagers recently. It was facilitated by Celia and Jason Hilkey at Happily Family.

Whilst listening to the webinar, Celia talked about how we judge ourselves failing as parents (or others judge us) when one of our children is struggling. If they're being rebellious, dabbling in substances, hanging out with bad influences, or doing other normal, but worrying, things that teenagers do.

My paraphrase of what was said is this: If my child is struggling, it is not evidence of failure, it is evidence that extra support is needed. Support for me and for my child.

So often, the shame due to the struggle stops us from asking for help. If our child is crashing out, it looks like our parenting has failed and therefore we have failed.

Self-compassion is necessary to interrupt blame and shame that we can quite naturally feel when our teens are struggling, and when we find ourselves struggling with their struggles.

It's such a normal thing for teens to struggle at times (or, a lot!); to do the right thing, to make the right choices and to be good humans. Look at everything in the world they have to deal with right now that they, and you, have absolutely no control over. The marketing towards teens by big tech companies, social media, the beauty industry, pornography to name a few, is relentless.

Teens today have issues to contend with that didn't exist when we were their age. And we're trying to guide them through territory we've never been in before - no wonder we all struggle!

So, let's take a deep breath. Remember that we're human. Remember it's OK to struggle - it's OK for us and it's OK for our teen.

It simply means we need a little extra support and one way or another, we can find it as we go along. It's OK to ask for help.

I hope you have the most amazing weekend.