Note #023
Enjoying Peace with Your Teenager
Every parent I know, including my own, wants to enjoy a positive relationship with their teen. Yet in many homes, that relationship is a source of great conflict and feelings of lack.
And it’s ok…if we can look at it all as a learning process. What we must know is that it doesn’t have to be a constant and continual struggle!
Facing the Challenge
What might you give up in order to enjoy peace with your teenager?
This question might be scary! It also holds the keys to peace and harmony in the home.
“Let it go” is now a popular phrase, and song. It’s a very useful one too.
The trick is knowing what to let go of — what to give up.
The Locus of Control can shed light on what is most beneficial to let go of to manage your stress (and to support your children and teens in managing theirs). As you study the Locus of Control image below, see if you can appreciate the truth that letting go of what you cannot control or influence will bring you peace of mind and freedom from stress.
Managing Stress
How often do you try to manage your stress? How often do you feel like you’re just “coping” your way through life, rather than enjoying it?
We all need to manage our stress, not just for our own peace and wellbeing, but for those we interact with, work with, and live with. We’ve all heard the phrase “Ain’t Momma happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Does that ring true for you? Did it, during your growing-up years? My observations and experience confirm that it’s mostly true.
We can find 10 zillion suggestions on the internet of how to manage our stress (here’s a good example), how to manage stress at home, at work, managing stress with your teen, etc. Ideas and “hacks” abound. We might not need more ideas. We don’t need another hack.
We might need a comprehensive, yet concise review of what stress is, where it comes from, and why we have it.
In this post, you’ll find this review of the basics. If you would benefit from an overview, check it out.
Locus of Control
Let’s tease apart the tight knot of stress and look from a new perspective on how to effectively manage it. The Locus of Control offers a great visual to expand our awareness into non-linguist comprehension and knowing.
Head to the bottom of this post to grab your free Locus of Control self-reflection Booklet.
No Control, No Influence
We’ll start with the farthest ring out, those things over which you have no control and no influence. In the Locus of Control Booklet you will create your own list for those specific things in your life and then contemplate the inner experience of letting go of what is not yours to deal with, let alone control.
How does it feel to imagine letting go of the things in this outer ring?
Scary
Terrifying
Loss of control
Anxious-making
Freeing
Light-hearted
Open
Relaxing
What else??
It very well might be a mix of several feelings.
My first encounter with the outer ring of the Locus of Control sparked a flame of fear in my heart. It felt like abandoning control or letting others dominate or control me. I was resistant.
As I reluctantly proceeded with the activity, I had a monumental shift of perspective. The deeper I went, the more in control I felt! My heart grew three sizes that day as I considered that this “method” of stress management was way more than management, it was light years away from “coping”. It was freedom! It was the possibility of living, of being, my Unique Genius as I let all the uncontrollable stuff fall to the wayside.
Things You Can Influence
The next ring in, Things You Can Influence, can be a little more empowering, and a little less daunting, than the idea of no control and no influence.
What are the things in your life that you can or do influence? In your Booklet, identify these on your list. Spend some time here with this section…you may be surprised by the deeper things that surface the more you reflect.
Consider…What is the difference between control and influence?
Does this difference open mental space for new or other perspectives?
Unwinding the constrictions of control and softening into influence, (not to be confused with manipulation), frees you to simply be who you are. Without the intensity of stress-driven living, you permit your Unique Genius to surface and become your outward “presence”, your expression, in the world. Through your authentic presence, you naturally influence others around you (your teen!) to goodness and integrity.
Things You Can Control
The bull’s eye, of course, is what you’re aiming at to find a true sense of stress management. With enough practice, your stress-management strategies and techniques (strats and techs) will flop over into joyful living, with a sense of hope and the goodness of life, as your everyday experience.
Letting go of what is not yours to control is your freedom.
Taking control of what is yours to control is your peace.
Use your Locus of Control Booklet to explore what you can and cannot control and how it feels to own that. And even deeper, how it feels to take ownership of yourself, your emotions, your behaviors…your life.
Letting Go of What is Not Yours to Control
You know that no one can live life for you. You also know that you cannot live life for anyone else. As a parent, you want your children to do well, to make good decisions, to enjoy good mental health, to be happy. You need, survivally speaking, to protect them. You worry about their safety, their success, who their friends are.
And yet…you know you cannot live their lives for them.
Some of the stress of parenting comes from hesitancy to let your teens make their own choices. Some of it comes from trying to protect them from all evils, trials, challenges, and suffering. And sometimes, a bit of that stress comes from your own fears or disappointments about your own life. If as a teen you failed at an important undertaking, you may harbor in your unconscious awareness a need to control the success of your teen.
As you interact with the Locus of Control and examine your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings around it, you may be graced with insights that make you sigh with relief. As you honor the reality that your teen must grow up, must differentiate him or herself from you (both parents), and must learn to fall and get back up, you will be able to let go of the need to control him or her.
It’s the inner wisdom that whispers to you in the softest of voices that will reassure you that you can let go. And that letting go is not turning your teen over to danger, injury, or harm. It is simply allowing the natural process to unfold, supported by all the love in your heart.
Finding Peace by Taking Control of Self
Your peace is stolen by worry, anxiety, and stress, but mostly by fear. When we are afraid, we often try to escape the situation at hand. When physical escape is not possible, when the struggle is mental or emotional or spiritual, the escape from it can take the shape of avoidance or neglect.
When something requires our attention and we are afraid to look at it, to see it, it doesn’t go away. It tries harder.
Like a baby who needs a clean diaper, the crying gets louder and more insistent.
Our untended mental, emotional, or spiritual needs are like that baby. They keep niggling at us and their fuss takes our focus and concentration, it takes our patience and our kindness. The result? Increased stress, irritability, anxiousness.
If you’re afraid that you’re not doing it “right” or aren’t a “good” parent, exhale and let go of that. No parent is, was, or ever will be perfect. You are doing your best, on most days.
As you become more and more well-acquainted with the Locus of Control, take the time to explore where you can improve on your parenting efforts. Take small bites. One thing at a time.
As you learn to control what is yours to control, as you learn to manage how you feel about how you feel, please let yourself move into a place where you are proud of your efforts. And where your self-management strategies do leave you feeling empowered and confident.
As you take more and more control of your thoughts, words, and behaviors peace will be yours.
Locus of Control with Your Family
Now that you know the Locus of Control is the secret to stress management and will make it a practice in your daily life to consciously stay aware of your own Locus, you are invited to share it. Teach it to your children. Support them in their developing self-awareness and self-responsibility. Make it a family habit - for all members of the family.
As you set up the Locus of Control as a standard of behavior in your home, little by little, discord will dissolve as peace encroaches. You can all hold each other accountable, respectfully and kindly. Learning to support each other through the challenges can strengthen relationships of trust and make the home the preferred place for teenage children to be.
You might establish friendly phrases to use to remind each other when things get a bit tense:
How are you handling your bull’s eye?
Are you aiming at the target?
Did your arrow fly way above the target?
Are you all out of arrows?
Can you help me adjust my aim?
I can’t see the target! Can you point me in the right direction?
Make it fun. Use phrases that make each other smile or laugh. Put an actual target on the wall as a visual reminder. In the center, you might write “I am in control of myself” or “Me and My Words and Behaviors”. I’ve included one for you in the Locus of Control Booklet.
And remember, everybody plays this game!
Lessons for Your Teen
As much as you hope to raise “good”, well-adjusted children, you also realize that they are their own people, just like you are. You cannot control them. Certainly, you can and probably should influence them. And letting them in on this “secret” too can go a very long way to creating harmony at home.
I’m not sure why the Locus of Control isn’t explicitly taught to us anywhere along the way of life…not at home, not in school, not at church or synagogue. It sure would be beneficial if it were! Check out the YOUTH-Positive Teachable site for the Locus of Control Teen lesson, and many more like it to support healthy adolescent mental wellbeing, learning, and development.
Get your free Locus of Control Booklet today!
As always, thanks for being YOUTH Positive,
Molly
P.S. If you found this useful, please share! The more happier families we have, the better off we are a a world. ❤️