If it’s like my house, your teen is mad at you alot. My three girls have been on fall break for over a week.
They go back to school tomorrow.
My daughter has a report due. You know the kind where they’re required to go to a classical concert and write an essay describing it in complicated musical terms and turn it in within two weeks of the concert? Yep, that kind. Well, her two-week window ended on Sunday so her concert report is due when she goes back to school. Knowing that she might have forgotten about it, I chose (like the organized mother I am) to remind her about it.
So, bright and early this morning I looked at her from across the room and simply asked, “Is your concert report done?”
By her response, you’d have thought I asked the MOST ridiculous question EVER.
She snapped at me with a loud voice, “No, it’s not. I started, but I didn’t finish. It’s fine. I’ll get it done.”
“Ok,” I said smiling as she grimaced at me and walked away.
Years ago a situation like this would have ended very differently.
In the past, I would have snapped back at her in retaliation for her shortness with me and explained to her in my “firm mom voice” why she shouldn’t talk to me that way. She’d FOR SURE know how disrespectful her behavior was as I took away a privilege or two just to further prove the point that treating her amazing mom that way was completely out of the question.
Yep, that’s EXACTLY how I would have handled it because I believed she was mad at ME and I needed to defend myself.
Fast forward to today. I don’t snap back and I don’t lose my cool. Why?
I now know that my teenager is NEVER mad at ME, she’s always mad at herself.
Say what? Did I lose you? Let me explain.
As humans, we believe that the people in our lives create our feelings. As a mother it looks like this: When our kids clean their rooms, we think that makes us feel happy. When our kids argue and punch each other in the stomach, we think that makes us feel upset. When our kids lie and keep secrets, we think that makes us feel betrayed. We hold the people around us, including our children and spouse, responsible for our emotions.
I too believed all of this until I didn’t believe it anymore.
The truth is I’m responsible for my emotions, my feelings. I create my feelings with how I choose to think. It’s MY thoughts that create my feelings inside my body. Not the people around me or how they talk or how they behave. Nothing outside of me EVER creates my emotions in my body. My kids can NEVER make me feel emotions and I can NEVER make my kids feel emotions. Contrary to popular belief, it just doesn’t work that way.
This means that this morning when I asked my daughter if her essay was completed, she was NOT mad at me, she was mad at herself. She created the feeling of mad in her body by thinking sentences like, “Why did she have to remind me about my essay? Now I have to finish it. I don’t want to do it. It’s so dumb. Essays are stupid. I hate my music class. School is a waste of time. It’s going to take the rest of the day. I’ve already put so much time into it, I don’t even want to finish it.”
THIS is why she was mad. Sentences. Sentences in her brain. That’s it.
She was mad because what I said triggered her to think negative thoughts about the essay and her thoughts caused her to experience the emotion of “mad”.
So, you see, she’s NOT mad at me, she’s mad at herself. She thinks and believes she’s mad at me, but I know she’s not. She’s mad at her thoughts. She’s mad because her thoughts create the feeling of mad in her body.
Now, instead of me adding to the problem by being angry at her that she’s mad, I’m compassionate with her and her feelings. I know how terrible it feels to be mad. I know she doesn’t want to finish her essay and I know she’d rather spend her time doing other things. I know none of it is a problem and nothing’s gone wrong here.
This knowledge gives me power and allows me to show up as the mom I want to be…kind, compassionate, and curious.
Your teen is NEVER mad (or insert any emotion here) at you.
She’s mad (or insert any emotion here) because of the thoughts she’s thinking.
This knowledge has the power to set you free. Let it.
Are you the parent of a teenager longing to “do it right”? I created a short video for my FB group, “Teening with Joy”, that will help you see why searching for the “right” way to parent your teen might be keeping you stuck. Don’t worry if you don’t know “the model” I refer to in the video. I’ll teach you that soon. If you’re interested in joining the FB group to learn more, join my email list by clicking “I need this!” at the bottom of this page. The instructions to join the group will be in the first email you receive. I can’t wait to connect with you there!
