PARENTING THE LONG GAME

Watch this video and read on to learn how to break the crisis cycle, cut out the blame game, and enjoy parenting again!
Too often, you may feel as if parenting your teenager is a crisis-by-crisis operation.

One day, you’re finding out her grades are dropping. The next day, you find she has a boyfriend you know nothing about. And then, she breaks curfew. And you find out she has lied to you about where she’s been, and who she has been with. And the language she uses with you – where did all of this attitude come from?

teenagers-kissingOver time, it begins to feel as if nearly all of your life with her is crisis, urgent, wholly negative in tone. You no longer find it in you to be the fun, or positive, or encouraging parent. The urgency of the issue of the day precludes it.

You are left feeling exhausted and discouraged, and wondering where exactly you went wrong here.

Well, teenagers have this way of presenting us with challenges, often one after another. After all, at moments of calm, you will remember that the teen years represent, by their very nature, a long string of firsts: first dates, first emotional struggles, first strides toward independence from you. And we all want to be the parents who celebrate our child’s every developmental step.

But it is tough to maintain such balanced perspective day-to-day. And when we lose perspective, we begin to attribute the normal elements of adolescence to crisis. And we know we make poor decisions, parenting and otherwise, at times of crisis.

I have experienced this phenomenon in families over and over again. Calls to my office are typically initiated in the face of just such perceived crises.

father-with-teenage-daughterTo remove our families from this vicious cycle, we need to eradicate this “crisis mode” thinking. We need to remember that there are in actuality very, very few crises in life. Missteps, mistakes, bad decisions, sure. But crisis, not so much.

The best way to get past the crisis pattern is to think about our parenting in terms of the long game (think years and decades vs. hours and days), and to eliminate the immediacy, the urgency, the crisis. This too shall pass. We need to consider the vibe of the life we want with our child, and in our family, now and in the future. Remember that you want to foster a lifetime relationship with your teenager, and this moment in time, this particular challenge, is likely temporary, fleeting and harmless.

Only if we create crisis out of the situation will it become toxic, and lasting.

So, I want you to approach your next parenting challenge using the following steps:
  1. First, I want you to take the very idea of “crisis” out of your parenting vernacular. This simple shift will allow you to breathe and make better parenting decisions instantly.
  2. Bite your tongue, for the most part. Remember what we talked about last time. Focus on listening more and speaking less. Because you are no longer in “crisis”, there is no need for you to pontificate, to lecture. I usually encourage parents to cut 75% of the words they are inclined to use. Seventy-five percent.
  3. Actually engage in a calm and reasoned, back-and-forth discussion with your child.

A lot of parents waste a whole lot of time here trying to come up with the right punishment or consequence. These are missed opportunities. Instead, talk with your child about what went wrong, what went right, and how to move forward from here.  And maybe you can even instill a modicum of humor, because we are now parenting the long game.

Can you just picture how differently you, and your child, will feel about your relationship ten or twenty years from now, once you begin to parent from the long game, instead of from short-term crisis? Can you see how this shift will drive awesome change in your family for generations to come, and that there are no losers, at all, in this new approach?

So, the next time you find yourself reflexively responding to a parenting problem or situation as a crisis, let your child know you have decided to approach things differently with her, and begin parenting the long game.

With this one simple idea, I find myself excited for you and your family. I am excited for you to experience the peace of mind, and the renewed connection with your child in the present. And I’m excited for the future for you and your more connected family.

So, as soon as you make that shift away from “crisis” toward the long game, drop me a comment below. I want to know about what feels different, how issues get resolved more readily.

Next time we are going to talk about empowering your child by allowing her to make more independent decisions.

Keep up the good work. Let’s figure this out together.

Warmly,
John