When Your Kids’ Choices Don’t Match Yours: How to Parent With Love, Not Control
You are not your child.
No, really! You are two entirely separate beings with separate thoughts, beliefs and identities. This is an important distinction to make when learning to recognise whether you are responding to your child out of genuine care for them and their wellbeing, or out of an almost imperceptible need to avoid your own shadows.
I experienced a rude awakening recently, when I finally realised that I believed my children must share my values. I felt justified in demanding that they share my desire to rid our home and our bodies of harmful chemicals and toxic substances. I felt that because I value organic food, healthy eating, and a toxin-free lifestyle, that my children should too.
One day I was in the supermarket with my daughter, it was her turn to cook, and she was looking for an ingredient for dinner. Instead of confidently selecting the olives she wanted, she froze in indecision because she wanted to please me and didn’t want to buy the wrong ones. I stopped and asked her which ones SHE wanted. She had no preference, she just wanted to make sure I was happy.
In that moment I had a startling realisation that these were MY values and despite the network of like-minded families that surrounded us - each reinforcing similar beliefs and modelling similar behaviours- my children did not share them, not really. Maybe in part, and on some level they had absorbed the years of wisdom teachings from being part of an eco-village community and from an alternative education background, but left to their own devices, they would choose the device/tv/junk food/toxic sunscreen/regular milk/ white bread/artificial fragrance without a second thought. How could they do this so freely without any sense of questioning when they had been raised in a home that valued and modelled the opposite?
Similarly, one of my biggest values was encouraging children to use their free thought and independence. Why then, when they displayed these behaviours to me directly in the forms of making independent food choices, WHY did I feel so threatened?
The struggle was real.
I was wrestling with feelings of disappointment, in myself and in them. A sense that I had failed as a mother to protect them from the very real threats posed by the over-abundance of toxins in modern society. But deep-down, the truth was I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that I was part of a holistic community that valued a green, organic healthy lifestyle and yet somehow, I had managed to raise phone addicted, junk food craving teenagers. I was mortified! How did I let this happen? But mostly, what did it say about me?
I had failed as a parent.
But that wasn't all. I felt embarrassed. I felt that I didn’t have a right to belong. I felt like a fraud that was pretending to be something I’m not. And the shame? Was because my children were reflecting my shadow side. The side of me that craves chocolate and uses tv as a form of escapism. The side of me that doesn’t ALWAYS make the right food choices (sometimes money/time/emotions make the choices for me). My children were reflecting back to me the parts of me that I was embarrassed to admit were there. I was confronted with my narcissistic side- the one that wears the mask. The part of me that wants perfect little children that reflect what a wonderful mother I am. Which in turn validates my own self-worth. Then it hit me! I was using my children to validate my own self-worth. I couldn’t quite believe it, but once I’d seen it, there was no way to un-see it!
That is how co-dependency shows up in parent-child relationships. When the child is serving a purpose in sustaining a parent's identity. When the child is expected to take on parental beliefs, behaviours, and values to 'save-face' rather than being allowed to develop their own. Now that’s not to say that having family values has no place. We want to instil certain virtues into our children and as parents it is our job to guide them. But it is not our job to mould them into carbon copies of us.
It is also not our job to expect them to attain standards that we ourselves are not capable of maintaining.
When I reached a point where I was able to accept my shadows (my own perceived failings) then I was able to have more acceptance for my children’s choices. For what we reject in others is ultimately a reflection of what we reject within ourselves. My own embarrassment about not always being a crunchy mum was a pattern I was now projecting onto them, and I wasn’t about to let that keep happening.
So what choice did that give me? The only choice was to accept myself, just the way I am. I accept that my values align wholeheartedly with holistic principles and yet sometimes I find them difficult to uphold, because sometimes there is more joy in having a piece of that delicious gluten full, sugar-laden cake than there is in denying myself the right to eat it. Sometimes a good old rom-com is the answer to lightening the heaviness on my heart and making me feel like the world is ok again. And sometimes I care more about survival in the moment than I do about upholding the high standards that are robbing me of my peace.
It's also important to note here that there was also a very real sadness about the fact that the modern world had managed to corrupt my children. It had infiltrated despite my best efforts to keep it at bay. A sadness that they were falling prey to harmful substances that they were too young to fully understand the far-reaching consequences of. That’s where more acceptance, trust and faith is needed. I have done my best to show them another way but now it's time to let go. They are teenagers now and this is their journey, not mine. I will always be there to support them and model another way, I trust the foundation that has been laid and that ultimately, they will find their way.
The greatest gift to yourself and to your children is found in letting go of expectation and accepting what is.
And by accepting myself, flaws and all, I give my children permission to feel accepted for who they are, flaws and all. And that gives them the freedom to elevate their self-worth – perhaps even to a place where they will feel more inclined to honour their physical bodies too!