July 13, 2022

Summer’s here! It’s a time to kick back as a family and enjoy fun times together in lieu of maintaining the structure of school, extracurricular activities, and homework. Take a deep breath and sigh with relief. With more open space and opportunities for spontaneity, the summer also brings a chance for you to reflect on your parenting—to look at what’s going well, what hasn’t been working, and what you might like to change.

This summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between ‘showing up’ versus ‘managing down’. ‘Showing up’ refers to compassionate parenting: meeting my kids where they are and not where I think they should be; offering choices by using ‘could’ or ‘maybe’; accepting their decisions as their own (excluding harm to self or others); refraining from offering advice unless they ask for it, no matter how much I think it would reduce their struggle. ‘Managing down’, executive parenting, is the opposite: it means telling your kids what they should do based on what you think is right, what you would like to see them do, and what ‘should’ happen to further the success you would like them to achieve. Of course, most of us, despite our best intentions, usually end up doing a bit of these. Last week, in a conversation with my young adult daughter, I slipped and offered a ‘should.’ Instantly, she responded angrily: “Why can’t you just listen without giving me unsolicited advice? I need you to stop doing this.” I quickly apologized and we changed the topic, somehow managing to finish our talk on a positive note. Afterward, I felt terrible. I so wanted to help her shift into a happier place. But the moment I used ‘should’, I stopped showing up—listening and started managing—telling. I made it about me. 

When we parent from a place of ‘shoulds’, we are making our children’s lives about ourselves: our needs for them to look, act or be a certain way. In our society, where parents are blamed for their children’s struggles and praised for their successes, it’s tough to avoid living vicariously through our kids and teens. But when we do this, we convey that they are an extension of us, not their own people. It’s harder for them to develop self-worth, practice autonomy, and act with agency. Take a minute and ask yourself these two challenging questions:

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