Have you ever found yourself feeling more stressed about the things in your kids life than your kids are? I’m guessing the answer is a resounding “yes”!!! We do this all the time, every day, and I’m guessing this might be getting more intense over time. I found that parenting is an interesting experiment in what is called “secondary stress,” which is simply a term for the stress that you feel simply by watching someone that you love in stress. The love part is critical here. You can see others in stress and not necessarily feel it, but if you love them and the attachment between you and them is strong, you feel the stress, and in some ways, it becomes your own. That is why parents feel this in so many unique ways and why we feel it stronger for our kids than for anyone else. We love them deeply, intensely, and so in many ways, their struggles become our own. This is also part of why we become so controlling as parents. Because sometimes it feels like the only way we can really feel better is if our kids our feeling (or doing) better as well. But this tends to backfire, especially during the beloved rebellious years of our children, because the more we control, the more they push back, and the worse everyone feels.
So much of managing parental stress is actually learning to manage the secondary stresses we feel as we watch our children struggle and triumph through life. And in fact, much of getting to a place where we can really support our kids in the most helpful way is dependent on us being able to manage that secondary stress, independent of what our children do. Doing this allows us to step out of the power-control dynamic and get to a place where while we hope that our children will always be happy, healthy, and successful, emotionally we can manage the secondary stress well whether they are or not. This also allows our children to really be more open and honest with us about how they are feeling because they know we can handle it, whatever it is. The reality is that most of the time, our children, and especially our teens, keep things from us not because they don’t want us to get mad, but because they don’t want us to get emotionally hurt.
So what does this all have to do with preparing for success in parenting, and what is “successful parenting”? Of course, there is no real “failure” or “success” in parenting. Parenting is a relationship, and relationships don’t succeed or fail, they are way more organic than that. Relationships have stages, phases, ups, and downs, good days and bad days, storms and calm. But getting to a place where we can respond the way that we want to, in positive, helpful ways, has much to do with realizing and taking true ownership of what we bring to the table within those interactions. Being able to manage the secondary stress inherent in parenting is dependent on us being able to recognize and then focus on those things we can actually control. While we can influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors or our children, we can’t control these things in their lives. And trying to do so tends to backfire and produce more stress. Instead, much of preparing for success has to do with honing into our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and beliefs and how these can be crafted to create and prepare for positive interactions with our children.
When thinking about our relationship with our children, and in particular, if we are trying to figure out ways to manage various difficulties with them, focusing on both positive experiences we have had with them, as well as the role that we played in making that positive experience occur can be very powerful. Maneuvering through the secondary stresses inherent in parenting is so much more manageable when we focus on the role that we play in it, and not our children. I’ve found that in most situations, this is also what our children are really begging us to do. While they vie for power in the relationship and seem like they are always trying to get more, the one thing no child or adolescent wants is the power to hurt or overly stress their parents. Even if this seems like this is their direct focus, they typically only do this when they are upset about something else (and are then directing that frustration toward the parent). Sometimes they will even vamp it up in hopes that as parents we can prove that we can handle it, so that they can trust us. In all my years of doing therapy, I have never met a child, adolescent, or adult child who didn’t desperately hope and need their parents to be emotionally safe and sound.
BrainSculpt MindSpa has specific programs that are specifically focused on helping enhance not only the ability to activate and highlight positive experiences you have had with your child but also a recognition of the role you played in making that happen. As we learn to actively manage the secondary stresses of parenting by focusing on what is in our control, we open space in the parent-child relationship for growth, nurturance, and healing.
