Parental Control

From the moment we become parents we are concerned about the safety, happiness, and success of our children.

But how much of that is in our control? And how much of it is our responsibility? 

In today’s episode of the podcast, I’m sharing three important distinctions that will allow you to improve the relationship you have with your children by releasing all the things you can’t control and focusing on the things you can.

You’ll learn the big difference between being a responsible parent and taking responsibility for your children’s choices, how your influence can make a difference, and how to know that your children have everything they need for their best life.

Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello podcast universe, welcome to episode 253 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price, and I am your host and your coach today, and I want to welcome all of you to the podcast. How are things in your life? How are you feeling? I hope that you are doing well. It is the first week in March, I think when you're hearing this podcast. So wow, I already I mean, don't you get tired of people saying here is going so fast? But truly I feel like it is going so fast and I hope you are doing well.

And if you are not, I just want to remind you that one solution to feeling bad is coaching, right? No matter what you are feeling bad about. A couple of weeks ago when I did the podcast about suicidal thoughts, it really reminded me of how despondent and hopeless I used to feel. And you know, to be honest, there wasn't even anything catastrophically wrong in my life. Like for the most part, my life was pretty good. And that actually made it worse, right? Because it seemed like there was really no good reason for me feeling so bad and for, yeah, just like living my life in such a, like, negative place. And I felt so bad about myself and so much regret about my choices and my mistakes, and felt so mad at myself in so many ways and felt like I had just I had done it wrong. I was never gonna get it together right, and I was really unhappy and also really unable to change and very discouraged that I was the problem, but somehow unable to fix myself. And it's like that song how do you solve a problem like April? Like, I didn't know how to solve the problem of me.

And what I didn't know is that it was all happening in my head, all my pain, all my regret, all my quote unquote mistakes, all my suffering, all my really negative thoughts about myself and my life, my feelings and my choices. It was all being created. All of that pain was being created in my head. And that's where all of our pain and suffering exists for every one of us. Which means that you got to stop trying to change your life and start trying to change your mind. And that's just that's just the only way to really change how you're feeling. And so I just want to invite all of you to coaching. I invite you to try it and to see the difference that it can make in in your life. We can come to coaching for so many reasons. Maybe you just have one thing that you want to work on. Maybe there's just one relationship in your life or or one area of your life where you just feel like, I just can't get any traction here. Or maybe you want to work on a lot of things, right? Maybe you just want a little bit of coaching for a month or two.

Or maybe you want ongoing coaching where you have somebody to talk to and really like, you know, work through all the areas of your life. And so I just want you to know that, like any version of that is available when you coach with me. And so I coach with my clients one on one, and I really talk about what it is you want to create. And we just work together for as long as we need to make that happen. And, you know, that can be as short or as long as you want it to be. And so I just want to invite all of you who are interested in feeling better or changing any aspect of your life to coaching, and you can try that. I really recommend you just try. You just try. You get on a call with me and you try coaching for yourself. I know it can be intimidating. I know it can feel scary. I know it can feel like, oh, I shouldn't need help or I can figure this out on my own. But I really want to encourage all of you. I am here for you, and I would love to give you an experience with changing your mind. And so you can sign up for a free call with me. Try it for yourself. We can talk about what it would be like to work with me. There's no obligation. You get to decide for yourself, and if you want to work with me, then I'll explain how how we do that. All right, so you can go to my website and get all the information about how to sign up for that free call at Aprilpricecoaching.com.

Okay, so today I want to start the podcast with a story. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I, we went up to Utah to see our girls and our son in law, and we went skiing and we went out to dinner and, you know, did a bunch of talking, a little bit of shopping, and we just had a good time spending the weekend with them. But the day we went skiing, we were up at Sundance Resort. And somewhere along the way, somewhere during that day, I lost my phone and I kind of thought that I had lost it in this big pile of powder that I fell in at one point. But we got to the end of the day and I didn't have my phone with me, and I was like, okay. Well, I think, you know, it might have fallen out of my pocket at this one place. You know, where I remember falling in the powder. And so I was like, I'm going to go back there and see if I can find it. And, you know, like when you lose your phone at a ski resort, you've been skiing all day long and you've been on a million runs and you've been, you know, on and off the the ski lift.

And it's just like, how am I going to find a phone on this mountain? And especially in all this snow, like, I'm sure it just sunk in the snow and it's gone, right? And it's like, that's the end of it. But I thought, well, I'll just check this one place. So I left my daughter and son in law and my husband and said, I'm just going to go on this one run and see if I can just find it. And, you know, my daughter and son in law had to head back into town to do some things, and we decided we would just meet up for dinner later. And so I went and I looked I couldn't find the phone, and I came back to the lodge and my daughter came up to me and she's like, they found it, they found your phone. And I was like, you know, where they're like, oh, it's over on this one particular lift. And as I heard the story, I was like, well, how did you know? How did you know? They found it? And she's like, Nana called me. That's my mom. Uh, we call her Nana. And she's like, Nana called me and told me it's at the Wildwood lift. And I was like, what? Like, how does my mom, who's in Arizona, know where my phone is? Right? And she's like, well, somebody at that lift found it.

And then they started calling your contacts. And so I was like, great. So I, I headed up the lift to go and get this phone. And as I was going to get it, I was like, how did they open the phone to even access those contacts? Right, like it made me a little bit nervous, right? Like with my phone just unlocked and open and they had access to everything. Like how did they even make a phone call to my mom, right. Anyway, so when I got up there and I talked to the girl who had found my phone and contacted my mom, I said, how did you do that? How did you open the phone? Right? And she said, oh, well, this happens occasionally. And when it does, I just say, Hey Siri, call mom. And the phone will call that person's mom. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is so brilliant, right? Because everybody's got a mom programmed into their phone and everybody's walking around with a phone that says, mom, right? There's a contact in there. She doesn't know all the names in my phone, but she knows that there's probably a contact for mom inside my phone.

And she's like, you know, when it happens, I just that's how I get in is I just say, hey, Siri, call mom. Like whoever's phone it was that lost it. And I want you to just think about that for a minute, right? Because like, in one way, it's kind of like tender and sweet, right? That like, everybody's got a mom in their phone and moms always answer, right. Moms are always there. They pick up and moms are always on call. But at the same time, it's also just interesting to notice the amount of connection and almost obligation that there is between a mother and a child, that that never goes away, that moms are always on call.

Right, I'm 49 years old. I am an adult, theoretically, right? I have my own children. My children are actually old enough to have their own children even though they don't. Right? And even though all that is true and I am a grown independent adult, my mom is still on call for me. My mom is still pausing her life to help me and to be there for me. And don't get me wrong, that is not a bad thing. Like it's amazing that she's still alive. I know that not everybody's mom is still here and that is such a sweet blessing in my life. My mom is still there and she's still answering the phone. Right. And that is a very sweet thing. It's not a bad thing, right? And she is who she is. She's the mom she wants to be, and she answers the phone. And I am so grateful for that. But this experience also reminded me that because that connection exists between us, between mothers and children, and we want to be there for our children, and that connection never really goes away.

It can also be really easy as moms to feel responsible for our children, no matter how old they are, to feel responsible for their choices, no matter how old they are. To feel responsible for alleviating their suffering and making sure that they don't suffer, and making sure that they're okay, and that their lives are good and that everything is good for them. And we can feel that all throughout their lives, no matter, no matter how old they are. And you know, I'm not here on the podcast to say we need to make that go away. That's part of our biology, and it's also just part of the sweetest part of our relationship that's always going to be there. But I also think it's important that we distinguish between our desires to be a part of our children's lives and the sometimes negative feelings of like responsibility that we're responsible in some way for their choices. And today, I really want to talk about how we be there for our children and love them and support them and connect with them without making ourselves responsible for their choices and the results of their lives.

And without thinking like it's our job to fix any of that because it's a little bit sticky, right? It's like a little bit messy. And the line between our job and their job gets a little bit blurred as we parent. And because of our biology and how we have these really vital biologic instincts to care for our children and to and to make sure that they are okay. And, you know, as they grow and develop and, and are born like. Those really important biologic instincts can get in the way of letting our children have the freedom to make choices without us feeling like we are responsible somehow for those right. Like when our children are our babies and toddlers, of course we're responsible for so much of it. Like almost all of it, right? Their lives are dependent on us, and we have responsibility for their well-being and their protection and their safekeeping. But it's really easy for that, those feelings to continue to exist as they grow and to feel like we are responsible. I was reminded recently I was listening to a podcast and they mentioned that line that's in that book, What to Expect When You're Expecting, which I don't know if people still read that, but like when I was having my first baby, I remember reading that book, right? And there's this line in it.

It's talking about the food you eat and then eating nutritious food while you're creating their bodies. And there's this line in there that says every forkful is a chance to give your kid a better life, right? And a better chance at a better life. And like, like I understand it's like a well-meaning thought, right? But like, that's where it starts, that somehow we start to feel an enormous responsibility to make sure everything is right in their lives and, you know, to start to feel like whether or not they are healthy, whether or not they are happy, whether or not they have a good life is somehow our responsibility. All right. And. As they grow up, and as that responsibility shifts and changes and they grow and they become, sometimes our thoughts and feelings about them don't change, right? Like they're changing, they're growing, they're becoming more capable, they're becoming more responsible. But we're still thinking that we are, and we're still feeling like we are responsible. And so they have changed, but somehow our thoughts and feelings have not. And that can create a lot of pain for ourselves and a lot of tension in our relationships as well.

All right. So today I just wanted to point out three important distinctions I think that you can make as a mother or as a parent that will make a big difference in your relationship with yourself as the parent and in the relationship with your children. All right. So the three distinctions that I think you can make in your own mind, which will make a big difference in your relationship, is, first, the difference between being a responsible parent and taking responsibility for your children's choices. There's a difference there. Number two, the difference between your influence and your control. And number three, the difference between wanting what's best for your children and thinking that you're the one that knows what that is. That you're the one that knows what is best, right? There's a difference between wanting what's best and thinking. You're the one that knows what's best. Okay, so as we go through these, as always, you are not allowed to make yourself wrong for any of this.

We have way more mom guilt in the world than we need, and this podcast is not meant to add to that, right? And also, as you listen, just know that I'm trying to teach like a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances, like you're all in different circumstances out there and have these things apply to you. And so you might have questions about some of the things that I'm talking about and how they apply to your particular family circumstances. And so like we can be much more specific and personal in a coaching session. So I'm going to teach, you know, general principles. But if you have questions about how to apply it, come to coaching. Right. You know where to find me I'm there to to help you. All right. So number one. Let's talk about the difference between being a responsible parent and taking responsibility for your children's choices. So I want to start by reminding you about the model, the coaching model that I use. And that is really a description of every part of our human experience.

Okay, and I wish, like right now, I had a whiteboard in front of you so I could draw this out and you could see it, but you're just going to have to use your imagination, right? So I want you to think about the first line in that model is our circumstances, that we have circumstances that happen in our lives. The circumstances are everything outside of us, everything that happens, everything that we see, everything that we observe, everything that we hear, everything that that we touch and taste like, everything that is happening in the world outside of us, the things other people say, the things that happen, like all of those things, are the circumstances of our lives. And then we interpret those circumstances. And that brings us to the second part of the model, which is our thoughts. We then interpret all those circumstances, everything we see and everything we hear, and we create thoughts about them. We have thoughts about them. We judge them, we interpret them. We give them meaning, right? Nothing that happens outside of us has any meaning until we have a thought about it, right? That's the second part of the model. And then those thoughts create our feelings.

That's the third line of the model. Every thought you have creates a feeling inside of you. That's how those thoughts, your brain creates those thoughts. And then it needs to transmit that information to the rest of your body until the rest of your body what's happening? And so it does that through feelings. Our feelings then prompt our actions. That's the fourth line. And all the things that we do and the choices that we make and the way that we show up in our lives, like all of that is in our action line.

Our feelings drive us to take action, drive us to do things. And those actions add up. Those actions add up to create the last line of the model, which is results. All right. So we have circumstances that happen. We have thoughts about those. Those create our feelings. Our feelings drive our actions. And our actions add up to create the results of our life. All right. Now that you have that in mind, I want you to imagine for a moment your children's model, your child's model. Your children have circumstances that happen to them, and then they have thoughts about those that creates their feelings, that drives their actions, and then they create results in their own lives. All right. They are here on earth having a human experience, and they are having their right there in the middle of that model. And I want you to consider for a moment where you fit as the parent in that model. Like, where do you show up? If we were going to put your place in that model. Where do you belong? Inside that model.

You only belong and you can only exist in the circumstance of their model. You don't choose their thoughts. You don't interpret that. You don't decide what their brain is going to think about what happens to them. You don't create their feelings, right? You can't decide how they feel and you don't choose their actions or create their results. You are a circumstance. And everything you say and everything you teach and every rule you have, every consequence you enforce, every meal you make, every phone call you answer, every hug. You give everything. Everything you do is simply a circumstance in their life. And so when we talk about being a responsible parent, what we're talking about is deciding how you are going to show up as that circumstance in their life. Being responsible for all of your choices, your words, your actions, your feelings, like all of that, is the circumstance of their life. That is where your responsibility begins and ends.

And you can't take any responsibility for the rest of their model. You can't take responsibility for their thoughts. That's up to them or their feelings. That's created by the thoughts they choose or their actions that's being created and driven and fueled by their feelings or their results. All right. And too many of us are looking at the thoughts, the feelings, the actions, right, their choices and or their results, all the rest of their model.

We're looking at the rest of our children's model and taking responsibility for that. And I want you to know and to remind you that you can't. You aren't that powerful. You only get to choose the kind of circumstance you are. You only get to choose the kind of parent that you want to be. Right. You get to choose what you want to teach, the way you teach it, how you want to care or nurture or instruct or minister to them. Like that's the only part that you get to be responsible for. All the rest. All the rest is 100% up to them. And so much of our pain is created by thinking that somehow we are responsible for making sure that they are happy, or successful, or prepared or good. Right. All of those things are are down in the bottom part of their model. They are not the circumstance of their of their life. Right? If they are happy or successful or prepared or good or anything else, none of that is your choice.

None of it is your responsibility. Your children are in charge of how they feel, what they create, what they choose, how they decide to spend their time, the kind of person that they want to be. And so being a responsible parent has nothing to do with any of that. Being a responsible parent has nothing to do with how your children, quote unquote, turn out or the choices they make. It only has to do with how you operate as a parent your choices, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your results as a parent has nothing to do with your children's choices and what you get to decide. And the only thing you get to decide is who you are going to be. What you are going to think and feel and do and create, that's all. The moment you start thinking that how your children think and feel and what they do and create is somehow created by you, that somehow that's your responsibility, determined by you or dependent on you somehow, or like you have partial responsibility, right? All of that is going to create a lot of unnecessary pain for both of you, and probably tension in the relationship.

Okay, so you might be saying but like April, like, are you saying that what I'm doing doesn't matter, right? That it doesn't matter the kind of like what I do because my, my kids get to choose. Right? And maybe you've heard, as I have my whole life that I'm supposed to teach them. And then if I don't teach them right, then I'm responsible for their mistakes, right? We read that scripture that says, if you don't teach, if the parents don't teach, then the sin is on the hand of the parents. Right? And and we like use that against ourselves to think like, okay, I've got to do something here to make sure they do it right. Because, you know, there's some indication that I, I have a part to play here. And that I think brings us to the next distinction that I really want to make. Which is the difference between influence and control. All right. So one thing that we're taught, particularly in religious communities, is that we need to be an influence for good in our children's life. But what does that mean? Right. Or maybe the better question is like, what do we think it means, right? Because I think a lot of times I think it means that if we are doing our job right and being a good, good influence, then my kids are going to be good and they're going to make all the quote unquote right choices and that we somehow need to make sure our children are quote unquote, doing it right.

So again, I want you to think back to the model. Where does your influence go in the model? Where do your values go? Your beliefs? Your testimony. Your rules. Your expectations. Your ideas about what's important. Your ideas about the best way to live your life. Like where do any of those belong in your children's model? Again, they are only the circumstances of your child's life. They are the lessons. They are the words. They are the experiences that are a part of your children's life. But that's where your influence begins and ends. Because once you have given the lessons, once you have given the values, once you have decided, like shared, what's important to you, they then get to decide what they think about all of that. They get to decide if they agree. They get to decide what's important and valuable to them. They get to decide everything else. All we get to do is offer.

We're just offering our values. We're offering our influence. We're offering what's important to us. And now the choosing is always up to them. And that doesn't mean your role isn't important. It is like it's important that you provide one option, one framework for living, right? That that you're demonstrating for them from someone they trust and someone that loves them one way to live their lives. But as soon as we think that we're in charge of whether or not they choose it, whether or not they use that same framework or use the same beliefs or choose the same values, then what we're sort of doing when we think that we're in charge of making sure they make that choice, then we've moved from influence to control. And you probably know this already. But if not, I want to make sure you do. You don't have any control over your children's choices. You don't. And that is by divine design. You're not supposed to. You're not supposed to have control. Right. God doesn't want you to have control and he won't let you have control. He has put limits on every one of us. He has put limits on our agency, and our ability to choose begins and ends with us.

It can only extend as far as ourselves. I really want you to hear this. And it might sound blasphemous to some of you, but you were never supposed to make sure your children choose the right. You were never supposed to make sure that happened. You were supposed to offer what you think is right. You were supposed to decide what was right for you and teach that to them and share that with them. And then they are supposed to choose for themselves. So I think it's so important that you be the parent that you want to be, that you teach the values that are important to you, that you teach like what you think is the best way to live, that you offer that, that you demonstrate it, that you decide the rules of your house and enforce those consequences so that you can teach what's important to you.

But you're doing all of it as an offering, as an option. It's like, this is one way to live your life, and this is how we're going to live, you know, while you're in my house. But I'm not doing any of it to control my children's choices because I can't. We can't you can't. No one can do that. No one can control those choices. You're not supposed to be able to. That would undo the plan of God. Our children are with us, and we have an amazing opportunity to influence them. What we think is important for them to know while they are here on earth. But they have all the control. On what they want to do, what they want to think and what they value, how they want to live. That is all up to them. And it doesn't mean that either one of us has failed if they choose differently than us. It means we offered one way, our way, but that's all we get to do is offer. And there's so much peace in knowing there are limits to what I can control.

This is a good thing. It means I can concentrate my efforts where they matter on my influence, and let go of needing to control any of the rest of it. Okay, and I think this brings us to the third important distinction I want to make. And that is the difference between wanting what is best for your children and thinking that you are the one that knows what that is. So one of the reasons that we want to control things for our children is because we love them, and we want what's best for them. We want them to be happy and healthy and have the best possible outcomes and have the best possible lives. And we don't want them to suffer, and we don't want them to learn things the hard way. And we're trying to control the choices and the environment and trying to control as much as possible so we can ensure that there isn't any unnecessary suffering to ensure that, like they have the best possible lives and that everything turns out good for them. But what does that even mean? What are the best possible outcomes? How do we know? How do we know what that is? How do we know what is best for them? How can we possibly know with our limited understanding, right.
We're trying to make sure they have quote unquote, the best possible life, but we can't possibly know what that is. They are here on earth to have an experience, and that experience will be created by them and their choices. And because that's true. Because it will be created by their choices. That experience will contain everything they need. Everything they need to learn, to grow, to become everything that's best for them will be contained within it. Like, they are going to get every lesson they came to get because it's built into their choices. They're going to get every experience they need to have because it's built into their choices. And that means that no matter what, no matter what they choose, they are going to have the best possible life because it will contain all the things they need, and in fact, only the things that they need. You know, in my family, my husband does a lot of worrying and he worries about, you know, all the possible choices he worries about, you know, is that the right major? Is that the right career? Is that the right choice? Are you living in the right place? Are they dating the right person, like all of this stuff? Right? Because he thinks that, like, there's a possibility that they could get something that wasn't ideal.

Well, I know everything they choose is ideal in that it contains everything they need to have the experience they came to get. And again, that doesn't mean we just throw up our hands and not teach or throw up our hands and be like, well, nonchalantly say like, I don't care if you're suffering. I guess that's the best thing for you. Like it's it's not about not teaching, and it's not about being heartless. Like your brain sometimes thinks it's one or the other, right? Like we're either all in or we're all out, and all we're doing here is making a space that we might not know what's best, and that not suffering might not always be the best, right? What I'm asking you to consider is the idea that their choice is always going to be the best way for them to learn and and to grow in the ways they want to. And and our job is to love them. Right to mourn with them, to cry with them. When it's hard and they are suffering. We will suffer when they suffer, but it doesn't mean the choice was wrong or that it wasn't supposed to happen that way, or it wasn't the best thing for them or for us. It always is. Even if it involves suffering.

They are here to learn and we are here to love them as they do that and to encourage them and to believe in them. And as we do that, we will suffer as well and we will learn from that. They are always getting what's best for them. And if it's not the way we thought it was supposed to go, then we're just wrong about what was best for them. I know that you want to prevent their suffering, right? Like part of your biology is we're just programmed to want to alleviate and respond to suffering and to fix it. But it's not your job ever to make their choices, and it's not your job ever to fix their suffering. It's your job to suffer with them, to mourn with them. To be there for them as they suffer. It's not your job to change their experience. It's just our job to witness their experience so they aren't alone in it. It's our job to suffer with them, to help them, to mourn with them, to cry with them, to rejoice with them, to celebrate with them and to love them.

Their choices are going to create all of it. They're going to. Some of their choices will create joy for them, and some of those choices will create suffering. And they just need you to be there for them as they experience that. I know you've heard me talk about my experience at 2929 and climbing that mountain, and how hard it was for me and how I suffered and how it was at times excruciating and like it required everything I had at every ascent. You know, my parents were there and David was there, and they were there to encourage me and to to help where they could to comfort me, to love me, to to bolster me up, to feed me, to dry me and like, send me on my way. But they weren't there to fix it. They weren't there to remove the mountain or remove the obstacle or say, give up. They were just there to support me as I made the choice to participate. Their care meant so much to me. But it wasn't about them needing to fix anything for me. And that is our job as parents. It's not to fix the fault or to protect them from all the troubles and sorrows that are going to come with it, but to experience it with them, to love them as they experience it, so that they don't have to be alone while they do it.

And that is the privilege of parenting. That is the privilege of mothering, to bring them into the fall, and then to walk with them and witness it as they experience it, and to believe that not only are they doing it right, but it is the best thing for them. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you're serious about changing your life, you first have to change your mind. And the best way to do that is through coaching. I work with my clients one on one to help them change their thoughts and their feelings about themselves, their lives, and their challenges so that they can live a life they love. If you'd like to work with me one on one, you can learn more and schedule a free call to try coaching for yourself at Aprilpricecoaching.com.