Freedom From Guilt: Advanced Parenting Technique

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Guilt.

It can be quite powerful in regards to keeping us from finding happiness.

But after helping people for 30 years deal with guilt,

I think one of the strongest ways guilt can manifest is through parenting.

I have one sister who's a year older than me.

And I remember my father telling me that when he was younger and my sister was born,

He felt such a responsibility and change in his life because now he had someone that was completely dependent upon him and his actions and behaviors affected us,

His children.

And the one thing I've seen over the years that really gets most people,

Not all,

But most people,

Is all the responsibility and potential guilt that can come from being a parent.

Because when our children mess up,

We feel guilty or at least we have the potential to feel guilty.

So I want to talk about that because a lot of people struggle when their kids are going through hard times.

How do we find happiness?

When our children or our young adult children aren't doing as well as we'd like them to,

That guilt can really eat us alive and keep us from being happy.

It probably is one of the most challenging things in life that causes us to be unhappy because when our kids struggle,

There's a real tendency to feel a lot of guilt over that.

And when there's guilt,

There just isn't much happiness.

Well,

As parents,

We do have some responsibility for the ways our kids turn out,

Particularly in the early years.

I mean,

Of course they have different dispositions.

Some kids come out kind of feisty and angry.

Other kids are more placid and calm.

But overall,

When they're younger,

We affect the way their behavior responds to life and we help shape them.

But very soon they begin to have other influences far more than us.

Nowadays,

Once a child can sit up and hold something,

He or she is probably going to be on some electronic device.

Very early,

They're going to start hanging out with other friends and doing things with them and playing with them while we're doing other things.

And then with time,

They're going to start watching shows on television and on the iPads and internet and on their phones.

And even at this early stage,

They have their genetics.

Their genetics may be a combination of their mother and their father,

But whenever we mix two things together,

It can look very different than the parents.

Very different.

So they have their genetics,

Which shapes them to be very different than we are.

And again,

Very soon,

Particularly nowadays,

We tend to put our kids in school at a young age,

Sometimes as young as two or three.

And they're there throughout the day with a lot of other people influencing them.

And then they head off to primary school and start going to camps and get involved in extracurricular activities like sports.

And when they get to junior high,

This only increases.

And when our kids at high school,

Often there's very little influence on them.

They're working now,

They're involved with sports,

They're spending time with their friends,

They're doing homework.

They have their own goals,

They have their own desires.

They can look very different than we do.

We may enjoy classical music,

And they may really like hard rock.

And sometimes,

Particularly during the high school years,

The teenage years,

They're trying to find their way and figure out who they are.

So no matter what we like,

It's almost like they're going to do the opposite of that,

Just to test it out.

We've told them over years not to smoke,

And they're going to try smoking just to see if what we're saying is correct or not correct.

There's a lot of not looking like us during the high school years.

And when they head off to university,

Oh my goodness,

There may be just holidays that we see them and talking to them maybe once or twice a week on the phone.

All their other influences are coming from their friends and their professors and people that they're hanging out with.

And then when they graduate from college,

It may be even less.

They may be more mature now,

But clearly their influences are now their spouse,

Their own children,

And everything else that influences them.

So given all that,

You would think that guilt wouldn't be that strong when our kids go down paths that are different than what we want them to,

Particularly when those paths are tough or challenging for them.

Say they start using drugs,

Or say they drop out of college,

Or say they get pregnant at a young age.

Again,

Fill in the blank.

There's a real tendency for us as parents at any age,

Even when they're full adults,

To blame ourselves for how they turned out.

And yet,

If you really listen to what I said,

What I just described in regards to our children growing up,

We of course have an influence on them,

A big one,

But there are a lot of other factors that influence the choices that they make.

I mean,

There are so many different influences throughout their life.

And the older they get,

The more those other influences become stronger and more prevalent,

And our voice becomes quieter and less influential.

And to further support this point of how our influence on our children becomes less and less as they get older,

All we have to think about is kids from the same family.

Don't they often turn out very differently?

One could be a neurosurgeon,

And the other could be a schizophrenic doing drugs living on the streets.

Or sometimes our children experiment with things that they really shouldn't because their genetics say,

If you do this,

This is going to go really badly for you.

For example,

There are people that if they experiment with LSD,

It's going to induce a schizophrenic response in them.

They're going to experience schizophrenic type behavior and with time,

They may become a full blown schizophrenic struggling with that disease the rest of their lives.

And it's a horrible disease.

So if they hadn't experimented with hallucinogenic drugs,

They wouldn't have become a schizophrenic.

But yet lots of children experiment with hallucinogenic drugs and are fine.

They don't have any long term negative impacts.

It's a bit like the immune system.

When we give our kids shots when they're very young,

Most of them are going to be fine.

But a few are going to have severe reactions to these immunity shots and they're going to perhaps even die.

We would hope as a parent we wouldn't blame ourselves for that.

But yet often when our children turn out poorly later or are going through a hard time for several months or years,

We go to that place of despair and really happiness is nowhere to be found.

And yet,

Can we really take 100% responsibility for how our children turn out and the choices that they make or what happens to them even circumstantially?

For example,

If they get in a car wreck,

Is it our fault when that happens?

This is what we're examining today.

This sense of guilt that we feel as parents when our children's lives don't go the way that we want them to.

And to be honest,

Helping people for so many years now,

I do think this is perhaps the most challenging thing we have to deal with in life.

More than divorce,

More than death of our parents,

More than loss of a job,

More than almost anything.

When our children don't do well,

We suffer for the most part.

But I'm questioning today if that is necessarily true.

Do we have to suffer when our kids aren't doing well?

Are we truly 100% responsible for everything that happens to our children?

I mean,

Truly,

Are we?

I don't think so.

But I also want to show that not only do we not need to be 100% responsible for how our children's lives turn out,

That's really a kind of silly notion.

But secondly,

I think we're going to be a lot better parents if we relinquish that sense of guilt and just focusing on doing a good job when we're with them and then focusing on living our lives well when we're not with them.

I feel that that,

As a parent,

Is a far better way to raise children.

But I want to talk about this advanced technique skill that I have in regards to parenting.

It's a good one.

And if we implement it,

I think we'll really like it.

I don't mean it's going to be easy,

But I think we'll find it very helpful if we can implement this new skill that I'm talking about today.

We all know people that get help with raising their children.

They may hire a nanny.

They may have a grandparent come and help.

But in this advanced technique,

I want to focus on the nannies.

We all know people that have been raised by nannies.

And we also know that a nanny can do a fabulous job in raising children,

Sometimes better than the parents because they're able to stay calm,

They're able to stay objective,

And they don't feel guilty when the kids do something wrong and feel embarrassed in public around their own children if their children are misbehaving.

They just focus on the behavior,

And then it's done.

We as parents have all this guilt,

So we don't always react in a way that's loving and kind.

We overreact and get angry.

We get mad.

We say hurtful things.

Where a nanny would get fired if they did that.

They typically focus on the behavior,

Do a really good job helping raising the children.

And though the children still may misbehave,

Overall,

I think a good nanny can often do a better job than a parent because they're able to stay calm when the children are misbehaving.

Because of our guilt,

Because we feel we're responsible for the way our kids behave or misbehave,

We feel guilty when they're misbehaving.

And instead of dealing with the behavior,

All this emotion comes up inside of us,

And we can say some things that are very hurtful to our own children,

Whom we deeply love.

And unfortunately,

Our upset behavior towards our children has an impact.

They learn to hide from us.

They learn not to share things with us.

They learn to keep secrets from us because they're concerned that we're going to lash out at them or say something cruel or mean.

They may tell the nanny because the nanny is calm and can listen.

But we are the parent,

And because they know we're going to get upset or angry at them,

They don't tell us or they keep secrets from us.

I want to share an example from my own life.

My mother,

Before they knew that much about smoking,

Started smoking when she was younger.

And she smoked throughout most of her life.

It was actually one of the contributing factors that killed her at a much younger age and she should have died,

Even though she had quit smoking for many years.

But her mother,

Who was a beautiful soul,

Who I really deeply loved,

Was very disapproving of my mom smoking.

So my mom never smoked around her.

And anytime we went to visit her,

We didn't stay that long because my mom wanted to leave because she needed to smoke because she had an addiction to smoking.

And though I got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents,

Because my parents would often let me spend part of my summer there and holidays too,

We did not.

The two of them really became distant as she became older because of this disapproving nature of my grandmother towards my mother and my mother keeping secrets from her mother.

So what can happen as a parent is when we do disapprove of,

When we do not think highly of our children or if we take responsibility for how our children turn out,

I think that can create a lot of tension between relationships and then relationships grow distant.

So here's what we can do.

This is the advanced technique we can do.

Instead of being the parent,

Why don't we instead act like we're a nanny?

Now I know this may seem crazy at first,

But let's think about it.

What would be the benefits of focusing our skills as a nanny instead of taking on all the responsibility as a parent?

Well,

One of the things that's going to happen is we're not going to feel so guilty about all the choices our kids make.

If we're able to rectify them and make them better,

We will,

But as a nanny,

We're not going to say,

It's my fault you're doing that.

I mean,

We may contribute to it,

But we're a part of the contribution of why they made that choice.

Our children are going to make their own choices.

We all know that,

Particularly during the teenage years,

There can be a lot of testing of what we believe versus what they believe,

But as a nanny,

We're not as influenced by that testing.

We think,

Huh,

I wouldn't do that,

But that's what they're doing.

So do I need to perhaps put some consequences here or do I need to perhaps let them just listen to their music and wear the clothes they want to wear?

We relax a bit as a nanny instead of trying to control them because when we try to control our kids,

They withdraw,

They get quiet,

They pull away.

But if we're more of a nanny,

What happens is then we're helping to guide them into maturity as best we can,

Realizing we're just one piece of the puzzle.

There are a lot of pieces that create a person,

So we do our part.

We do it well,

But when we're not there,

When the other people are influencing them,

Particularly like when our children go to high school or off to college and they have so many more influences than us,

We relax.

We say,

Well,

I don't know how they're going to turn out.

I hope they turn out well.

I'll do my best.

I'll keep the door open because I'm a nanny.

I'm not going to judge them so much.

I'm more going to say,

Hey,

How are things going?

I miss you.

Maybe we can grab lunch together or just hang out a little bit because I enjoy being with you.

It becomes a lot less controlling.

Mind you,

As a parent,

We can still say,

Hey,

If you want my help with college,

If you want help with the car or the cell phone,

Please do these couple things for me.

For example,

As a parent,

The two things that matter most to me is that my kids do decent in school,

Not perfect,

But good in school,

Good enough to be able to go to college.

And then secondly,

That they stay away from substances until they turn 21.

And if they do these two things,

Then they get my help.

If they don't,

Which is their choice,

Then they won't get my help as much.

So I think as parents,

We have to limit our control of our children and decide what's really important.

So the older our children get,

We relax a bit.

We decide what's important to us.

We focus on that.

But realizing even with these things,

Our children may not choose to do that.

And though we may not like it,

We all have friends that we deeply enjoy that do things that we would not do.

And yet we can enjoy them and even care for them and want to be with them.

As our children get older,

It's that transition.

We stop making negative comments.

We stop judging them and we just enjoy them.

And if we're helping them,

We have more say.

But as they become more independent,

Then we have far less say.

We guide more through our actions and through our words and we give them more choices than they have to.

For example,

We may say,

If you go to college,

If I can help you,

I would love to.

But these are the couple of rules I have in place for you to go to college.

You have to get these separate grades,

For example,

Perhaps B's and above.

And you have to stay away from drugs and alcohol while you're in college until you turn 21.

We may put that in place.

That may be the only rules.

And they can go ahead and not get B's and they can also go ahead and drink,

But then they pay for it themselves.

And as our kids get older,

Life becomes more of a choice.

We give them choices and we accept whichever choice they make.

Instead of being disappointed that they're making a choice that's different from ours or not doing what we want.

We just love them because now we're taking on the stance of a nanny.

And here I want to end with the deepest part of this.

This is going to be the hardest,

But think about one other thing that nannies do.

When nannies are done being a nanny for a certain family,

They just move on.

They're not for the rest of their lives,

Feeling responsible or necessarily attached to those children.

They may love those children.

They may remember those children.

They may see those children even regularly,

But mostly they're just living their lives well because the children now are raised.

And it's a bit like that.

If we truly want to find the deepest happiness that we can find in regards to parenting,

Then we need to realize that we don't own our children,

That they're more of a gift that we enjoy when we have them,

But they will leave and that's okay because we don't need our children to be happy and they don't need us either to be happy.

We enjoy them while we have them and when they're gone,

That's okay too.

It's hard to do this,

But what happens is I really believe we become better parents,

We become better friends and overall when our children do make choices that we wish they hadn't or things happen to them that we wish hadn't,

We're okay and we're able to do our part,

Loving them and at the same sense,

Finding peace and happiness in our hearts.

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Love what is,

Love what is.