Parenting extroverted children sure can be exhausting for an introvert. Constant noise, questions, chatter. No room in my head to hear myself think. Actually, now that my kids are finally in bed, and I CAN hear myself think, I realize that I’ve been having problems setting boundaries lately.

When I have a project to complete or an email to write or a phone call to make, I haven’t been remembering to just say so and declare a certain amount of uninterrupted time for myself. Instead, I try to write with one hand and help with homework with the other. And all I get is tired. It didn’t occur to me before tonight how exhausting it is to fragment my attention.

Or maybe it did, and I just forgot.

Hey, it happens!

Anyway, right on cue, just as I was sitting here writing this, my 9 year old daughter showed up at the top of the stairs. I had tucked her in an hour earlier, and frankly I was pretty ready to be done with parenting for the night. She whined that she couldn’t get comfortable in her bed.

If this had been one of my well-rested and nurturing moments, I might have remembered that there was a big event at school the next day and she was nervous about it. I probably would have gone into her room for a while and helped her settle down.

But it wasn’t one of those moments. So I told her in as neutral and loving of a voice as I could muster, “Do the best you can. I know you’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” The second the words left my mouth I felt guilty, but I was just too wiped out to do anything with my guilt. She slouched back to her room, and I didn’t hear from her again.

… until breakfast the next morning. At which point I was well-rested again, so I checked in with her about what was going on the night before. She told me her blankets were all twisted up and she couldn’t fit her feet into her bed. My guilt delivered its verdict with the pound of the gavel … Bad Mother! But in the next breath she set me free.

“Mom, I didn’t know what to do until you helped me. You told me to do the best I could. So I went back upstairs and I figured out how to fix it, and I fell right to sleep.”

And she was serious!

Wow. All that guilt for nothing!! Turns out that she was fine. Even better than fine — my exhaustion and unwillingness to exert effort on her behalf actually facilitated her accessing her inner resources.

The moral of the story: Take care of yourself first, and everything else falls into balance. Don’t let the voice of guilt entice you into overextending yourself on behalf of your kids. Sometimes, the very best thing you can do is refuse to help them, especially if doing so is going to cost you more than you can cheerfully give.

Helping a child while feeling resentment does her no favor in the long run! Take care of your own needs first. Go for a walk, take a nap … do whatever you need to do to get yourself feeling full, happy, and generous again before you engage with your kids. The gifts that you share with your family from your state of fulfillment are the ones that truly nourish and sustain them.

Copyright 2005 karen alonge

Karen Alonge is an intuitive life coach and parenting mentor with 20 years of experience helping families with all types of challenges. She offers consultations by phone, email, and IM. Clients often notice dramatic changes in their daily experience after only one session. Please visit http://www.karenalonge.com for more information.

Have you heard the expression: “A parent is only as happy as her unhappiest child?” That sentiment has rung true for parents many times, as unfortunate as that is. A child suffering from a failed attempt at something he cared about, a social rebuff that caused hurt feelings, facing a challenge that generated fear of failure…yes, parents feel their children’s pain many times, and very intensely.

But sometimes a parent’s identification with his/her child is over the top. Sometimes parents become overly involved in their kids’ fights and feel the need to rescue them. Parents need to become aware that in this process we can inadvertently increase our child’s stress and pain.

As a generation, I believe we baby-boomers are great parents. We’re engaged, involved, attentive and informed. We acknowledge the importance of self-esteem, we support our kids’ involvement in extra curricular activities from an early age, we value education and help our kids develop their unique skills…but we sometimes let those good intentions run amok. Strengths become weaknesses when taken to the extreme… parents need to remember that.

I recently had a middle school principal tell me he has “a parent problem. When did it happen that parents won’t let go?” he wondered aloud. “When did our generation decide that we have to fight our children’s battles for them? Why can’t parents today let go?”

He has put his finger on the issue, because it is a question of when to let go.

Resilience is a quality parents will tell you they want to help teach their kids. Yet parents who rush in to help their kids win every battle and make every team are denying their kids the ability to develop resilience. No parent likes to see his child in pain and that may be the heart of the problem.

Michael Thompson, Ph. D., in his book The Pressured Child points out that what drives this over-protection of teens is that parents are uncomfortable when they feel helpless. There are times kids face challenges that create unwanted outcomes that parents can’t change, and the resulting sense of helplessness sometimes makes parents so uncomfortable they take action – even if it makes things worse. Rushing in to protect and defend a teenager who is denied a place on the team or a coveted position can actually dis-empower a child, communicating that he isn’t good enough to defend himself or compete effectively. It’s actually a selfish and self-centered move on the parent’s part. Thompson states “…A child can always feel when the parent is treating her own sense of helplessness rather than addressing the child’s pain.”

So we do have a “parent problem,” and despite best intentions, one that can cause our children undue and undeserved pain.

Teaching our children resilience requires restraint at times. Kids learn from trial and error… they will survive a failure and get up to try again another day if they learn that failure is tolerated in their family. Tasting failure prepares them with a realistic and flexible attitude, and teaches lessons that, for some, may be as important as tasting success.

Parents of teenagers can find an appropriate and helpful stance by viewing themselves as mentors, or coaches, providing assistance and supporting kids’ efforts while not taking over for them. Taking failed efforts in stride, modeling behavior that demonstrates an honest effort is worthwhile regardless of the outcome – these are the important lessons parents much teach teenagers.

It’s about empowerment, valuable life lessons, resilience, and unconditional love.

©2005 Sue Blaney

Sue Blaney is the author of Please Stop the Rollercoaster! How Parents of Teenagers Can Smooth Out the Ride and Practical Tips for Parents of Young Teens; What You Can Do to Enhance Your Child’s Middle School Years . She offers solutions, tips and resources for parents of teenagers and those who work with them. Her products include an effective guide for parents and professionals who want to create a parenting discussion group. Visit her website at http://www.PleaseStoptheRollercoaster.com and her Parenting Journal Blog at http://www.ParentingTeenagers.net.