Are You Parenting With Your EGO?

It’s been a hot second since I’ve written a post.  I apologize, but I’ve been busy with clients and having some fun making Tik Tok videos interviewing moms to get their take on social media.  The interesting thing that I found, was that whenever I held up my teeny tiny microphone, women all said what they thought I wanted to hear. “Social media is both good and bad”. You know the drill. But as soon as we stopped taping and put the teeny microphone down, they would turn to me and say, “Social media is so toxic” and then they went off!  I was like ladies, why didn’t you say this on camera? 

When I first started coaching, I thought that social media would be the number one reason that girls had self-esteem issues.  And while I wasn’t far off, social media creates a ton of insecurities, I learned that it was so much more than that.  My biggest epiphany was that communication issues with parents were another huge issue with this demographic.  As parents, we want what’s best for our kids.  “We want our kids to be happy”.  But do we actually “actively” listen to our kids and hear what they want?  Do we all think that social media is the most toxic thing to ever happen to a society and therefore, place all the problems and issues they encounter on that?  I, for one, can say that I’m guilty of doing just that.  Social media is here to stay.  It can be positive, in terms of staying in touch with people, being aware of current trends, and just knowing what’s going on.  But there are so many more aspects of social media that are toxic, (i.e., not tagging friends in group shots, lying about your whereabouts and then people see live posts and realize they’ve been lied to, creating a character on social media that isn’t real, putting filters on everything and having to face people IRL (in real life), making everything look like happy glittery unicorns.  It’s all crap!

But the buck doesn’t stop with social media.  Our girls are getting pressure from school, coaches, friends, their job, and us!  Sometimes, when I give talks, I ask the audience if they’re parenting with their ego.  I get nasty looks and a resounding NO!  Think about it for a second.  We all want our kids to be on the best teams, go to the best schools, have the best coaches, play with the best travel clubs, and this list goes on and on.  Who are we doing that for?  Did they ask?  I’m sure some of your kids did ask to be on the best teams with the best kids, or in the best AP classes, but I’m equally sure that some didn’t.  We think that we know what’s best for them, and while we have the best intentions, we aren’t always right.  We as parents, need to stop and listen to our kids.  As parents, we’ve been through it, and we know what pitfalls to look out for.  We see an accident about to happen and we want to fix it before it ever becomes a problem.  But who are we helping when we do that?  How can we say we aren’t parenting with our ego when we always try to help our kids onto the best of everything life has to offer?  Sometimes our kids are very direct with their wants.  Other times, they don’t want to hurt our feelings or let us down, so they go along with what we want to the detriment of what’s best for them.  I can’t tell you how many girls that I work with who want certain things but fear letting down their moms.  As a coach, I don’t give advice and I certainly don’t give them my opinions.  I listen and give them space to talk about how they feel and sort out what they want.  I’m a mother and a mindset coach, and I can tell you that I’m as guilty as the next guy of “knowing what’s best for my kid”.  But in the end, THEY know what’s best, and if they don’t, they’ll learn.  This is their life, and we need to let them figure it out.  I say that with love