Does self-worth affect your parenting? The answer is yes. In this episode I share about how boundaries affect parenting, self-worth, and trust. I give you a "before-and-after" example of what my parenting looked like when my self-esteem was in the gutter and what parenting looked like "after" I had a strong sense of self worth. Learn why self-worth work is critical for parents and easy steps to help you start your own worthy work.
Transcript
Good Parents Have Strong Self-Worth
I don't think that you can be the best parent you want to be unless you do some significant self-worth work. What I call worthy work. So in my book, the Worthy Project, I talk about, well, I give some examples of parenting here and there, but I talk about boundaries and fair compensation. So I wanted to talk about this kind of boundary idea today, because typically there's two different ways that boundaries work.
Good Parenting Requires Healthy Boundaries
One, if you think about yourself in the middle of a circle and you draw a circle around you, boundaries are that circle to. Things or people or energy out, but it's also to keep you in. So within the circle, that's a you problem. That's a keep yourself in the circle problem, we call that containment. And then the other side of boundary work is really clearly communicating how to stay out of your circle.
So I found myself this week in a situation with my adult daughter. Oh man. I'm just so used to giving advice and I'm so used to wanting to help and also thinking that I should be running her life, obviously, obviously I should be running her life, you guys, but. Thinking that I need to protect her.
Boundaries Are About Protecting You and Those You Love
And that's kind of what boundaries are about. They're about protecting you. They're about protecting the people that you love. And when your child is maybe 13 and down, they're kind of in that circle. When you draw it around, you know, you're, you have a boundary between you and your child, but you also are protecting you and your child.
So, I found myself this week, she's 20. She was telling me some stuff that she was really excited about and I was like immediately like, well, have you thought of this? Have you thought of this? Have you thought of this? Because I can think of 19 different ways that this needs to be checked or double checked or troubleshooted, and I.
Could hear her voice just like fall and go, oh, okay. Yeah, no, I haven't thought of that. And I just, I felt that bad mom feeling, oh, I hate it. But what I realized is that was a boundary violation and I, I actually crossed my own boundary. So let me explain that. Most of my boundary work. Especially yeah, I, I guess most, I don't think there's an especially attached, I think it's just most of my boundary work has been around containing myself.
Like I've said in the other episodes, I typically want to add value. I want to hustle, I wanna charm. I want to be funny, I want to be involved in some way. And so I realized, okay, I did it again here. And I need to hold back. Now, I talk about this a lot in the Worthy Project. I talk about this specifically when I met my husband and, and having to work through just holding myself in, holding that kind of plank pose, but specifically in this boundary containment idea. What I needed to do was contain my own self rather than worrying about her, her actions, her future, what she's going to choose.
Caring v. Controlling
So there's a difference between caring, of course I care of. Of course, if she asked me, I would give her advice or I'd maybe say, you know, you might wanna look into this. And then there's that kind of not so pretty side, that's more about compulsively trying to control, manage. It's, it's a hypervigilant feeling. It's really stemming from my anxiety, which means I am not able to handle what I'm feeling like. So instead of dealing with my own feelings and staying within my circle, I'm out there trying to manage her and her future.
And it sounds, altruistic and it sounds like care, but when you break it down and you're doing this with adult children or with teenagers especially, where they might not be behaving in this way that you would like them to, however you're not in control of them or their lives or their destinies anymore, there's this.
There's this place where you have to cross over and start to trust. First, you have to be able to handle the feeling that you have. And second, you have to be able to trust them that they might know how to live their life. So I caught myself, I texted her after we had a awkward exchange and just said, Hey, you know, I'm super excited about this.
I realized I just flooded you with a bunch of questions. You know when you're ready and if you have questions, I'm here to help. I'm excited for you. So what that does is, for one, I said the truth. I contained my own boundary. I'm staying within myself. This is me. I'm not living her life. I am not a 20 year old.
And then also to try to repair our. Bond and now our relationship and, and what that looks like is, I trust you. I trust that you know how to handle this. I believe in you. Like I see her as absolutely infinitely worthy. Absolutely. So why would I think that I need to be in charge of how she thinks, what she does, how she manages life?
I don't. And, I want her to feel that. So that's, that's an a containment thing.
Clear Boundaries Create Healthy Families
Now, before worthiness. Work for me. I was a parent obviously, of a little girl, and so where my self-worth issues really showed up were, I was always pretty boundaried as a parent, because I had been a teacher for a long time and I knew how to work with kids and I knew that they just needed like, just kind of routines and this is what we're doing.
This is how the rules work and this is what you're expected to do. So that part wasn't hard for me. Where it got hard was in the after divorce math where she was really unhappy. She. Me to change things for her. I couldn't change her life. I couldn't make it better. I was also really broke in 2009. I lost all of my real estate assets, plus I had to get a divorce and split debt and ended up half million dollars in debt as a single mom at 35.
And that's a whole story for another day. So I was stressed and I wasn't my best parenting self during that time. So typically what I was trying to do was still maintain some level of control, and I think that. A lot of boundary issues are that where you're stepping on people's boundaries or you're not clear about your boundaries.
You're not stating what works for you because you're trying to control or manipulate how you appear. Either to them or, and what I mean by that is like, you want to appear nice or kind or likable. So you might not say, oh, that doesn't work for me, or, I don't want to do that, or You need to do it this way because this is what works here.
So instead of really clearly communicating things, I was basically managing my image and. I have to admit I did that while I was parenting her. I, I, oh my gosh, I didn't want like her melting down at a birthday party, or I didn't want her to, you know, be a jerk to her friends, those kind of things.
Not that she ever was, but instead of really seeing her as this individual worthy person that really. Gets to choose her life path to some extent, or seeing myself as a parent that could clearly communicate, Hey, this is how this works. This is how you get great results. A lot of times I was over there worried about how I was coming off, what I was looking like.
Do I look like a bad mom? Do I look like I'm losing my mind? Do I, you know, I remember this one time being a really young mom. I mean, Like she was on my hip and I looked down and I had two different shoes on, and I didn't realize that I had left the house like that, and I was so embarrassed. I mean, I can't even tell you how embarrassed I was and now I would be like, whatever.
I think I would think it was funny because it would just be an indication of all the sleeplessness, but at the time it's like, I was trying and managing myself so hard and her so hard to try to make sure we are always looking good and we're always put together, so, so that's what not to do. And really where that came from is this inner worthlessness.
I didn't. I If you don't feel worthy, if you don't have great self-esteem, there is no way for you to understand other people's worth. You naturally can only kind of understand as high up as you see yourself, if that makes sense. So if you want to be a good parent, you've got to raise up your self worth because you need to see them as infinitely worthy, and you cannot do that if you haven't done your own work.
Trust Your Child
So, What was it I suggest? How do you do this? One? Trust. Imagine trusting them, like really seeing them not as incapable, not as damaged, not as failing, not as not doing it, right. Imagine seeing that they are doing their life really well. And if you saw it like that and you trusted that, how else would you interact?
Work on Your Own Personal Boundaries
Number two, you have to work on your boundaries. Boundaries are not. About trying to make someone else change. However, that is not that doesn't mean that I'm saying, oh, just let your kids do what you want. I don't think that's good for them or for you. So boundaries are more about communication, taking the time to clearly communicate how things work, what works best, and what happens when X, y, Z isn't done.
It's not about trying to make someone. Behave in a certain way. It's not about complaining to them, and it's not about, you know, harping on them. It's really about just saying this is what needs to happen, and if that doesn't happen, then this is what happens in our household. Something like that.
Stop Trying to Control
Three, notice what you want to influence and why, and just be real with yourself.
Am I doing this for my own self? Am I doing this for my own image? Am I doing this because I can't bear this discomfort of surrender? And then four, try to tell the truth as much as possible. I mean, as much as possible, if you feel afraid, say you feel afraid. If you feel outta control, say you feel outta control.
Don't you, you can do that as a great parent without having to, you know, give them all your baggage. You don't wanna do that, but it's more like, Hey. Kind of what I went, went through just now is like, oh, I kind of freaked out for a second and tried to manage your life really hard from my iPhone. I'm sorry.
And. I won't do it again. Okay. Work on your boundaries, contain yourself, deal with your own feelings before you work on anybody else around you.