Tag Archives: control

“My teenager is selfish and rude! How did I raise a child like this?”

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"Just a Blur" — Franz Klammer by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire

Teenage rudeness is a normal attempt to separate from the parent. Teenagers respond to what they perceive as overly-involved behavior by pushing the parent away. A parent may not think he or she is overly involved, but teenagers are very sensitive to even the most minor hints and suggestions, often seeing them as controlling and manipulative. Sometimes feelings of being controlled are related to how strongly attached a child feels to the parent.

The basic conflict between teenagers and parents revolves around the parent’s desire to protect the child versus the teen’s desire for autonomy. On the one hand, parents want to make sure their children don’t get hurt and tend to take care of them as they did when they were younger. It is difficult to gradually let go and risk seeing your child make mistakes or get hurt.

On the other hand, children gradually become more autonomous and capable. They want and need to make more of their own decisions and mistakes — age-appropriately of course. This desire for autonomy, in addition to adolescent hormones and school and social pressures, causes them to react with strong emotions.

Rudeness is a rudimentary attempt to gain independence and demonstrates that the teenager feels fairly secure that the parent won’t become overly punitive — not a bad thing.

In contrast, in the presence of a cold or neglectful parent, teenagers may not feel so secure. Instead of feeling the need to separate, they might feel defeated in their longing for more togetherness.

When teenagers become rude, it may be a sign that the parent should become more detached. Detachment does not mean becoming overly permissive and it does not mean not caring. It means not getting overly-involved emotionally. A parent can be concerned and detached by eliminating reactivity and the appearance of urgency.

A parent needs to increasingly resist micro managing and hovering over a teen as a child grows up. While it’s important to be there for guidance, emergencies, and setting boundaries, parents should refrain from being reactive to the teenager’s intense emotions of outrage and grief. Rather than jumping in trying to solve their problems or, alternatively, trying to minimize their emotions, remaining calm will benefit the teen. If the teen is open to engagement, instead of hastily giving your opinion, ask questions, such as, “What do you think about the situation?”

In addition to becoming more detached, the parent can suggest more effective ways to criticize, withdraw, or ask for more independence. “Instead of slamming the door, just say that you need some time alone.” “Instead of rolling your eyes and saying, ‘What do you need to know that for?!’ just tell me that you’d rather not talk about it.” They may not say so, but they will appreciate your recognition of their need to set boundaries.

Overly strict expectations, with no room for the emotional inexperience of adolescence, will backfire. If you expect your teen to never roll her eyes at you or melt down after a bad day at school, you will find yourself criticizing and nagging constantly, and your teen will withdraw or rebel or take her behavior underground.

~Wendy Mogel, PhD, Author of “The Blessing of a B Minus”

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Recommended Reading: “The Blessing of a B Minus” by Wendy Mogel, PhD

Read “Parenting to strictly: ‘Because I said so!'”

Read “Setting Boundaries.”

“She’s just like my mother! — so weak!”
“He’s just like my father — so controlling!”

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"Journey" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire

The quality of all of our relationships is a direct function of our relationship to ourselves.

~James Hollis

Since no one influences our relationship to ourselves as much as our parents, we are often drawn to people who have some key qualities of our parents (or their extreme opposites.) While at first familiar and comforting, eventually those qualities become all-too-familiar triggers to our childhood responses. For example, what at first seemed attractive, “strong and in control,” turns into “controlling and dictatorial.”

“How many marriages are wrecked for years, and sometimes forever, because he sees his mother in his wife and she her father in her husband, and neither ever recognizes the other’s reality!” wrote Carl Jung.

Imagine a wife is projecting onto her husband, “You’re just like my father — controlling and dictatorial.” Naturally, she will respond with the same defenses as she did as a child — she will behave like a child, whether with hostility, withdrawal, or reluctant compliance. Such a response intensifies the dynamic between the couple. He will see her as weak and become more domineering as a defense against vulnerability.

Projection triggers automatic responses, closing off the opportunity to relate in a fresh way in the current situation. By projecting all the control onto her husband, the wife assumes a lack of self-empowerment and continues to give away the power that she can develop within herself. The husband projects away his vulnerability and becomes increasingly forceful to repress any healthy though uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty.

To avoid this unhappy vicious cycle, the partners can try to take back their projections and overcome their automatic reactions.

Taking back projections is not easy. Partners feel obligated to point out the weaknesses of their partner that really reside within themselves. However, by taking back our projections, we have a chance to grow and learn to approach our partners fair-mindedly.

So, if we see our partner as controlling, for example, we must

1) learn to deal effectively with controlling people,
2) develop more personal authority to become less of a victim, and
3) deflate the power of controlling behavior by seeing the fear of vulnerability beneath the controlling behavior.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read “Negative Projection.”

“I’m always walking on eggshells. I don’t want to upset my partner.”

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Walking on Diamonds" Astronaut Eugene Cernan
In the Permanent Collection of the Smithsonian

by Mimi Stuart ©

If you are walking on eggshells to avoid upsetting your partner, that means you are allowing yourself to be controlled by your partner’s reactivity. Of course, it’s nice to be considerate of your partner’s feelings, but not at the expense of your own.

The best relationships are between people who are “differentiated,” that is, able to be emotionally objective and separate, while at the same time being intimate and caring. Differentiation allows intense involvement without becoming infected with your partner’s anxiety, and without one person needing to withdraw or interfere with the partner.

The great psychologist Murray Bowen was the first to discuss differentiation, describing it as “living according to your own values and beliefs in the face of opposition… while also having the ability to change your values, beliefs, and behavior when your well-considered judgment or concern for others dictates it.”

Undifferentiated, or fused, couples tend to modify their behavior out of fear of their partner’s reactions. Eventually they come to feel as though they have lost who they are.

Being true to yourself when you relate to others is what makes a relationship interesting, passionate and sustainable.

So when you feel that you have to walk on eggshells, take a moment to figure out what you feel and believe. Central to differentiation is facing your discomfort with your partner’s anger, cold shoulder, or other reactivity. Learn how to be diplomatic and kind to your partner, while standing firm in being true to yourself.

When you expect a negative reaction, be prepared to accept it. If your partner becomes angry, don’t take it personally. State calmly, “You may not like my position, but this is how I feel/what I think/what I’d like to do.” Leave the room if necessary, but with a faith that you are walking on diamonds, not eggshells.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read “Emotional Intimacy.”

Recommended: Kerr, M. & Bowen, M. (1988). Family Evaluation: The role of the family as an emotional unit that governs individual behavior and development. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York.