Stop focusing on your teens results in life and lean into your response.

Stop focusing on your teens results in life and lean into your response. How you respond to what your teen is doing is far more important than what your teen is doing.  The truth of this hit me the other day when I was watching my son play soccer. I was thinking, "Man, this kid is doing so well, he's working hard, being kind, having success in sports and music." And then the fatal thought.  "I must be doing something right." This thought stopped me right in my tracks because being a present, connected parent is not about the results my teen produces. It's about how I show up. How do I show up when they are sleeping till noon and not doing school? How do I show up when they are failing classes? How do I show up when they are "rude and disrespectful"?  (I have experienced all of the above) I show up with compassion, curiosity, empathy, kind boundaries, patience, and connection? And when I don't, because of course I am human, I show up to repair.  I get vulnerable. This is the kind of response that builds a relationship that helps them get through those hard times. This is the kind of response that helps them to create compassion for themselves and build resilience when things are not going their way.  Some teens are going to make the teen years look easy with glowing results and some teens are going to struggle every day to just keep going. Neither is good or bad, success or failure. IT IS THEIR EXPERIENCE. And your job is to keep showing up in a way that makes them feel safe to be having the experience they are having. The results are theirs. You can't create them. (Well you can, but it will compromise your relationship and their sense of self.) What you can create is the environment where it is safe to fail, suck, mess it up, learn and grow and keep going and a space where it is safe to feel, succeed, be the popular kid, without needing that to feel loved. This is what I teach you to do in my group parent coaching program, The Rooted Relationship, I help you focus on creating connection instead of creating results. Find the details to join, right here.  Relationships are not built on external results, but on inner moments of vulnerable connection.