Anatomy of Parental Self-regulation
By Lisa Miller
My 22-year-old son came home for the Thanksgiving break and triggered me.
Here’s what happened. It was Monday night, and we had dinner guests. I invited him to join us, and he accepted. When he was done eating, he excused himself from the table, cleared his plate, and went to his room. I was a little annoyed. I would have preferred he stay longer, or at the very least, wait until everyone was finished eating, and clear all of the plates. I texted him when our guests were getting ready to leave. It is our family practice to greet and send off guests. He didn’t reply. I went down to his room. Knocked. Still no reply. I opened the door. His headphones were on, so he couldn’t hear me. I yelled for him to come up to say goodbye. He did. But he didn’t like it. He said goodbye, and once our guests were gone, he let me know how much he didn’t appreciate my behavior.
My behavior?? Seriously?
I’m not gonna lie, I was initially pretty ticked off. His behavior felt rude and disrespectful. After all, he knows who we are and what our values are regarding pitching in and hosting. He has been a member of this family for 22 years, and we have consistently modeled them for him. He can behave however he wants in his house, but in ours, there are expectations.
The narrative in my head was not pretty. I was stuck in the LGI (least generous interpretation): My son is being disrespectful and lazy. He knows what we expect of him, and he chose not to act accordingly. He disregarded our house rules and our values; he thinks he is entitled to do as he pleases.
I was gearing up for a fight. But instead, this is what happened.
I pressed pause. I decided to go to bed and reassess in the morning.
The next day, first thing, I moved my body. I went to a vigorous exercise class that made me sweat and helped me work out some aggression.
After class, I vented to my BFF for under ten minutes. She patiently listened to all the ways my son was ungrateful and annoying and asked me a few well-worded questions to help me process my emotions.
I tried to heed my own parenting advice and asked myself: Why does his behavior make sense? How can I focus on connection, versus compliance? What is the most generous interpretation?
I made an effort to shift my narrative to a more generous interpretation (MGI): My son loves and respects us. He demonstrates this regularly (and I identified several examples of this for myself). He chose to join us for dinner, even though his social battery was depleted. He could have opted out. He asked for permission to leave the table and cleared his plate. He thanked us for dinner. He is exhausted from midterms and from living with five other humans with varying degrees of cleanliness and social skills, and his ADHD makes him forgetful. He would never intentionally disrespect us.
I gave myself the gift of time to calm down and self-regulate. I relied on the tools and strategies I share with other parents. Perhaps more importantly, I (mostly) avoided making my son feel bad about himself. He has plenty of people in his life, including himself, who do that already.
In the end, I chose to apologize to him for barging into his room and yelling at him. I gently reminded him that when we have guests, it’s important to me that he greet them and say goodbye. He agreed wholeheartedly. I used inquiry to help us brainstorm ways to make this happen more smoothly next time.
My son will be back at college soon. My goal is to spend this limited time together focusing on our connection (which is the best way for me to influence him), and not recovering from a big fight (which would have taken more of my time/energy and caused harm to both of us).
Some of you reading this may think that I over-reacted or was too lenient. I get it. The truth is that I am continuously seeking the delicate (elusive?) balance between maintaining my standards, parenting the kid I have, and fostering a close connection with him.