Power and Control
I help moms of young children drop the power struggle war with their kiddos to find more peace in their parenting and love being a mom again. So let’s take a deeper dive into the concept of power and control which lead to these power struggles in the first place. Power is a natural human need. We want to be in control of our lives and feel powerful. When we are single and only have to worry about ourselves, it tends to be easier to feel in control of our lives but then we get married and have to share some of that power with another human being. The easiest decisions we used to make with no thought turn into constant power struggles. What to eat for dinner, how to spend Friday night, etc. All of a sudden we have to coordinate with someone else so we our illusion of being in control of our lives, shifts as we share our lives with our spouse. That multiplies exponentially when our children are born. Innocent sweet little babies who literally cannot do a single thing by themselves and require all of that support from us, seem to take even more control out of our lives. We try to regain that feeling of being in control by trying to control them. The problem is that they are also human beings with this same need for power and control. Thus the power struggle.
The power struggle with my son started before he was even born. He was born 11 days after his “due date”! So I learned early on about him having his own agency and taking it into his own hands. Now I have four kids and they are all various degrees of “strong willed”. Currently my 3 year old is the most “stubborn” so the power struggles run rampant around her. She knows what she wants, what she doesn’t want, and she will not accept any less. I use (and teach) a lot of practical tips and tricks to drop our end of the rope in these tug of war situations but for today let me just cut to the chase and teach you where the real source of our power comes from our own minds.
We think that what our kid is doing or not doing is causing our feelings. This simply is not true. If our lives are dictated by theirs, of course we feel powerless and out of control all the time. But in fact between the outside circumstance (our child) and our irritation (or whatever other unpleasant emotion) is a thought. And our own thoughts are what we really do have control of. We cannot control the other humans. Even the tiny ones that came from our own wombs. We just can’t. They are their own selves. We can lead, influence, and teach them but, like my 3 year old likes to remind me multiple times a day, she really is “in charge of my own self!” When we really, really understand that the only thing in life that we have control over is our own thoughts, we get our power back. If we are waiting for our children to behave before we can feel good, it’s going to be a long miserable life. They will “behave” how they want to behave. And we can choose how we want to behave by choosing our thoughts intentionally which give us feelings that drive those behaviors we expect from them, ourselves. It’s not the easiest thing to control ourselves, that’s why we try to control everyone and everything around us but that’s not just hard, it’s impossible. If you feel like you are drowning in out of control-ness, I can help! Let’s take a look at the thought patterns that are keeping you stuck. Email me today for a free consultation. We’ve got this!
