Frequently Asked Questions
Chaos to Connection Answers
As parents start reading and learning the 9 heart-centered essentials in Chaos to Connection, they often have questions. Following are common questions about Chaos to Connection and answers to those questions.
A: By being aware of your own state of being, you are aware of your feelings, emotions, physical sensations and thoughts and can choose how you react in a situation and to be present in the moment. You can then choose to be a “safe receptacle” for your teen to work through what he is struggling with. When your teen is struggling and comes to you to get support, he does not want to see you start to struggle in reaction to them. Further, when you struggle in reaction to your teen, you may have a tendency to try and “fix” him so we don’t have to feel our own discomfort. If you are aware of your own state of being, you hear your teen and give him an unconditionally loving presence in which he can find his way through his own struggle.
A: If your teen is resisting your support, check in and ask yourself “why” you want to help your teen. Is it to make yourself feel better? Is it because you are feeling your own discomfort in watching them struggle and want to “fix” it for them? Often, parents have their own agendas that sneak into “being supportive.” If you really want to support your teen, check in first with your own agendas and make sure you aren’t putting those on your teen. Consider also what you are really asking for when you seek support from someone.
A: First, it is important to be aware whether your teen is actually in an unsafe situation or whether you are just worried they are. Often, when parents don’t know about what their teens are engaging in, they can create a lot of scary—but not necessarily true—stories. By focusing on your relationship with your teen and creating a safe space where your teen can share with you, your teen will feel more comfortable talking to you. You can then better assess their safety needs.
A: Remember that until you have a stronger, safer relationship with your daughter she may not want to open to your guidance. The first step is to bring awareness to yourself and to discover if are truly able to see where she wants to go and to offer guidance from that place, rather than wanting to guide her in the direction that you think is best. If she is rejecting your guidance, she may feel that you don’t truly have her best interest at heart and that you just want her to “follow in your footsteps.” Separating your own plans for her from really connecting with her own desires for herself will begin to make a safer connection for you to share your wisdom.
A: Your presence and state of being have an incredible amount of power to help soothe your teen. Think about being in a large group of people, and what happens if one person yells “Fire!” The whole group stampedes toward the door, even trampling on others. Now think if one person with a strong presence stands up during this chaos and says, “It’s okay. There is no fire.” Then everyone will become calm and relaxed. Something similar happens with your teen. When she is screaming “Fire!” if you join her, you’ll take each other down. If you are able to stay calm in your presence, you will be able to say, “I’m okay. I can see you are scared, and I’m here for you.”
A: Check in with yourself and see if you have an agenda about when you think your teen needs to be ready to fly the nest. In our culture, there is an assumed readiness at 18 years old. This doesn’t take into account our teen’s emotional readiness to leave home. Often in pushing this agenda to get a child ready to launch at 18, parents aren’t attuning to their child’s own readiness. Teens mature at different ages. As parents, attuning with your teen’s emotional readiness to take steps, even if it looks like they are delayed, will allow her to emotionally mature and take her own steps toward launching.
A: First, remember that by forgiving you will be working to forgive yourself for judging your teen’s behavior. In heart-centered parenting, you see your teen’s behavior as him doing the best he can in the state of being he is acting from. Once you are able to forgive yourself for perceiving your teen as “doing” something to hurt you, you will be able to drop your judgment and talk with your teen from a loving place. From an open, non-judgmental place, you can better understand where the behavior came from and then begin to address how your teen can find other ways to calm himself.
A: Visioning is a wonderful, creative exercise to do with your teen. Staying in the moment and not getting attached to the plan makes visioning a living, breathing daily practice. So many times, parents have visions for their teens, and then when they don’t meet those visions, parents begin to push them and judge them as being lazy, irresponsible or slow. When parents do this, they have lost the joy of visioning. If a teen is not moving in the direction a family envisioned together, it is time to sit back down, in the moment, and create a new vision from where the family and teen is, instead of feeling disappointment that the original vision was not met. Staying with the flow of where your teen truly is, at the moment, will allow your visioning to move and flow until your teen engages his own passion and then lives out his true vision.
A: Often a parent’s engagement with a teen has been from a place of worry or fear. When you do have time with your teen, you may find yourself asking probing questions, lecturing or trying to get him to act responsibly toward you and others. Such engagement is more about “what he is doing” than about “who he is.” You may have heard your teen say, “You never listen to me,” which is his way of describing his feeling of not being known by you. Your teen may then begin to tune you out, keeping his own sense of well-being intact. If you have a hard time engaging your teen, the next time you try, see if you can unconditionally surrender your agenda and expectations. Engage with your own desire to connect in a loving way so that you can actually “dig” the essence of your teen. Over time he will engage!