The Dance of Freedom and Control: Use a Parent Coach to Find Your Sweet Spot
The Dance of Freedom and Control: Use a Parent Coach to Find Your Sweet Spot
Every parent walks the tightrope between giving kids enough freedom to grow—and keeping enough control to keep them safe and on track. Lean too far in either direction, and things can start to wobble—chaos on one side, resentment on the other. So how do you find the balance? In this blog, we’ll look at how to navigate the push-pull of parenting with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to offer meaningful choices, set boundaries that stick, and raise kids who are both capable and connected.
I generally split parenting into two decades. The first decade—when your kids are 0-10—is about being the Captain of the Ship. In order to feel safe and secure, your kids need to know that you are at the helm with a clear vision for who you are as a family and where you are headed. The second decade—when your kids are 11-20—is about making the slow, steady shift to becoming your teen’s Wise Guide.
What does freedom look like at the younger ages?
It is probably pretty obvious what control looks like when parenting younger kids—you’re controlling when they eat, when they brush their teeth, when they go to bed, etc. You’re reminding them to say please and thank you, to not hit, to wait patiently. For most of their day, you are exerting your control.
Although you need to be the Captain of the Ship for your little kids, that doesn’t mean that you don’t give your little kids any freedom or let them take any risks.
One sunny afternoon I was visiting my friend Sonia with my 3-year-old daughter. We were sitting on the beach of a quiet inlet near my friend’s house that had a narrow jetty—around two feet wide going out into the water—a wall made of boulders stacked on top of each other. My daughter started out onto the jetty, carefully moving herself from stone to stone.
Sonia was amazed that I was still sitting on beach, not going after her.
“Aren’t you afraid she’s going to fall in?” Sonia asked.
“Not really,” I replied. “She has excellent balance and a good sense of her limits.”
“But she could fall in and get hurt,” Sonia protested.
“Yes, but I’ll get to her before she drowns, and she’s being very methodical.”
Before too long, my daughter, Julie, got to the end of the jetty, turned around, waved and then carefully made her way back. She arrived flushed with the satisfaction of completing her mission, demanding that we admire her accomplishment.
Yes, there was a risk in letting Julie go on this adventure, but I knew her skill level and what else she had already mastered. I deemed the risk worth the reward of the confidence it built in her own ability to be charge of her own environment.
All children need both security and freedom.
All children (adults, too, for that matter) need to know four things about themselves:
•I am safe
•I am important
•I am capable
•I am powerful
At any one given time, a child’s need for one of these qualities might be greater than another quality, but over time, as parents, we want to pay attention to how we are providing these states for our children.
In the example with my daughter, she got a little bit of each of them:
She was safe because she knew I was watching her, ready to rescue her the moment something went wrong.
She was important because she had my full attention. I was not taking my eyes off of her for one second.
She was capable because she was able negotiate uneven, irregular surfaces.
She was powerful because she made the decision to venture out onto the jetty, and I didn’t get in her way of that decision.
Experiences like this both build connection with the parent who is waiting to celebrate the child’s achievement and build self-confidence with the successful completion of the mission.
What does control vs. freedom look like for tweens?
As you begin to make the slow, gradual shift from being the Captain of the Ship to becoming your young adult’s wise guide, look for opportunities to offer your children more freedom.
One kind of freedom is the freedom to be out in the world, not supervised by a parent.
Kids used to have a lot more of that kind of freedom.
I’ve had clients who are reluctant to let their 10-year-old go to the other side of the store without them. That is keeping a child too tightly leashed.
Think about your own childhood. Maybe like I did at nine and ten, you had a paper route and were riding your bike within a one- or two-mile radius from your house.
How far do you let your child ride their bike out of your site? For how long?
Statistically, data shows that rates of crime against children may actually be lower than they were in the past. And in by keeping our children glued to our side, we are robbing them of the opportunity to feel capable and powerful.
Giving your kids more physical freedom is an excellent place to start.
If your child is not in danger of being abducted or approached by a stranger, what is your greatest concern about them being physically away from you?
For many parents, they are afraid of the traffic. And that is a legitimate concern, particularly if you have been driving your child everywhere and have never had the opportunity to train them in road safety.
In order for you to feel comfortable with your kid riding around the neighborhood, you are going to need to teach and then have them demonstrate to you multiple times that they know how to be safe near traffic.
Once you are 90% comfortable, it is time to let them expand their reach bit by bit.
You can always exert control alongside allowing the freedom.
One family I worked with had a rule that the kids could ride their bikes anywhere within a four-street border with as little notice as, “Dad, I’m going bike riding.” If they wanted to go outside that four-street border, however, they had to ask for specific permission.
“Dad, I wanna go to the library for an hour and then stop at 7-11 on the way home to buy some candy. I’ll be home by 4:30 at the latest, okay?”
Dad would then grant permission.
Failure to follow family guidelines can result in taking a step back from what is allowed.
If your child doesn’t return by the promised time, an appropriate consequence might be that they can’t go outside the four-street border alone next time but will have to take a parent or sibling along with them to remind them to keep an eye on the time.
Finding the balance between control and freedom with middle schoolers.
Teens need a great deal of freedom. Before they leave home, they need a lot of practice making decisions and testing their own internal boundaries.
As a middle school teacher, I urged parents all the time to stop managing their student’s schoolwork. Instead, let the teen fail the test or get a bad grade on their report card.
Of course, parents should still express their expectations and even hold clear limits, but their limits need to have enough wiggle room for the child to figure things out on their own.
For example, parents might say to their kids, as long as you have a B average, I am not going to interfere with your school work. If your grades drop below a B, we will have weekly check ins until they are at B or above. Once they are up, we will do a check-in after two weeks, then after three weeks, then four weeks, etc.
Parents should still be there with offers of support, but if you control your student’s studies too tightly, you will be robbing them of their own autonomy. They will not feel that they can take credit for their work; they will feel that you are responsible for the grade while they were just along for the ride.
It is much more effective to use open-ended questions to support your teen’s good choices. With homework, that might include questions like,
•How will you feel about yourself if you don’t put in your best effort?
•How could you approach your work so that it is easier?
•If you don’t want help from us, how else could you get support with this assignment?
The last thing you want is to send a kid to high school without having given them the chance to fail and then come back from that failure. Your support with their recovery—both of performance and their sense of themselves—is key to their developing self-esteem.
Finding the balance between control and freedom with high schoolers.
Developmentally, it is a teen’s job to push away from their parents. At the same time, parents get scared of the greater dangers their teen is likely to face. To manage fear (similar to the example with letting your kids ride all over the neighborhood), the key is training and communication.
Let’s be clear here: It is your job to manage your fear, and not let it get in the way of your child’s burgeoning independence.
Although teens are heavily influenced by their peers, studies show that teens still want to hear their parents’ views on things like smoking/vaping and alcohol use or what is okay to do sexually at a given age. They may not be gracious about it, but they do want your guidance—as long as it isn’t too judgmental or restrictive.
Keeping communication open is key to keeping your child safe while letting them spread their wings.
Talking to your kids with a lot of curiosity and empathy about a full range of teen topics has been shown to be the most effective buffer against risky teen behaviors.
That is a really important idea. Let’s consider it again:
Talking to your kids with a lot of curiosity and empathy about a full range of teen topics has been shown to be the most effective buffer against risky teen behaviors.
As a parenting coach, my recommendation is to be very systematic about talking to your kids about teen challenges (vaping/smoking, drinking, weed and other recreational drugs, misusing prescription drugs, sexting, online predators, porn, sex, sexuality, and even suicide). I suggest to parents that they set aside 10-15 minutes every week to talk about these issues.
Give teens opportunities to show their trustworthiness: Focus on the positive.
Rather than putting your attention on all the things that can go wrong for your teen, be sure you are praising them and noticing when they are reliable, when they are adaptable, show a strong work ethic, use their initiative or their critical thinking skills. Call out when they are being respectful of themselves or others. Brag about their creativity or organizational skills. In doing so, not only will you increase the likelihood of them showing up in that way more, but your own fears will be soothed as you realize how truly capable your kids are.
Instead of telling your teens no, tell them what you would need in order to feel comfortable enough to say yes.
A flat out no just calls for teen rebellion. A teen is biologically wired both for risk and rebellion. Their job is to answer the question who am I? That takes pushing their edges. We want them to push their edges.
We also want them to be safe.
A wise parent uses a lot of open-ended conversations to prompt their teen’s thinking:
Your 15-year-old wants to return late from a friend’s house; you can’t pick them up without leaving their little sister home alone, so your teen wants to take the bus.
Your first thought is No, NO WAY! At the same time, you don’t want to shut your child down.
Now you ask, what could you do to optimize safety in this situation?
Over a series of conversations, your teen might come up with ideas like
•Have my friend wait with me for the bus
•Text home that I am waiting for the bus
•Sit right behind the bus driver
•Call and be talking to mom the whole bus ride home
•Have mom stand on the front steps looking down the street as I walk the half block home from the bus stop
By the time your teen has come up with all these ideas, you will recognize that this is an acceptable level of risk, and your fear will come down to a manageable level.
Say yes even though you are still somewhat uncomfortable.
Part of the delicate dance of freedom vs. control is that you are going to have to stretch your own limits. You want to bring the risk down to an acceptable range, and at the same time, the very fact that it feels a little risky to your teen is a big part of the growth. When they do handle something risky, your teens get a big jolt of dopamine and a corresponding surge of self-confidence, meeting their need to feel capable and powerful.
Still need some help finding the right freedom vs. control balance?
This is the kind of topic that comes of in parenting coaching all the time, and I’d be happy to help.
If you’re ready to think about how to grant your child independence while still keeping them safe, find a time for a Getting to Know You Call. On the call, you can share with me what is going on and if I think I can help, I’ll ask permission to share how I work with families. If I don’t think I can help, we’ll brainstorm other resources and professionals that could help.