When you’ve been more intentional with how you operate when you’re around your kid, you’ll see that you can in fact make a huge difference in how they respond to you. Letting them have some slack, some reigns to work with gives them the chance to show you, but...

If our earnest goal is to have them open up, show us their soft underbelly and let us know even the ugly about their lives, maybe even effect real and lasting change, then guess what? We have to stop being reactive. We have to work on our own anger, past issues, all of it.

Take a breath. Close your eyes, if you’re into that, and be honest with yourself. Could you use a new idea or two? Have you tried everything else? Do you realize that this is a pivotal phase of life in which kids can choose one distinct future over another?

We really want to believe that they don’t see right through us, that our weak lines (“do it because I said so” or “I can do this thing I’m telling you not to do because I’m an adult”) will actually make the difference we are just desperate to see.