Without realizing it, countless parents are so eager to ensure their kids' success that they rob their children of the will and wherewithal to forge a path into the unknown. A growing number of children feel stressed and out of control in the face of the unknown and often carry that sense of helplessness with them into adulthood. Psychoneurologist William Stixurd and life coach Ned Johnson lend their decades of expertise working with children and adolescents and combine it with the latest research on the subject to offer parents a new framework for restoring a sense of confidence and inner motivation that their kids need to excel in life.

Whether a teenager shows up to school by walking from his home in the projects or rolls up chauffeured by daddy’s butler in a Rolls Royce, chronic stress threatens him. The deleterious effects of young athletes taking hard hits to the head for years rightly provoke media attention and concern, but so should the negatively compounding effects of chronic stress. This more common danger harms the future of millions of young people. Stress is potentially useful in momentary bursts, but consistent stress over years is destructive, and young people from all demographics are vulnerable to its pernicious effects. Among the most common results are long-term anxiety and depression, eating disorders, heavy drinking, chronic sleep deprivation, and self-harm.

Long-term stress is debilitating to anyone, but especially so for young people whose brains are rapidly maturing. The brain goes through super spurts at different times in the developmental process, and, besides infancy, there is no period in which the growth is more dramatic than those teenage years (roughly ages 12 to 18).

More than actually being in control, just the sense of being in control makes all the difference for people. Since the 1960s, the locus of control (where a person believes the power over his or her life lies) has shifted from an internal locus (“I have power over my destiny and wellbeing”) to external (“These people, circumstances, and factors determine my destiny and wellbeing”). A growing majority of people feel like they are at the mercy of external forces, and this leaves them feeling out of control. At bottom, feeling out of control is the essence of stress. But by restoring a sense of control to children’s lives, they have a shot at moving forward with confidence in the world and in relationships.

There are few things more upsetting or discouraging than feeling like you have no say or impact on your life. Parents know (at least cerebrally) that their children’s choices matter, but we fail to convey that when we say to kids, “You can choose,” while also monitoring their every last whim and action and haranguing them about their homework. Our mixed messages do them a disservice.

As a society, we need to chart a better way forward. Choosing to affirm children’s agency could be the single most vital path to restoring that sense of control and say in their destiny that they will carry with them into adulthood.

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Imagine you come home after a long day at the office and your spouse begins asking about how your work is coming along, and reminds you that if you want to succeed in your career, you need to stay motivated, even if it’s not always enjoyable. Your spouse also goes on to express concern that you’re slacking and aren’t taking it seriously enough. Now imagine your spouse brings this up on a daily or weekly basis. That would probably inspire more annoyance and resistance than motivation, right? Could it be that our children feel the same way?

This badgering is a common modus operandi for many well-intentioned parents. Many believe that pressuring their kids to keep them on the academic straight and narrow is the only way forward. It’s a virtually archetypal parent-child tension, and many chalk it up to an unpleasant necessity, part of good parenting.

Parents often believe they are playing the long game and seeing the big picture, but they are actually playing the short game whenever they try to control their children. It drives a wedge between parents and children and stunts kids’ initiative. Many spend more energy resisting their parents’ badgering than studying, writing papers, and planning ahead.

 Parents would do well to reconsider their role and change their parenting approach from taskmaster to consultant. What does a consultant do? A consultant helps a client discover what matters most and problem solve. They guide clients in a process of discovering what they want and what they are willing to give up in order to get it. They give their opinion, but leave decisions up to the clients, respecting their autonomy and responsibility.

These are your children, not clients, but this is their life—not yours. We assume we know what’s best for our kids, and, with our infants, that’s usually the case. But in many ways, we don’t know what’s best for them, and we injure them and overstep boundaries when we presume to know what they need and try to fix their issues. Ultimately, your kids’ lives are their own, and if you want to give them more of a sense of control, then you will have to relinquish some of your own.

This goes for that perennial battle over homework. Many parents resort to military metaphors to describe the tussle with their children, but it’s less grief for everyone and more responsible of parents to give responsibility to their kids. Fighting about homework is a bad idea because many parents, when they think about it, don’t even agree with what they are telling their kids. Moreover, when parents expend all their energy trying to get their children’s homework done, kids inevitably expend less. The more you bear down, the more you enforce the narrative that their life is not their own—that someone else is responsible for their homework and life.

Life is stressful. You can’t control what happens to them at school or after they leave the nest, but you can give them something that even the best teachers and coaches can’t: a home environment with unconditional love, where children experience safety. Without meaning to, a steady stream of nagging and debating can disrupt this. Instead of shouting matches over due dates, try out this line: “I love you too much to fight with you about your homework.”

As much as you might believe you can, you cannot make your children do what they do not want to do. But then what do you do when the table needs setting and the trash has to be taken out and your kids are unprepared for a science test tomorrow and they don’t practice piano anymore?

There are many scenarios in which you do have to insist kids do things whether they want to or not: Brush your teeth, buckle your seat belt, be ready to go to school at a certain time or parents will be late to the office. These things are crucial. Soccer practice and dance classes are not.

The short game of rewards and incentives is one approach, but not the best. The goal is self-motivation that a child carries into adulthood, not simply lighting up in the presence of a reward. The research over the past 40 years strongly indicates that using sticker charts, consequences, and so on tends to impair self-motivation rather than build it; they harm performance, wreck creativity, and even incentivize poor decision making, like cheating on exams. The damage is usually not noticeable until later. It’s a slow drip over the course of years.

So how do we give kids that inner drive? The kind that lasts even without the carrot and the stick? The kind that doesn’t fade in the face of setbacks—or is even strengthened by them?

It comes down to:

-the right mindset

-autonomy, competence, and relatedness

-optimal dopamine levels

-flow

Let’s look at mindset in greater depth. The right mindset is a growth mindset. As opposed to a “fixed mindset” which sees mess-ups as reflecting some innate, inalterable defectiveness, the growth mindset sees mess-ups as a natural part of the learning process. Those with a growth mindset focus on the effort they employ along the process of learning. The fixed mindset feels pressure and vacillates between the driven need to “get there already” and resignation to their inadequacy when they can’t.

To cultivate a growth mindset in children, psychologist Carol Dweck (who specializes in motivation research), encourages adults to praise efforts and attempts at troubleshooting rather than praising children’s abilities. So instead of saying, “You’re so smart” or “You’re so talented,” say, “I never would have thought to solve that problem that way” or “I loved seeing the effort you put into studying for that exam.” This focus encourages them to look for solutions (internal) rather than a reward (external).

Allowing your children to step increasingly into the position of the decision makers of their lives is unnerving but vital. The founder of a D.C. think tank recalls how empowered he felt when his mother took him to a notary when he turned 18 and gave him the option of finishing his senior year (or not) and relinquished the right to check his grades or any other information. It was the vote of confidence he needed to take ownership of his life.

It isn’t enough to say, “It’s your call.” In order to tell kids, “It’s your call” (and mean it), you need to accept the following premises:

“You are the expert on you.”

“You have a brain in your head.”

“You want your life to work.”

Moreover, you have to support those words with action. It’s inevitable that some of your child’s decisions will not sit well with you. But unless your teen is going off the rails, you have to let them stand by their decisions. If you weigh in on every decision they make after telling them, “It’s your call,” you end up communicating, “It is your call—until you make a decision I disagree with or don’t prefer, in which case it becomes my call again.” As often as you can, be with them as they make their decisions. The parent’s job is to help them make informed decisions, to offer wisdom and perspective that children don’t have yet, wisdom that will equip them to decide well. Once parents have done this, their kids will get it right most of the time—and might even outshine their parents in some decision-making processes.

Just to be clear, “It’s your call” does not mean parents have no say and their emotions and desires should be stuffed. “It’s your call” also does not mean kids run the show or that setting boundaries and limits is off the table. Boundaries must stay on the table. The goal is to minimize stress in children’s lives and encourage a sense of control in their world. Unlimited power and endless options would augment stress—not reduce it. So in between “This is what we are doing, kids” and “Do whatever you want, kids” are a few more manageable options that you can present to them. “Would you like to come now or would you like five more minutes?”

Kids will feel more secure if they sense that their parents will make decisions their kids aren't ready to handle yet. Basic rules are helpful and necessary, but the ultimate goal of parenting is not to make pliable, acquiescent children. Rather, we want to shape children who can approach life and relationships well. 

“It’s your call” cannot be a tricky back-door tactic to incept ideas into your children’s head and watch them take them on as their own. It’s not about getting your children to do what you want. It is about collaboratively building trust by respecting their decisions and entrusting more to them, piece by piece.

“It’s your call” is the parent’s acknowledgement of things that children are capable of doing, things that parents no longer need to do for their kids. That list of items parents need to do for their kids will get shorter and shorter as kids grow.

Part of helping children cultivate an internal locus of control is encouraging downtime, where kids do nothing. Kids (and adults) are so connected to their phones and social media that their brains never experience true rest. One study found that nearly two in three men preferred to self-administer a slight electric shock to sitting with their thoughts for six minutes.

Kids today are often tired, and it makes sense: Their schedules are busy and draining and contain precious little autonomy. They go to classes they did not choose to take, that are taught by teachers they were randomly assigned, they must sit quietly, and then they come home and are told to get their homework done. Couple this with 24/7 connection to electronic feeds, and you have a recipe for scattered, shallow, tired kids.

We are wired for activity, but our most creative, thoughtful, purposive action springs from rest. We have to allow ourselves time to recover. The research is clear that meditation, daydreaming, and, most especially, sleep, are critical to remain resilient to stress and setbacks. In these times of rest, the brain recuperates, the body repairs itself, and the inflow of experience is processed and absorbed.

Creating a family culture that is characterized (or at least punctuated) by offline time is critical. Protecting downtime for your children and allowing them to step into practices that promote mindfulness and rest will serve your children well. Be careful not to impose what you think is best, but ask them if they have enough time to relax between texting, social media, homework, and sports. If they say they don’t, explore with them what that might look like. If you want to suggest meditation to your kids, give it a try first yourself. You are inviting your kids into something, but it is up to them whether they want to join in.

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