In this post: I know these six things about parenting Teens during midlife.

Parenting teens while going through mid-life is like the wildest ride ever. It can seamlessly dismantle even the most capable of people.

At least that was the case for me when I found myself spoon-feeding one of my own parents recovering from surgery in one state on one night, and then I found myself in another state for a work function the next week, all while fielding texts from homework-weary and hangry teens.

Parenting your big kids while managing your mid-life responsibilities can be overwhelming and exhausting because you feel responsible for ALL OF THE THINGS.

What’s a weary mid-lifer to do?

Here are six things that helped ground me then and still benefit me now when midlife and parenting teens collide. These tips are great reminders even when no one is in the hospital, I’m not traveling for work, and for the rare five minutes when nobody in my life wants food.

Six tips for staying sane parenting teens during midlife

1. You need your people.

Your people may be new(er) to you. One of my best friends today is someone I met when my son started high school, and, well, things just weren’t right.

She was a coach’s wife I’d previously met only in passing, but I knew she had older sons, and I also knew that I desperately needed somebody who’d raised sons to show me the path forward.

I had the oldest kid in my circle, the firstborn grandchild in my family, and the only kiddo moving from his middle school to a high school in a new town. I certainly didn’t discount any preexisting support, but I pursued a new friendship because I needed my own people for that new Midlife parenting experience.

This brings me to seasons, friends.

Related: Why I’m Not Sad High School Is Ending for My Teenager

2. This time is a season.

That particular high school season with my son was an especially challenging time for me and my family, and if I worked with you or saw you at church or on a random grocery store errand, you knew it.

I was radioactive with stress and prone to trauma-dump (meaning I would share all my problems spontaneously if I saw you.)

A handful of years later and post-graduation, I lost the Midlife job that we planned to fund
college for my two kids when my youngest was a high school senior. Yet, at every business and networking meeting during that challenging season in my life, colleagues commented on my equanimity.

The truth is that once you’ve been through fire with a child, it’s really hard to feel burned by
work.

I mean, you can change jobs, but you can’t change kids. You can work tirelessly at both, but for the teens I’m fortunate enough to parent, I choose to be more focused on setting them up for positive outcomes, even when they make decisions that make me think my eyeballs might actually get stuck to the back of my head if I roll them any harder.

I concede that money is key to supporting a family, but during that season of joblessness and personal Midlife uncertainty, my heart was full to overflowing with the healthy and well-adjusted teens that sat around my kitchen table swapping plans for their own futures – a scene that totally escaped us during that tough highs school transition season.

Recognizing that there are Midlife and parenting seasons taught me another important lesson.

3. Very few things are permanent

If there’s one thing seasons show us, it’s that while weather is recurrent, it’s not permanent.

We know that, for most of us, there will be frosty days, heated moments, and everything in between with our teens and during Midlife.

Unless you’re in California, where it seems to be perennially 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny (but also wildfire and earthquake-prone), none of the weather is actually permanent.

Neither is a rough foray into a new high school. Nor is a midlife job loss or job change, or even an older teen choosing an unexpected path forward.

There are so many things that can happen during this time. Parents give refuge to older teens who have dropped interests, transferred universities, or significantly changed their course in life due to a thousand real and valid reasons–all starting with the fact that their frontal lobes aren’t considered fully developed until somewhere around age 25.

Never mind that a global pandemic changed the social, economic, and educational landscape in which we all operate.

Once we layer on mental health, social media, rapid-fire tech advances, and cultural headwinds, parents and our teens have entirely new and complex systems to learn to navigate without a GPS to guide us.

Our teens will make decisions, and our teens may decide to change those decisions. If our
teens are safe and healthy in their decision-making, we should roll with it because very few
things are permanent.

This includes school choices, university majors, love interests, and even tattoos.

However, we must recognize and help our teens recognize that decisions have consequences.

4. Consequences are real–and important

While few things are permanent, we must recognize that all of our decisions–good and not-so-great–have consequences. This is true for all of us, and I’m told this is a fact of life that continues without fail until the hereafter.

A consequence is something that automatically results from a person’s action. Natural consequences show teens the reasons for rules and provide a correction without the parent having to do anything, which can prevent teens from developing resentment at a parent for “punishing them.” This is much easier said than done because we all want to “rescue” our teens before facing these adverse outcomes.

Sometimes as parents, we hyper-focus on the potential (bad) consequences of our teens’
choices. For me, this was a slippery slope into a level of anxiety that made me physically sick
when what my teens needed most in those early teen years was a healthy Mom.

During these complex midlife times when our lives often feel complicated and chaotic, parenting teens requires presence, and it’s hard to be present if you’re stuck in the unknown
land of What-If.

So what if they don’t make the grade?

So what if they quit the sport?

So what if they decide to go to work instead of more school?

Instead, what if–presuming we have open and honest communication with our teens who are legitimately doing the work of growing up–we progressively trust them to make their own decisions? And, more importantly, learn to live with and through the consequences of those decisions.

I mean, who really needs to do the work if the parent is more upset about missing the travel
team label than her athlete is about not having to show up for practices?

Who really needs to do the work if the parent is myopically focused on his teen following in his footsteps regardless of the teen’s skills and interests?

I’m here to tell you that the decision I once viewed as tragic in the life of one of my teens – dropping out of college and going to work – was the best thing for that child’s post-pandemic health and well-being.

Not only that, this kid blew me away when one whole year and multiple promotions
later, his salary was higher than mine was the year he was born!

While we are busy dealing with all the things during mid-life, it’s good and wise and healthy to witness our teens learn to own their decision-making, even when it ratchets up our already high cortisol levels.

Which leads me to the next point.

5. We are not responsible for our teens’ decisions.

While we are absolutely responsible for the formation of our children–teaching right from
wrong, demonstrating empathy, keeping them safe, and instilling personal values and
boundaries–we are not personally responsible when they get that first behind-the-wheel
teenage ticket.

While we may be legally and financially responsible for the vehicle in which the offense occurs, and while consequences at home may be appropriate, it is the teen’s foot on the gas and the teen’s rear-end in the driver’s seat; it is the teen’s choice to speed.

Our teens need to learn to be in the driver’s seat of their own lives.

Is there anything scarier, is there anything that feels more wrenching than watching the consequences of our teens’ choices play out in their lives when we want nothing less than to give them the whole, entire world?

But what an absolutely unmatched privilege it is to watch our teens learn to choose wisely and experience their own hard-won, personal fulfillment!

Which brings me to the last, most important point of parenting teens during midlife.

Related: Six Boundaries for Teens They’ll Thank You For Later

6. Parenting teens in this phase of life is ridiculously hard, endlessly messy, and altogether beautiful.

These midlife years can be filled with illnesses, financial issues, career shifts, marital problems, deaths, and for women, menopause. Couple these challenges with raising teenagers, and it can feel tough to embrace a midlife worth living. It’s no wonder why people have emotional breakdowns or midlife crises during this time.

Parenting is a journey, and I’m not sure when or how or even if it ever ends.

I suspect I will spend the rest of my natural life needing my people, recognizing that there are seasons, reminding myself that few things are permanent, learning consequences, and
respecting the fact that my (soon-to-be) adult children are their own people who must ultimately be responsible for their own actions.

Know that if you’re in the thick of the hard (HARD) midlife years, you’re in good company.

Related: Even When You Have Great Kids, It’s Still Exhausting Raising Teenagers

There is a parent at every practice, carpool, workplace, and church, civic and community event who feels like she’s drowning – even if you never see it on her socials or in the grocery store aisle.

We need each other for these seasons. We’re all out here getting this midlife and parenting teens thing sorta wrong but also kinda rightish because life is messy like that.

More than anything, I want to have solid relationships with my kids that continue when they are grown.

Despite the endless challenges, I also want to honor the beauty of the only Midlife I’ve been gifted, and I want to celebrate the journey with my awesome teens.

Even if they are literal eating machines that never get full.

Parenting teens is hard, but you don’t have to do it alone. Here are a few popular articles you may enjoy.

Sometimes Parenting Teens Means Dealing With Their Bad Choices

5 Essential Parenting Books Every Parent Of A Teenager Needs To Survive

How To Meet Our Teens; Need To Love and Be Loved Just As They Are

Looking for another inspirational read? Consider Loving Hard When They’re Hard to Love, a compilation of 55 essays about raising teens.

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