Project Parent

Project Parent Psychologist 20+ years; I help parents of teens move from confusion to clarity to help their teens thrive and launch

Adolescence isn’t only a developmental transition for your kid.It requires something developmental from you, too.Less co...
08/27/2026

Adolescence isn’t only a developmental transition for your kid.

It requires something developmental from you, too.

Less control.
More awareness of your own reactions.
Clearer limits.
Less fixing what they need to learn to carry.

You’re learning how to stay connected while they become increasingly separate from you.

That’s a hell of a transition.

The job changed.

If you need help figuring out your role now, I offer free 30-minute parent coaching consultations. Link in bio.

08/26/2026

Your teenager may be extraordinarily good at explaining why your limit is unfair.

They may understand autonomy.
They may talk beautifully about trust, freedom, mental health, boundaries and the importance of making their own choices.

And they may have a point.

But being able to articulate an internal experience and being able to regulate behavior and impulses are two different developmental capacities.

Listen to the argument.

Consider whether you need to adjust.

But don’t assume that because your teen can make an incredibly sophisticated case, you’ve somehow lost the right to say:

I hear you. And this is still the limit.

That isn’t disrespecting their autonomy.

Sometimes it’s parenting.

08/25/2026

Teens are kids realizing they have to grow up.

And growing up is a pretty crappy deal sometimes.

More responsibility. More pressure. More consequences. More things you have to do whether you feel like it or not.

So yes, they may be annoyed. They may complain. They may hate the expectation.

That doesn’t mean we remove it.

We can let them have the miserable feelings and still trust that they can handle what’s being asked of them.

Validation isn’t letting them off the hook.

Sometimes it’s just saying: Yeah. I get why this sucks. And I know you can do it.

08/25/2026

Your teen is allowed to be miserable about your expectations.

They can be annoyed. Disappointed. Angry. Dramatic. They can think the rule is stupid and you are deeply unreasonable.

Those are feelings. They don’t automatically mean the expectation is wrong.

One of the harder parts of parenting teens is learning not to treat their discomfort as evidence that we need to fix something.

You can understand how they feel without changing the boundary.

“I get why you’re pi**ed. And the expectation still stands.” Share if this resonates.

Sometimes that’s the whole job.

08/24/2026

We often think of self care as the part that feels good or relieving.

But sometimes it’s choosing the hill.

I wrote about what nine days of hauling myself up this one taught me about capacity, discomfort, and parenting teenagers.

And yes, there are deer. 🦌

Read The Deer and the Hill — link in bio.

Overfunctioning usually doesn’t look like control.It looks like caring. Worrying. Trying to help. Trying to prevent the ...
08/19/2026

Overfunctioning usually doesn’t look like control.

It looks like caring. Worrying. Trying to help. Trying to prevent the thing you can already see coming.

So we remind more. Fix more. Explain more. Track more. Rescue more.

And without meaning to, we start carrying parts of the process our teen actually needs to begin carrying themselves.

That’s the trap: the more anxious we feel, the more effort we tend to put in. But more parental effort does not always produce more teen responsibility. Sometimes it produces more resistance, more dependence, and more distance.

Doing less doesn’t mean checking out.

It means getting clearer about what is yours to carry — and what needs to become theirs. Need help? Schedule a free 30 min consult! Link In bio.

08/19/2026

The tricky part is that when we care deeply, our instinct is usually to try harder.

So when our teen is struggling, avoiding, making questionable decisions, or not responding the way we hoped, we add more: more reminders, more explanations, more monitoring, more fixing.

But that extra effort can create its own problem.

The more we carry, the less room they have to carry.
The more we push, the more they may resist.
The more we react, the more energy gets pulled into the relationship instead of the actual problem.

Doing less isn’t about caring less. It’s about not letting your worry turn into effort that accidentally keeps the cycle going. Save for the next time you need help regrounding yourself and share if it resonates! What makes doing less hard for you? 👇 comment below!

One of the hardest parts of parenting teens is watching them learn something more slowly than you think they should.You’...
08/18/2026

One of the hardest parts of parenting teens is watching them learn something more slowly than you think they should.

You’ve explained it. They’ve experienced the consequence. They may even agree with you.

And then…they do it again.

That doesn’t always mean the lesson failed. Sometimes it means they’re still in the middle of learning it.

Our job is to make enough room for reality, consequence, and experience to do some of the teaching—without abandoning them or taking the whole process over.

If you’re struggling to figure out when to step in, when to step back, and how to stay influential without overfunctioning, **book a parent coaching consultation with me. Link in bio. **

08/18/2026

Sometimes what looks like ingratitude is a sign that you’ve been carrying too much.

Fixing. Reminding. Accommodating. Absorbing consequences.

The answer isn’t to give less love.

It’s to give back responsibility.

If you’re stuck in this cycle with your teen, book a consultation. We’ll figure out where to start. Link in bio.

When your teen breaks a rule, the hardest part often isn’t deciding whether there should be a consequence.It’s figuring ...
08/17/2026

When your teen breaks a rule, the hardest part often isn’t deciding whether there should be a consequence.

It’s figuring out what response will actually help.

Sometimes that means repair. Sometimes it means less freedom. Sometimes it means more structure or supervision.

The goal isn’t to make the consequence hurt enough.

It’s to make it make sense.

And if you’re stuck in a pattern where every consequence turns into another fight, shutdown, or power struggle, that’s exactly the kind of thing we can sort through together.

Book a parent coaching consult at the link in bio.

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