158. Are You Helping or Enabling? How to Support Your Struggling Teen Or Young Adult Kid Without Rescuing
Description
You step in to help, ease your kid’s struggles, but is your help actually helpful or is it keeping your struggling teen or young adult from making the changes they need most? You want the best for them, but how can you influence internal change?
It’s a painful truth many parents don’t realize: sometimes “help” becomes enabling. By rescuing your struggling teen from discomfort, whether through financial support, extra comforts, or stepping in to soften the consequences, you may unintentionally be preventing the internal accountability that fuels real, lasting change.
In this conversation, Seth and I unpack how easy it is to blur the line between helping and enabling, why it happens, and how you can shift toward offering the kind of support that encourages your teen to take ownership of their choices.
In this episode on helping vs. enabling your struggling teen, we discuss:
- How parents unknowingly provide comforts that block internal change;
- Why lasting transformation only happens when teens feel consequences;
- The emotional toll on parents who “rescue” and how to handle it;
- Red flags that signal you might be enabling instead of supporting;
- What true support looks like and why it often feels so hard;
- And much more.
Looking for support?
🗺️Need help setting healthy boundaries with your teen AND following through? My free guide will help you do so by creating your own Parent Home Plan!
🤍Influence lasting change in yourself and your struggling teen with my private coaching or parent group program specifically created for parents of struggling teens.
Have a question or need support? You can email me at beth@bethhillmancoaching.com
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And remember parents, the change begins with us.
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