When you feel like everyone else’s family has it all together and yours doesn’t…

I get the text… "she can come over after 11:30 as we have family gardening time before then."

Wow. Their kids actually do chores. Mine complain so much it hardly feels worth the effort.

I picture…the family happily raking up leaves and tidying the yard with smiles as the family get physical activity and the yard looks perfect!

I see my teen. In her room. On her own. All day. Every day.

I think… everyone else’s teen is out doing things.

I see on social media: Families on holidays taking their kids on adventures. Teens smiling.

I think I can’t even get mine out the door without a major meltdown. I must be doing something wrong.

Maybe my teen is on her own because I don’t socialise enough with other families. I’m not “popular” so she won’t be either. It’s my fault.

I should get my kids up and doing more chores.

I should organise more activity for them and extra curricular interests to stimulate their development and provide more structured opportunity for connection.

I should socialise more with other families and have people over.

I talk to the family.

“Okay kids you need to do more chores.”

Teenagers response: Shrug. Ignore.

Come on I need you to do the dishwasher now…

Teenager response: “Ahh. Humph. I just need to finish…I will get to it. I will! Stop nagging me!”

“I will stop nagging you if you start doing more. I do everything and all you all do is sit in your room all day. You need to do more exercise, get out of the house.”

Teenager: Yelling “I said I would get to it! Calm down mum! You don’t understand what I am going through”.

Door slams.

Mum alone again in the kitchen.

I’m so tired…

How can I do all of this!

I don’t know what to do.

When you feel like everyone else’s family has it all together and yours doesn’t and you don’t even know where to start, there are some helpful things to do.

What you can do…

1. Be kind to yourself in the struggle. It is hard to have a family that doesn’t look, behave or feel how you would like them to. Take a breath, pause, and acknowledge that this is hard.
2. Remember it is never helpful or fair to compare someone else’s public life with your private life. In the real example I gave above about chores, when I showed up at the friend's house it turned out that not everyone was gardening and there had been many battles in the family about doing the chores.
3. Start making change by understanding your teen’s behaviour rather than lecturing. Be curious about why they behave the way they do. Listen to what they say. Start from where they are at and make small changes in conversation with them rather than taking the “ideal” image of how we think other families are and then lecture our family about how they should be the same (Confession I have totally lectured my family in this way thinking it would help…but never does).
4. Be patient. You are all growing together.