<p>One of my SIL’s once said that she had never seen a family that used the word “should” more than S’s. H has lately been going off about S (college freshman) on one facet or another. The latest thing is “he should be looking for better summer job.” I said tonight that S could be the Pope himself and H would be saying “he should aspire to the higher job of being God” (utterly true, nothing is ever “good enough” for H). As much as I struggle not to micro-manage S (really, really, hard) H does not struggle at all. He just tries to dictate what S “should” be doing. </p>
<p>Better to back off or too keep trying to dictate and micromanage?</p>
<p>I’m guessing that your son would probably say that it’s better to back off. What do you think would happen if you and dh could agree to give him some space, parentingwise? How does he seem to be managing on his own as a freshman?</p>
<p>If your h could think of this from his son’s POV, he might see that he’s putting up barriers to an adult relationship with his son. We all know people who still resent one or both parents because they could never seem to please them.</p>
<p>My H is a really practical guy. If he had a username here, it would be pragmaticguy, or something. When the kids were younger, or maybe I mean when WE were younger, (we are young parents), he would always work really hard to ‘get me on board’ and then turn the whole micro-management process over to me. So, I would find myself trying to get a kid to do something I didn’t even care about, and I did this for a long time and found it really disatisfying.</p>
<p>Now, if H has an agenda with one of our daughters, I listen and I nod, and I let him go with it. Since I have no interest, at all, and he can no longer get me to do the heavy lifting, his interest soon dies out. </p>
<p>At first, when I realized I was spending too much time on things I didn’t even care about, and not enough on what I did, and stopped, he was pretty annoyed with me. But, I just started saying, “I see that matters to you. I love you. But, it’s not that important to me.”</p>
<p>Good luck. I think at some point, you just have to let the kids have a relationship with their other parent which isn’t about you. YMMV</p>
<p>The micromanaging (nagging, lecturing, etc) is likely to have mostly unintended consequences. Soured relationships, rebellion, the kid occasionally doing what you nagged him to do but self-sabotaging, etc. I learned this by negative example in my own family as a kid, though my parents really meant well and thought they were doing the right thing.</p>
<p>I think the message that a child gets that he/she can never do enough, be good enough is a damaging one. It seems to manifest differently in boys than girls but the consequences can be lifelong. Parents who do this should stop and if they can’t do it by themselves, see a counselor.</p>
<p>I think your H will be in for a rude awakening when your S no longer needs your checkbook and H can’t figure out why S never calls him, talks to him, wants to see him. Sooner or later your children DO need to figure things out on their own. My H does the same thing with our kids and there are a lot of “should’s” flying around. In our case H likes to throw out something to me like “you should make sure the kids finish their paper today so they don’t have to do it over the weekend”. I smile, nod, move on. The kids are fully capable of managing their own time and if they have to stay up late on Sunday night, they are the ones that are tired on Monday, not me.</p>
<p>When he starts to get on their case, they smile, nod, complain to me, move on :). I think in H’s case, he can’t switch out of the “manager” role from work. I know he doesn’t micromanage at work but he is so used to telling people what to do all day that he can’t shut it off at home.</p>
<p>My husband does something similar. He really doesn’t micromanage so much but he lectures constantly. Actually, he would micromanage if he could but since he has his own business and micromanages that to the tune of 60-80 hours per week, he really doesn’t have the time to micromanage me or our son. He did, however, try to get me to do it for years but I resisted because that is so not my style. He still tries to get me to do it and my standard reply is ‘you need to talk to son yourself.’</p>
<p>I had to laugh at the Pope/God comment. My husband does tend to take a similar stance with our son. I’m constantly pointing out to him that he is sending a bad message…‘nothing son does is never good enough.’ To husband’s credit, he has tried to offset that with a lot of ‘I’m proud of you’ messages. My husband is a workaholic perfectionist and does tend to be hard on those around him. He is actually hardest on himself and I think he has a hard time seeing that not everyone wants or needs to live their life that way. I have had talks with son over the years about this - that’s the way his Dad is and he needs to realize it’s more about his Dad than him and that Dad is really proud of him even if he tends to be negative a lot of the time.</p>
<p>I often look back on seemingly innocent comments my dad made to me growing up (or even now as an adult) and realize that you can easily leave a kid with the impression that they are somehow lacking even when that is not your intent. The couches of therapists are filled with people whose parents inadvertently sent that message and it can take a lifetime to overcome. IMHO, micromanaging is not a good thing but neither is being totally uninvolved. While I don’t think it’s a bad idea to give advice when someone is new to an experience (as in ‘when you start interviewing next semester, this is a good way to prepare…’), young adults at this age need to be able to make their own choices.</p>
<p>Great thread. It may help your H remember his job is to help (or at least allow!) the kids to one day be independent of him, not inadvertently wound them so they become less than they could if they were allowed to grow up - including make some mistakes. My brother finally managed to get a steady job (in a field he loved, no less) and support himself in his own apartment. My dad one day proclaimed that my brother wasn’t being paid sufficiently at the job. So my brother quit, just like that. No other job in hand and was unable to find another. Has now mooched off parents for many years.</p>
<p>If you keep micromanaging your son’s decisions, he will be in danger of losing his inner voice. And one can lose motivation once one feels like they are not in control of the direction of his life.</p>
<p>Must tape this to my forehead. Truer words probably have never been spoken about parenting. Thanks, collegealum314. We’ve been consciously doing this now for a couple of years, but it is <em>so</em> easy to forget. Parents want to help, so we feel we must DO something when sometimes it is much wiser not to.</p>