When your child doesn’t take your advice, what do you make that mean about you?

Your child comes to you wanting advice. You listen, share your thoughts and perhaps offer a suggestion based on your own experiences.

Then they decide to do something completely different.

What happens inside you in that moment? Do you wonder why they asked, whether they value your opinion, or whether they trust what you have to say? Maybe a quieter question comes up: Do they not think I’m a good mum?

Their decision may simply be what feels right to them, based on their own experiences and how they see the situation. But it can be interesting to notice how quickly we can give someone else’s choice a meaning about ourselves.

The meaning beneath the moment

Often, we don’t consciously decide what another person’s actions mean. The meaning seems to arrive with the feeling. They didn’t take my advice, so perhaps I’m not valued. They disagree with me, so perhaps they don’t respect me. It can happen so subtly that we may not notice the belief shaping our reaction.

This is one way the subconscious can show up in everyday life. The beliefs and emotional experiences that shape the lens we see through aren’t always clear to us. They can appear in a familiar feeling, a quick assumption, or the urge to explain our point again so the other person will understand.

The same thing can happen with a partner who doesn’t take a suggestion, or a work colleague who chooses another approach. The situation changes, but the meaning we attach to it can feel familiar: I don’t matter. They don’t hear me. I need to get them to see it my way.

That doesn’t mean those beliefs are true, or that every reaction comes from the past. It gives us something to get curious about. What am I making this mean about me? What is this moment bringing up inside me?

Taking responsibility for what’s happening within us

For me, taking 100% responsibility for what’s happening inside ourselves doesn’t mean blaming ourselves for having a reaction, or pretending another person’s choices don’t affect us. It means being willing to look at our part: the feelings, meanings and beliefs that are arising within us, and what they may be showing us.

Our child may have made a choice we wouldn’t make. We can care about the outcome and have feelings about it. At the same time, we can notice whether we’re responding to their choice as it is, or to what it seems to say about us.

That’s where there can be something to understand. The question isn’t only, Why didn’t they take my advice? It might also be, Why does it feel so important to me that they do? What am I hoping their choice will tell me?

When we explore those questions, we can begin to understand the emotional patterns and beliefs beneath our reactions. In my work, this is part of listening to the language of the body: noticing what a moment stirs, and becoming curious about what the feeling may be connected to. As those patterns are understood and updated, we may find that the same situation doesn’t take hold of us in quite the same way.

Giving your child room to trust themselves

There’s also something meaningful in allowing our children to make their own choices. We can offer our perspective and experience because we care, while recognising that they have their own way of understanding what’s right for them.

When they choose differently, it doesn’t have to mean they’ve dismissed us, or that our relationship matters less to them. It may mean they’ve listened and considered what we said, then made a decision of their own. There can be room for them to trust themselves, and room for us to notice what their choice has brought up in us.

That’s part of what Caring Without Carrying means to me. We can care deeply about our children, offer our thoughts and remain connected to them, without taking responsibility for the decisions they make. And when a moment with them presses a button, it can become a window into a belief or feeling within ourselves that we hadn’t noticed before.

What might your reaction be showing you about what you make someone else’s choices mean about you?