Becoming Selene: The Hardest Lessons

We love our Greenlight cards. We were early adopters and they have served us well. Their current ad campaign, at least on podcasts which is where I normally hear them, says something about how parents report financial literacy is the hardest thing to teach kids. (Greenlight, of course, says it can help.)

Every time I hear that ad it makes me think there are a lot of things that I am meant to teach my children on the path of adulthood that feel more challenging than financial literacy. Maybe that’s because my husband is very financially-minded, or maybe I have done a terrible job at financial literacy! (Time will tell.)

So I asked you guys your thoughts on the hardest lessons to teach. Relationships and sexuality topped the list for respondents with driving, household responsibilities and hygiene rounding out the top. No one said financial literacy. (So I’m not alone on this!)

One parent really nailed what’s tricky about parenting social and relationship skills:

“Social interactions and relationships is my biggest parenting struggle because the entire landscape is different – 3 way calls was peak technology back then and now there are disappearing messages and location maps?!?”

This is such an important point. Not only are we tasked with imparting skills to our kids, we have to learn ourselves in order to do so. It would be easy to think this only applies with technology, but I disagree. While the mechanics of sexuality haven’t changed, the expectations and culture around sex has. I am Gen X, the first generation of teens in a post-Roe world. We talked a lot about pregnancy and STDs. But consent? That is definitely an area where I am grateful for educators who fill in the gaps.

I love this comment: “Hygiene has been tricky because it just seems so obvious that it’s important, so I’ve been surprised about what we’ve had to repeatedly discuss.” That gets to the whole learning aspect, right? None of this is a one-and-done. It’s a slog. A journey. A process.

Respondents spoke of maintaining curiosity as being key to weathering the storms. How do you handle the challenge, I asked, and one respondent said, “Keep learning – asking both my kids and other parents questions.” This is great advice and I cannot echo the need to stay in dialogue with other parents enough. Having friends who kids are a smidge older is also really helpful.

One parent spoke of needing to remain low key about difficult topics, opting for “casual” references to sex so their child knows it’s safe and okay to bring up. That same parent leaned heavily into the curiosity approach, as well.

Another parent nailed one of the things that makes parenting around relationships challenging, “Social relationships are always in flux and dependent on multiple people. So much is out of your control and that’s a hard lesson to grasp.” But that seems like a really good touchstone for many of these life lessons — focus on what you can control as opposed to suffering over what you cannot.

What advice do these parents have for parents of younger kids? I love this reply:

“Read your kid’s vibe on the topic and use that as the way to discuss it. It’s like ‘meet them where they are.'”

This is extra helpful when you have more than one child in adolescence. You may end up meeting your kids at very different places and the learning journey may vary widely. That’s not only okay, that’s responsive parenting.

I’ll conclude with this final pearl of wisdom that applies whether it’s sex, relationships, hygiene or finances you’re talking about:

“Teach your kids to know yourself and your moral compass and don’t let others define you.”

That’s just solid life skills advice for teens and their parents.

(I’d love to share a book that I recently purchased on sexuality. It’s illustrated, so know that there are illustrations your child will definitely find CRINGE. But I think it’s a great resource and I like knowing that if my children are anxious about approaching me, there’s a solid chance this book covers the topic. Here’s the link.)