What Changed When I Stopped Trying to Fix My Son

A story about trauma, parenting, and the humbling work of letting go

Before I had children, I imagined I’d be a natural. A truly excellent parent.

I pictured the coos and cuddles, the expressions of love, the laughter. I knew, deep in my core, that my children would never go without affection and care. I wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t exactly right, either.

My three children, now ages six to nineteen, take up nearly all of my heart. They’ve taught me how to love just as much as I’ve taught it to them. But they’ve taught me far more than I bargained for.

This is true of all of them. But my oldest was the first to show me I would never be the parent I had imagined. For better and for worse.

I’m an excellent mom (if I do say so myself). And also very far from it. Over the years, my oldest has revealed every one of my vulnerabilities. In many ways, he has shown me who I really am beneath the carefully polished exterior.

I’m a rule follower. A people pleaser. A good girl. Or at least I used to be.

He, on the other hand, is anything but a rule-follower. He has ADHD. It was clear from the beginning. He’s whip-smart, funny as hell, insightful, but he was always, and I mean always, a challenge. Even before he could talk, he was sensitive and deeply emotional. It’s still his best quality, and also his Achilles heel. As a child, he loved fiercely. And he dysregulated just as fiercely.

Before I had kids, I imagined how patient a mother I’d be. How attuned. I’m a psychologist, after all. I know how important attunement is. I’m good at it. I do it for a living.

Looking back, it’s almost funny how naive I was. I actually laugh out loud sometimes. And sometimes it makes me cry.

As a toddler, his tantrums were hard to manage. They embarrassed me. They exposed just how uncomfortable I was when things didn’t look perfect from the outside. And they only intensified with time. When he lost control, so did I. Instead of helping him regulate, I broke down beside him. Every time, I told myself it would be the last. That I’d do better next time.

None of this is to say we didn’t have a loving relationship. We did. We still do. I was, and still am, his fiercest protector.

But when he unraveled at fifteen, when he really fell apart, I came undone beside him. Watching him disintegrate at the same age I once had nearly broke me. It stirred up old trauma. Old patterns. It woke up parts of me I thought I had outgrown. My nervous system collapsed. Completely.

Instead of giving him space to grow, I tightened my grip. I tried to fix. I meant well. I really did. But the more I tried, the worse it got for both of us.

What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t just trying to fix him. I was trying, and failing, to fix my younger self. The part of me that had longed for my own parents to notice. To hold. To repair. The part that never fully healed. The one buried beneath years of disordered eating and high-functioning survival.

Eventually, my husband and I reached an impossible conclusion. We couldn’t keep our son safe at home. We had to send him away for treatment. First to wilderness therapy. Then to residential care.

And during the 13 months he was gone, I did the hardest work of my life. Just as he was doing his.

I learned how my own trauma and choices had shaped not just my experience, but his. I began to see what I needed to do differently. I dug deep. I did the work.

I realized that my well-meaning efforts to protect him from failure had kept him from learning all that failure can teach.

So I practiced stepping back. Gently. Appropriately. I learned to hold firmer boundaries. I began to understand it’s not my job to make him happy. Or to shield him from pain.

I learned to cheer from the sidelines instead of leading from the front. I learned to trust that he could fall, get back up, and find his footing. And if he needed help, he could ask. It wasn’t my job to anticipate.

I’m still not a perfect parent. The difference is, I no longer strive to be. I know it’s impossible. Instead of chasing that illusion, I try to enjoy the imperfect, impossibly wonderful human he is becoming. And I try to show him the imperfect, impossibly wonderful human that I know I can be.

Through years of therapy, his and mine, I’ve learned how to show up for him from Self. At least most of the time.