71. Why Influence Matters More Than Control

When our children are little, parenting requires a great deal of control. We decide where they go, what they eat, and what is safe. Young children need someone with more experience to create structure around them.

But as children grow, it can be easy to confuse that early authority with the work of parenting itself. If our child follows the rules, we feel reassured that our parenting is working.

The problem is that compliance only tells us what a child does while our authority is present - it doesn’t necessarily tell us what they understand, what they believe, or what they’ll choose when we are no longer there. Eventually, we have to ask a different question: What will be left when our control is gone?

Why Parents Reach for Control

Most parents don’t try to control their children because they want power. Usually, control comes from love, responsibility, and fear.

We can see consequences our children can’t see yet, so when they resist our guidance or advice, it can feel like disrespect, and their mistakes may feel like evidence that we have failed. When their choices activate our fears, changing their behavior can become the fastest way to make ourselves feel safe again.

But a child who complies under pressure may only be learning how to make the pressure stop - or how to avoid consequences - and that’s not always the same as learning how to make a thoughtful choice.

Control Creates Compliance; Influence Builds Judgment

Control asks, “How do I get my child to do the right thing?”

Influence asks, “How do I help my child understand enough to begin choosing for themselves?”

Influence is less concerned with the appearance of good behavior and more interested in what’s developing inside the child. It helps them understand why something matters and practice making decisions. That kind of learning is slower and often messier. It requires room for questions, mistakes, and age-appropriate choices - and an acceptance that our child’s inner voice might not sound exactly like ours.

The goal shouldn’t be to raise children who never question us. It’s to raise children who know how to think when we aren’t there to think for them.

Influence Is Built Through Relationship

Influence doesn’t happen with one perfect conversation. It grows through a child’s everyday experience of being in a relationship with us.

Children notice what happens when they tell us something difficult. If honesty regularly leads to shame, anger, or a lecture, silence may begin to feel safer. We can’t influence the parts of our children’s lives they feel they have to hide from us. As parents, we need to be able to be a safe place for our kids to express truth, opinions, ideas, and objections. This doesn’t mean removing accountability. It means showing them that the truth won’t cost them their place in the relationship. When children trust that we’ll listen and treat them with dignity, our guidance has somewhere to land.

Children also notice whether our lives match the values we teach. They don’t need flawless parents, but they do need parents who acknowledge mistakes and repair when something goes wrong.

Influence Still Includes Boundaries

Moving away from control doesn’t mean becoming permissive. Children still need limits and adults willing to make decisions they are not ready to make. Boundaries define what we are responsible for. Control goes further by trying to determine what a child must think or feel about that boundary.

Our children are allowed to dislike our decisions or believe we are being unfair. A boundary doesn’t require their agreement; it requires clarity and follow-through.

What Remains When Authority Fades

As children grow, parenting gradually moves from power-over to relationship-with. More choices belong to them, and our guidance becomes something they can accept rather than something we can enforce.

But even healthy influence can’t guarantee that our children will choose what we hope. They are separate people, shaped by their own experiences, relationships, values, and agency. Our work isn’t to secure the outcome - it’s to offer what we know, live what we believe, and become someone whose wisdom they can return to.

Remember - control may change what our children do while we are watching, but influence becomes part of who they are when we’re not.

♥ Your Parent Coach, Brittney