Your Teen Will Never Please Everyone
You can’t please everyone at least not at the same time. So, you might as well please yourself. You can certainly do this in a selfish way, but the message to your teen is that they are going to have to figure out what they want first sometimes. Only after your teen can decide what’s right for them are they in a position to consider the needs of others.
People pleasers are born every day. They are fairly nice people and may have trouble with conflict or confrontation. They will sacrifice their desires in an effort to avoid trouble or the unhappiness of others. The problem with this is that in the end your teen is still unhappy. The resulting unhappiness can cause regret for the compromise and passive aggressive behavior to express their anger and resentment.
This is how the people pleaser can still be the most annoying person to be around. They are quiet, but there is just something about them. This behavior can be especially hard to change if they are growing up with a parent that is hard to please. These parents can, but aren’t always abusive, they may use substances like alcohol or drugs and they can be neglectful of their teen’s emotional or practical needs.
One of the luxuries of having children is that they love their parents no matter what. There are few people who will love you this unconditionally. Their inability to please you will cause them to question their own and not your behavior. This is confusing. It will not be until later they will realize that there was nothing wrong with them. In the meantime, they will please.
Ask your teen about their behavior when you notice it. Start them thinking about the pattern they have been repeating and they will start to notice it themselves and question their own behavior. This is the first step to changing it. Once they change it they will be less likely to repeat old habits since it wasn’t making them happy anyway.
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