Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens

How Do You Stop Trying to Control Someone Else’s Choices?

October 28, 2026 at 8:56 pm Leave a comment

Because let’s be honest. When you love someone, invest in them, teach them, mentor them, or see their potential, you develop a vision for what you believe they could accomplish.

You see the possibilities. You recognize the pitfalls. You may even have experience that could save them from making some of the same mistakes you’ve made.

And then they do something completely different from what you advised.

Or worse, they do nothing at all.

And you’re left frustrated, disappointed, worried, or wondering why they won’t listen.

When someone I care about makes a decision I believe is wrong, what bothers me most is that there’s a part of me that believes every problem has a solution. If the person will just listen and follow my advice, everything will work out.

However, when they don’t follow my advice, it can feel as though they’re allowing the problem to continue unnecessarily. I find myself thinking, Why are you making this harder than it needs to be? Why won’t you just try what I’m suggesting?

Isn’t that what many parents, teachers, and mentors think?

We see a problem. We believe we have a solution. We want to help the people we care about avoid unnecessary struggles and reach their potential. Surely, if they would just listen, things could be different.

But what if the lesson isn’t about finding a better way to convince them?

What if the lesson is learning to be the guide, period?

As parents, teachers, and mentors, we have to learn the difference between guiding someone and controlling their outcome.

Our job is to share what we know, offer guidance, point out potential pitfalls, and help others understand the consequences of their choices. But our job is not to decide what their outcome should look like.

Sometimes, our role is to observe rather than intervene, to offer support rather than take over, and to allow people the space to work through the challenges their decisions create.

Think about the lessons you’ve learned in your own life. You had to learn them one lesson at a time. Hopefully, you were allowed to experience the process of making decisions, facing consequences, and figuring things out without someone else insisting that your life turn out according to their plan.

So why do we sometimes struggle to extend that same opportunity to the people we’re guiding?

Perhaps it’s because we love them. Perhaps we see a better way and cannot understand why they don’t see it, too. Or perhaps we mistakenly believe that if we care enough, advise enough, and do enough, we can guarantee the outcome.

But we can’t.

We can guide an adult child without controlling their decisions. We can teach a student without assuming responsibility for every choice they make. We can mentor someone without expecting them to follow our advice to the letter.

We can care deeply about someone’s outcome without believing we own it.

This doesn’t mean we stop offering guidance or ignore our responsibilities. It means we recognize that there is a difference between doing our part and trying to do someone else’s.

Sometimes, we have to step back and allow people to make their own decisions, even when those decisions aren’t the ones we would make.

We have to trust that the guidance we’ve offered has value, even when we don’t immediately see the results we hoped for.

And we have to accept that people may need to discover some lessons for themselves.

Perhaps the real measure of our success as parents, teachers, and mentors isn’t whether people do exactly what we advise.

Perhaps it’s whether we’ve given them the tools, knowledge, and confidence to make their own decisions.

Our job is to be the guide, not the guarantor of the outcome.

And sometimes, the hardest part of guiding someone is learning when to step back, let go of the outcome, and allow them to find their own way. ✌🏽

One final thought: You don’t have to feel good about every decision someone makes. You simply have to learn that their decision and your responsibility are two different things.

You can fulfill your responsibility without controlling their outcome.

C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentGuru

Author & Parent Coach
Helping parents care for themselves while raising strong, confident kids.

📩 clynn@clynnwilliams.com
🌐 http://www.clynnwilliams.com
📱 Follow me: @MsParentguru

Entry filed under: Parenting. Tags: #GuidanceNotControl, #healthyrelationships, #MentorshipMatters, #parentingadultchildren, #PersonalGrowth, #teaching, #TrustTheProcess, mentoring, momlife, MsParentguru, parenting.