Parenting Through Regret During Adolescence

Nearly all parents and adult children share a common experience: regret about their time together during the teenage years. They lament what they did—the mistakes of commission—and what they didn’t do—the errors of omission.

Regrets of Commission are the painful memories of action: the things we did that we shouldn’t have. An adult child might think, “I wish I hadn’t lied to them about so much and grown so far away.” Dishonesty always costs intimacy, trading closeness for distrust. A parent’s regret might be, “We held onto her too tight when we should have done more letting go!” That instinct to control delayed the child’s crucial lessons from life experience.

Regrets of Omission are the shadows of inaction: the things we failed to do that we should have. “I wish I’d listened more to what my parents said about grades during my high school years!” Ignoring sound advice ultimately cost an educational opportunity. Similarly, a parent might lament, “We didn’t want to spoil her high school friendship by sharing our concerns, and look what happened!” The communication that might have prevented suffering remained tragically unspoken.

It’s vital to distinguish regret from guilt. Guilt is about moral transgression—the sense of doing wrong, which prompts blame and the desire for atonement. Regret is about a failure of judgment—the sense of not doing what was best, and its sting is loss. How does one truly make up for a lost opportunity? The worst emotional pain, however, is when they merge: “I wish I hadn’t done that, and I wish I had done this.”

The Two Paths of Adolescent Regret

Consider two young adult siblings: one who regrets the path taken, the other, the path not taken. One was the continually “bad” teenager, who displeased parents at every turn and was despaired over; the other was the continually “good” teenager, who never failed to meet a parental expectation and was celebrated. Now, each looks at the other with envy and regret.

The extremely rebellious young person harbors a regret of omission—a life without approval:

“You got all their praise. You made them look good! I never did. What could you possibly regret?”

But the extremely compliant young person has a ready answer, expressing a regret of commission—a life defined by others:

“I did everything their way. I never acted individually or independently like you. I didn’t dare disappoint them.”

Which young adult carries the greater burden of regret? And what can each do now?

The once “bad” adolescent can reform in adulthood, often welcomed back to the family fold as a prodigal returned. Their mistakes are in the past; their positive change is celebrated.

But what can the “good” adolescent do now that they are an adult? They are truly caught between a rock and a hard place. They can either let parental expectations continue to determine their life path, or they can strike out on their own at last. To choose independence, however, is to risk incurring their parents’ lack of understanding, perhaps their outright displeasure, and ultimately, a loss of their traditional standing within the family.

The painful lesson these siblings expose is this: It may be better to have strayed a little during adolescence than to have never strayed at all. The regret of never having disappointed one’s parents can be harder to resolve than the regret of having disappointed them.