Staying in Relationship: IFS Parts, Self Energy, and Parenting Adolescents
July 15th, 2026 - I recently started offering Parent Coaching services. I love this work! As you probably know, adolescents are my first love. To be in service to the scaffolding, ushering, and companioning of teenagers into healthy adulthood also means I find myself in service to those who do the sacred work of parenting them.
Yes, I used the word sacred intentionally. Parenting teens is a profound act of stewardship. It requires sacrifice—a word which means to offer an act or gift in service to something greater than ourselves.
It’s a perspective that can keep us committed and patient when things get rough. It’s sacred because it asks so much of us at once. Parenting a teenager requires a kind of emotional stamina that often surprises people. One moment there is connection and laughter, and the next there is distance, shutdown, or conflict that feels disproportionate to what just happened. And in those moments, something very real gets stirred in the parent—fear, frustration, grief, even helplessness. As I often say, Parenting teens is a tough gig.
Enter the helpful ideas of Parts and Self energy
We might say that what gets stirred are parts of us. This is a basic concept in Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic modality and a paradigm of how we work as human beings. If you listen closely, you’ll hear in everyday conversation the organic idea that we are made of parts:
Parts who help us manage life, wanting us to ‘get it right’
Parts who show up with alarm when life gets to be too much
And parts who hold the stories and memories of when and how life wounds us.
Perhaps you’ll recognize these parent parts:
The part of you who feels disrespected and abused when your teenager snaps back an answer to a simple question you asked
The part of you that completely loses its cool no matter how hard you try to remain in control
The part of you who says, “You’re a terrible parent.”
We all have parts, they are natural, they work hard to help us navigate life the best way we know. And because of our wounds, shame, and traumas, sometimes those parts can’t help. Sometimes, ironically, in spite of their best efforts, they cause what they are trying to prevent. For example, the harder one of your manager parts tries to do all the things that ‘good’ parents do, you end up feeling completely inauthentic, off kilter, and irritable. And all of that shows up in the moment with your kid. Because it’s the part who’s trying to be the good parent. When really what we need is to let those manager parts take a rest and let Self energy come forward.
Self energy is another term used in IFS to describe a state of being in which we have access to a sense of our core authentic Self. We have enough space inside for some embodied measure of calm, compassion, or curiosity. We may find that we want to connect and are able to do so.
Clarity, courage, creativity, and a wonderful grounded unshakeable confidence are also aspects of Self energy. It is from this place, where the deep love for our child comes forward. Self energy assists the parts in navigating the supremely challenging adolescent years through which you and your child will journey.
To parent a teenager is to come to know all that is strong, good, patient within us. And to confront much that is weak, imperfect, impatient, and sometimes even ugly within us. We are given daily opportunities to confront the shadow parts within us. We need to understand parts and know that there is something more than parts.
Parenting a teenager becomes sacred work not because parents are expected to do it perfectly, but because it requires them to meet themselves as much as they are meeting their child.
The actual focus in parent coaching
This is the parent coaching I provide—not fixing a teenager’s behavior (though I have plenty to offer as to why the teen may be acting the way they do), but becoming more aware of what is happening inside the parent in the moments that feel most charged. Because when a teenager shuts down, escalates, withdraws, or pushes back, it is rarely just the behavior that creates the biggest difficulty—it is what that behavior activates in us.
From an Internal Family Systems perspective, those activated responses are not signs that something is wrong with us! They are signs that something inside has been touched. A protective part may step forward with urgency: We need to handle this now. Another part may want to withdraw or shut down to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing. Another may become sharp, corrective, or controlling in an attempt to restore order. These parts are not the problem. They are trying to help.
The shift begins when a parent can notice: Ah—something in me is activated right now. That moment of recognition creates space. And in that space, something new becomes possible.
When that space opens up, something subtle but powerful begins to shift in the relationship with a teenager. Instead of reacting from the most activated part of ourselves, we are more likely to respond from the steadier place of Self energy, where there is a wider perspective, and where we are more resourced. From this place, a parent can set limits without escalating, stay connected without collapsing, and listen without immediately trying to fix or defend. The tone of the relationship changes, even if the circumstances do not change right away.
This is part of what I mean by scaffolding, guiding, ushering, and companioning adolescents. Teenagers need guidance and structure, but they also need a relational environment where their own developmental storms do not constantly meet equally intense storms in the adults around them. When parents are able to recognize and relate to their own internal parts, they become more capable of offering that steadier presence. Not perfect presence—steady enough presence.
And often, that is what a teenager needs most: not a perfect response, but a regulated one.
The welcome changes in the relationship between parent and adolescent
Over time, this work changes the texture of the relationship. Not because teenagers stop being teenagers, and not because parents never get activated, but because there is more awareness of what is happening beneath the surface on both sides. Moments of disconnection become less final, less defining. Repair becomes more possible.
Having awareness of parts—both in the parent and in the teenager—along with the ability to create internal space and access Self energy, can bring a deep sense of empowerment for the parent, and is often emotionally regulating in itself. There is often a growing sense in both parent and teen that they are not simply reacting to each other, but learning how to stay in relationship through complexity.
This is why I use the word sacred for parenting adolescents. It is not sacred because it is easy or idealized, but because it asks parents to stay present in the midst of uncertainty, to keep returning to connection even after rupture, and to do the ongoing inner work required to meet their child without losing themselves. In that sense, parent coaching is not about becoming a perfect parent. It is about supporting parents in becoming more whole, more aware, and more able to stay in relationship with both their teenager and themselves.
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