Kind people are never involved in arguments, and those who like to argue are never kind.
—Lao Tzu
At the end of it, you’ll wish you’d fought less with your kids. You’ll wish you’d made less of an issue of so many things. Nobody looks back on their lives or their kids’ lives and thinks: I’m so glad we got in all those arguments. I’m glad I was so hard on them. I’m glad they finally learned all the rules.
You know this. Okay, so today, how long can you go? How long can you go without chiding your kids about this or that? Without making remarks about your teenager’s choices? Without reminding your young one to stop dragging their feet, leaning on the table, leaving their things lying about? See if you can make the majority of your interactions uncritical. That doesn’t mean you have to be disingenuously positive about them, only that you try to stop bothering them about so much piddly crap. None of that stuff matters now—as much as you might try to convince them, and yourself, otherwise—and it definitely won’t matter years from now when you’re all reflecting on your lives together.
So dial back the criticism. Remember: you don’t need to have an opinion about everything. If you can keep some of that stuff in your back pocket, you’ll both be happier for it.