In the previous post, we discussed how
children lack internal resources which the parent provides to them so
that they can develop their own sense of self, internal peace and
what many authors describe as a sense of abundance.
Healthy parents
understand that their children cannot tolerate or process many
aspects of living because of the natural characteristics of children.
They understand that they are immature and dependent. When the
child reaches maturity, ideally, they've developed a sense and
personal worth as well as a sense of peace about being alive and okay
in the world.
In the diagram, an empty beaker
represents the child's lack of resources, and a heart represents the
healthy adult sense of self. Parents that tend to be full of shame
unload their shame onto their children, but this is not the only way
that a parent uses a child when they fail to respect their
developmental needs.
The enmeshed parent uses their child in a
slightly different way. As we will see in the next post to come, both of these patterns set up the child to become an adult
who does not look to who they are in Christ to find worth but obtains
all of their sense of worth and peace from performance,
circumstances, and the esteem of others.
Quick Review of Enmeshment (a
recap of the Vulnerability/Boundaries
post)
Loosing sight of the fact that their
children lack boundaries, a strong sense of self, and experience
negotiating rights and responsibilities in relationships, or if they
fail to recognize and honor the immaturity of their children, they
can find the attention and love that their child has for them to be
nearly irresistible. The dysfunctional parent shares inappropriate
emotional intimacy with the child, drawing them into the world of
adults in some sense, by treating them as a peer. The relationship
lacks the friction encountered in their adult relationships, and it
seems to the needy parent that the child has become their friend and
companion.
A parent can use a child in many ways,
though we have only described the ways a parent my use a child for
their own emotional benefit at the expense of the child. This type
of abuse becomes sexually tagged when the parent focuses excessively
on gender, and an iconic example of this is the “Daddy's Little
Girl” or “Mommy's Little Man” type of relationship.
This type of prolonged relationship
creates marital problems within the nuclear family because the
enmeshed parent and child will become more tightly bound and
emotionally intimate with one another and almost inevitably exceeds
the intimacy shared between the parents. This tends to alienate the
other parent and it is thought to set up problematic lifelong
relationship patterns for the child. (For more information on these
types of relationship problems, please
visit Overcoming Botkin Syndrome and explore specific
relationship topics via the link list.)
Consequences for the Child
This creates multiple problems for the
child.
First, because the parent utilizes the
child as a source of support, in effect, they siphon back
to themselves the love and energy that the child needs to help
develop their own sense of self and wholeness. The child becomes
dependent upon the parent for their internal sense of peace and
wholeness which is appropriate when they are very young but
increasingly inappropriate as the child matures. As the child
matures and ventures into situations wherein they cannot rely on the
parent, it creates a great deal of anxiety for them when they cannot
have access to them.
Secondly, though the child enjoys some
gratification and sense of specialness because they are so valuable
to the parent, this benefit comes at a terribly high price. The
child learns rather quickly that they have also become responsible
for meeting their parents' needs for support. Because of their own
needs and lack, this responsibility becomes overwhelming for them.
They learn self-worth through
care taking behaviors and performance, and they feel shame
over their inability to comfortably meet demands because they are
given responsibility without authority. When the moments
arise when it is blatantly obvious that they are not really their
parent's peer or the parent behaves differently with them in the
presence of others, they also feel a great deal of shame.
These children learn that love is about duty and the overwhelming
anxiety and pressure they feel on a regular bases leaves them feeling
dead inside.
And as previously mentioned, these
children become consumed with the overwhelming needs and concerns of
their parent. Their own life is displaced by the concerns, the reality, and quite often with the shame of the parent.
Instead of awareness of self, the child's inner world must be negated
(their heart denied) in favor of the adult's experience, wants, and
needs.
In the next post:
How lack of respect
for the characteristics of a child creates
adults that are
victims of circumstance.
