Closeness by way of supporting growth rather than maintaining dependence
A young and helpless child is dependent upon his parent(s) for care and protection. If love and closeness remain equated with dependence, then the child is inevitably caught in a bind between his wish to grow up and his wish to stay connected with his parent. Parental attunement to and support for autonomous growth is a source of closeness that allows self-development and relatedness to be compatible.
“Do you know what he called me yesterday? A bitch! And when I asked him to apologize, he said he hated me,” related Jennifer, as she began to sob uncontrollably.
Ben doesn’t know what to do for her. All he can do is seethe with thoughts of , “What an ungrateful little p… ,” as he contemplates confronting their thirteen-year-old son.
Does this sound familiar? This change in Mathew has completely blindsided Jennifer. She and Matty were always so close. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him and he was such a loving child. It just doesn’t seem fair. If she didn’t know better, she would say a Death Eater from Harry Potter’s world had transformed her son into something awful: a rude, ungrateful, disrespectful man-child.
Can you figure out what the problem is from the dialogue above? She calls him “ungrateful” and “disrespectful”. Does that give you any hint as to what is going on? Here’s another hint: “They used to be so close … she would do anything for him.” Are you guessing this is just the dark tunnel of adolescence and she has to close her eyes and wait for him to come out the other end? Perhaps that works for some people, but that is really painful.
Jennifer and Mathew were very close. And Mathew was very loving as a little child. But as he became older, his expectations changed and what used to feel loving and close eventually felt smothering and controlling. Jennifer equated love with helping and caring. When her children were young and helpless, they depended upon her for their care. She loved the role of mother and care taker. Unfortunately, remaining focused on that role led her to overlook another important role: promoting her son’s growth as an autonomous young man.
Mathew loves his parents. But he also has a drive to grow into a strong independent adult. In a relationship with his mother, where his dependence on her is how they feel close, Mathew is in an impossible bind, at times feeling like he must choose between his close but dependent relationship to his mother and his own self-development. Like almost any other kid, Mathew starts to focus on becoming separate and “grown-up”. In the midst of this tumultuous transition, neither Jennifer nor Mathew could tell you that the closeness they had was based on dependency and that Mathew is now facing a developmental bind where either he or his relationship with his mother is going to suffer.
If parents honor this natural drive toward independence or self-reliance, attunement and support provide a means of closeness that does not result in a developmental bind between self and relatedness. Helping a child with his quest for mastery and self-reliance allows the child to feel loved as he grows into his own separate person, without fearing that his need for autonomy threatens his relationship with his parents. Therefore, attunement to developmental growth rather than a focus on caring for a dependent child is an essential transition parents must make early in childhood if they hope to avoid that inevitable conflict and hurt that will come with the child’s need to separate and become more independent. This represents an understanding of how the parent-child relationship must evolve with developmental changes. It also represents an awareness of how growth occurs and can be promoted or inhibited as opposed to development being a bi-product of fixed course of biological changes and maturation.
Is there any hope for Jennifer and Mathew? Of course, there is. Once Jennifer works through my handy-dandy adolescent operating manual* and recognizes the developmental process underway with Mathew, she will find ways to honor and support his moves toward greater self-reliance. And they will live happily ever after, with nary a swear word ever again exchanged. You say you don’t believe in instant self-help cures? Then perhaps what will evolve will be a more compassionate view of Mathew’s behavior as well as an effort on Jennifer’s part to search for and support his efforts to become more “grown-up”.
An awareness of the potential binds between self-development and relatedness within the parent-child relationship is essential to understanding potential areas of conflict or developmental roadblocks. Successfully negotiating these binds with parents prepares a child for negotiating these binds that will inevitably arise in their relationships outside the family.
How will this occur? Can you think of ways that children or teenagers can feel caught in a bind between what is good for them and what others want them to do (think or believe)? I thought so. A parent can feel connected in the navigation of those difficult straights. Doing so is much easier if the child has learned to trust that her relationship with her parents remains secure as she pursues what is right for her and if she knows she will always be loved, no matter what happens in the outside world. How’s that for happily ever after possibilities?
key terms: Dependence vs. Attunement; self-development; autonomy;
* sorry, no handy-dandy manual. But I can recommend a great book for parents of adolescents: Getting to Calm: Cool Headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens and Teens, by Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt.