Parents as Coaches | Transforming Family Relationships

Parent-Child Development for Emotionally Healthy Kids and Teenagers

Being a parent is a very difficult job. Most parents we work with make a tremendous effort dealing with their child or teenager and they have found that being a conscious parent is even more challenging than reactive parenting.

Hey, it's easy to blow your top when your child is whining or acting out. Easy, but has many, many long-term negative consequences, consequences that you are experiencing now.

In our CD set Parents as Coaches: The Family Transformation Program we describe the ineffective roles that parents play without realizing it and how those roles negatively impact the entire families dynamics. One of the most harmful roles a parent plays is the role of rescuer.

There was an article published recently about the actor Charlie Sheen. In the article, one of his coworkers had this quote: "After years of suffering no consequences for his behavior, why would he think anything else? Finally it has sunk in that he doesn't live by different rules to everyone else. Actions do have consequences."

Despite the good intentions a parent has with rescuing behavior, continually rescuing your child from age-appropriate consequences (both good and bad) eventually comes back to harm the child -even as an adult.

Sadly, this is true of many well-known athletes, entertainers, and politicians; but the concept is much more wides pread than just these select, well-known few. Many parents have confused  two ideas.

One is helping their child to succeed through mentoring and modeling for them.

The second is rescuing them from normal developmental processes that are important to their ability to exist happily in the world that they live.

Why do parents do this? One of the primary reasons is they are uncomfortable with their own internal emotional process when they see their child in struggle. They may have associations that if the child "fails"  that they become, as the child's parents, "failures" in some way.

Another contributing factor is that parents don't want a child to experience anything but happy and pleasant moments. This does a child a serious disservice. Life is not all happy and pleasant moments. Life can be frustrating. Life can be sad. Life can be lonely. Life can be many different things. A child  becomes emotionally balanced in their lives by learning to be able to deal with these emotions too. You don't want to create the "drug addict" affect where a child is looking for their next "happy" fix.

We also stunt their developmental processes by always rescuing them. Let's take the example of boredom. I have seen many parents become very uncomfortable upon hearing the words "I'm bored" uttered by their child. The parents then runs to the bookstore, runs to the TV, grabs the latest technology, or stops what they're doing to become the child's entertainer. Reading this, does this seem balanced and is this a good example for a emotionally healthy child (or parent)? Of course not. Yet when you are caught in the role of rescuer it becomes something that you do on automatic pilot.

Help your children to develop into emotionally healthy adults by allowing them to deal with these frustrating, boring, and challenging situations. Children are already extremely creative. Keep an eye on these situations and check in with yourself to see if the child really does need help or if experiencing a bit of struggle now will help them to develop the healthy emotional capabilities that they will need throughout their lives.

Don Nenninger, Psy.M.