Some people come to therapy full of negativity and anger toward parents whom they hold responsible for the way they feel and the lives they live. For example, they might explain their difficulties in relationships by referring to a parent’s emotional coldness, criticalness, or divorce. Or they will fault a parent’s lack of encouragement and involvement when they were growing up for their failure to do well academically or professionally. Blaming parents for their struggles keeps these people stuck in angry, anxious, and depressed feelings, and interferes with their ability to think about what they could do to make their lives different.

“Gloria” came to her first therapy session with me and immediately began to talk. Sounding irritated, she explained, “I’m here because I can’t take it anymore. I hate my life. I’m either angry or depressed. I’m 29 years old and I haven’t been in a relationship for more than three months. I can’t seem to keep my jobs for much more than a year. For nine months, I’ve been working as an assistant in a recruiting firm where I answer phones and type résumés. I know I’m smarter than that, but I don’t know what else I want to do. I seem to go from one dead-end job to another. I’m such a loser.” Then Gloria sobbed, “I am just so stuck.”

Gloria began therapy. She typically entered my office with heaviness and depression, and talked about how miserable her life was and how hopeless she felt. She believed that nothing could change. When I asked her why, she thought she was stuck in this awful place, her lethargic demeanor changed to anger, and her voice turned strong.

“How could I change?” she said. “It’s all about my childhood. My parents separated when I was 5. My father left the house and I rarely saw him. Sometimes he would take me for a weekend, but I never believed he really wanted to. He met this woman, Fran, and all he ever talked about was her. They got married when I was 7, and then he moved to another state. I would visit them three or four times a year. She had two daughters. I could see how much he loved Fran. He never looked at me like that. He would criticize how I dressed and compare me to my stepsisters. I hated them. I could never get anything right, and they were so pretty and perfect, and I could see they were the children he wanted. When I would go home to my mother and complain, she would hardly listen. She never seemed very interested in me, either. She had a big, important job, and as I grew up, I didn’t see so much of her. She never got very involved in anything I did. She would even get nasty and critical if I told her about something good that happened. I remember when I told her that I had been asked to run for class secretary in middle school. She laughed at me and said, ‘You’ll never get elected, so you shouldn’t run. You’re just not popular enough.’ I believed everything she said about me, so I didn’t run. By middle school she had a serious boyfriend and she was always with him and never had time for me. I never thought I was good enough for much. When I think about it now, I can see my mother was really into herself and I think she was competitive with me. I don’t think she wanted me to succeed or dress well or have boyfriends. I guess she is still getting her way.”

The more I learned about Gloria’s childhood, the more I could understand why it was so difficult for her to have positive feelings about herself and to believe that if she worked at something, she could succeed. She consistently assumed people’s responses toward her would be negative personally and professionally. While her expectations were understandable in light of her childhood experiences, she was able, when pushed, to come up with memories of positive relationships, work experiences, and even good feelings about herself. Nevertheless, these exceptions to what she anticipated did not go very far in allowing her to step back and consider that she was not (in her words) “doomed to fail.”

It became clear to me that Gloria was stuck in blaming her parents for how she saw herself and how her life turned out. What made it so hard for her to move on? Was there some risk in letting go of her anger? Was there a downside to not living up to what she saw as her parents’ view of her? Was there something positive in it for her to blame her parents? These were the questions that occurred to me as I listened to Gloria, who presented herself repeatedly as a victim who would always be at the mercy of the impact of her past treatment by her parents.

I began to raise these questions to Gloria, who became curious about them. She began to consider the risks of letting go of her anger and blame. She talked about worrying that she would be letting her parents “off the hook” if she stopped blaming them or being angry. “They know how I feel and I like to think I make them feel guilty,” she said. “When I was a kid, they never seemed to expect me to amount to much. They’ve gotten what they wanted, but I do think I’ve managed to finally make an impact. I think I’ve succeeded in making them feel guilty. If my life got better, maybe they wouldn’t feel so bad or guilty. I feel bad and I want them to feel bad.”

At first, when Gloria continued to talk about her desire to hurt her parents, she smiled and said, “Now that I understand that this is what I’m doing, I have to say that revenge is sweet.” She would also get angry in our sessions and acknowledge that this new awareness created a real conflict for her. “Rationally, I get that it’s me,” she said. “I can see that I think my parents are responsible for my being a failure. They made me this way, so I’ll be the loser they created. I want to hurt them. I guess I could work on getting the life I’m always moaning that I’ve never had, and I know that would be the best thing for me. But I just don’t want to give them any good stuff.”

As we continue to talk about this conflict, which creates great anguish for Gloria, she has not been able to choose to work on giving up her anger and blame. However, she is considerably less attached to viewing her life through the lens of doom and failure caused by her parents. She has begun to take some steps to get more for herself. She has gotten a promotion to recruiter, and has made a placement that will double her income this year. She has also enrolled in a management class at a local college. We’ve even begun to talk about online dating. As Gloria continues to work in therapy, I believe she will achieve more for herself and gradually be able to see her identity in a new way and identify less and less as a victim. As she allows herself to experience the satisfactions of success, I am hopeful that the pleasure of revenge will be less gratifying.

My work with Gloria is just one illustration of the ways in which blaming your parents can keep you stuck. There is a terrible paradox in these situations: You are angry and blame your parents’ treatment of you growing up for your unhappiness and failures in your adult life. But the wish for revenge and these angry, blaming feelings keep the connection and repeat the relationship between your “bad parents” and you, the unsuccessful, unhappy child. As a result, you are stuck in the position where you cannot become the person you say you wish to be or create the life you say you desire.

“I hate you!”

“You’re the worst parent who ever existed!”

“I can’t wait to move out!”

If you have recently heard these words (usually screamed at full volume, followed by the loud slamming of a bedroom door), you may be the parent of a teenager.

Only those of us with halos and wings are consistently able to respond to such statements with perfect compassion and sweetness: “I love you, honey, and I’ll be right here for you whenever you need me!” Parents are human beings, and as such we have a limited set of emotional reserves and resources, which can quickly become taxed by a raging or withdrawn teen.

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In fact, although you love your child as much as ever, you may be struggling with feelings of intense hurt, anger, dislike, distrust, grief, anxiety, and loneliness. You may feel that although you love your teenager, you just don’t like him or her very much right now. It may feel at times that your teenager has his or her finger on every one of your buttons, and is pushing them … all at once!

What can you do when the very child you love and worry over appears to hate and reject you as a parent?

Teens are known for their emotional volatility. Unfortunately, when parents become as overwhelmed by negative emotions as their teens are, they are no longer in a strong position to be stable, loving, or helpful to the teen. In fact, the parents’ hurt and anger can easily add fuel to the fire and bring about a downward spiral that both parents and teens feel helpless to stop.

To say teenagers value their friends and social life is an obvious understatement.  However, to family members around that teenager, it can seem as if by “choosing” to value their friends, the teen is showing the family that they no longer matter. Indeed, as illustrated by the quotes above, the average teenager may even say as much in the midst of an angry, hormone-fueled argument.

The traditional task of adolescence is to move away from exclusive identification with family and to explore the greater world outside of the home. Separation of the child from the parents is absolutely necessary and healthy at this stage. However, that separation must be counterbalanced by the availability of the parent to continue to meet the adolescent’s needs. Therefore, this is an extremely frustrating time for many parents.  They feel as if the teen is pushing the parent away, only to pull the parent back whenever he or she “wants something from me.”

In order for the adolescent to explore the larger world in a healthy way, the home and family must be a sort of “home base.” This means the teenager needs to experience his or her family as stable, its identity as stable, its love and acceptance as unconditional, and its boundaries as safe and secure.

Understand that by focusing on his or her peers, your teenager is not rejecting you. Instead, the teenager is simply transitioning through an intense period of changes. The teen needs the family life to remain solid and secure, so that he or she can return to it for comfort and healing when the peer world becomes too intense or overwhelming.

Teenagers may often resemble adults physically, but socially as well as cognitively, they still resemble children much more than adults. We now know that the human brain does not fully mature until the mid- to late twenties. Executive functions such as prioritizing, consequential thinking, and evaluating options are still coming online. Furthermore, teenagers do not have the life experience, confidence, or savvy to navigate the complicated demands of life as adults do.

Because of these factors, it can be useful for parents to see past the bravado and the occasional glimpses of maturity that their adolescent displays; to understand that, inside, there still exists the child who has needs he or she does not have words to express, who cannot meet those needs independently of the parent.

The family itself is also moving through a transition period. They must move into a new life stage, with new roles for each family member. It can be difficult to feel entirely ready for these changes. Many parents of teenagers experience this time as a loss: the loss of the innocent and impressionable child they once knew and enjoyed; the loss of the role of all-knowing nurturer and protector.

Parents often report that they feel that “time is running out.” When your 5-year-old threw a temper tantrum, you knew as a parent that you still had “endless” years in which to heal relationships and correct behavior. When your child is 15, you understand that the years are not endless and that damage done to the relationship now may persist into your child’s adulthood.

Because the family is a “safe launching pad” for their forays into the larger world, teenagers move into and out of their family, and not always on the parents’ timeline. Your teen may refuse to join you for dinner, hiding out in his or her room; he or she may seem to eat, sleep, and shower with iPod headphones on. He or she may argue endlessly over attending important family functions such as weddings or funerals. And, just when you think the teen has disowned the family forever, there he or she is, curling up next to you to watch a movie or opening up from the passenger seat on a long drive.

Recognize your teenager’s attempts to reach out to you for what they are: The teen is looking for reassurance from you that he or she is still a part of the family; he or she wants to know that no matter what he or she screamed at you last week, you still love him or her. The teen needs to feel certain that if the “real world” becomes too scary, he or she still has a safe place to return. In order to practice being an adult, your teen needs to periodically return to being a child—and this will happen when you least expect.

Nobody said being the parent of a teenager is always easy, fun, or fair. As the adult in the relationship, it is you who holds the responsibility. It is you whose role, although different, is still most important in these last years of your child’s development. It is you who must keep the gates of the family open for your teen when he or she needs to reenter them.

Once you can view your teen’s behavior from this developmental context, you can depersonalize it. It is no longer about your teen’s rejection or manipulation; it’s an understandable and necessary stage in his or her journey to reaching his or her own, full potential as a young adult. It becomes easier and more natural to meet the ebbs and flows of your teen’s changing needs. Even when, sometimes, the need is for separation from the parent.

When counseling parents and their children, I often refer to the “love languages”—an idea coined by Dr. Gary Chapman, a relationship counselor most well known for the Love Languages series of books.

People express their love in a variety of ways, and what is important to one person may not be as much to another. If someone’s top languages are not being met, it can lead to negative feelings and behaviors.

The five love languages are as follows:

1. Physical touch
2. Words of affirmation
3. Quality time
4. Gift giving
5. Acts of service

While you may have heard of the love languages, you may not have applied them to the parent-child relationship. It’s telling kids “I love you” in a language they respond to. Saying the words often isn’t enough. Parents often assume their kids know they are loved, but that’s not always the case.

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Love should be unconditional, but is often displayed conditionally (such as when kids are good). Unconditional love can prevent problems such as resentment, feelings of guilt, fear, anger, low self-esteem, and insecurity. Children need to feel loved; if they don’t, they may seek approval elsewhere.

Now let’s talk about how to incorporate these into your daily lives:

1. Some ways to incorporate physical touch include hugging, kissing, child sitting on lap, cuddling during stories, television, or movies, tossing in the air, gentle touches on legs, arms, head, shoulders, etc., back scratches, high-fives and contact sports.

As kids get older, parents may touch only when necessary, like when helping with clothes or hair. Kids will crave more contact when sick, hurt, tired, or sad. Teenagers, especially boys, will pull back from physical touch. Make sure the touch is positive and at the right time and place. Don’t embarrass!

Conversely, a negative touch coming from a place of anger can be detrimental.

2. Words of affirmation are ways to give praise and encouragement for what the child does. Since a child’s behavior is something he or she controls, there is a direct effect.

Be genuine when giving praise. Praising too frequently may have little positive effect, as it can come across as insincere. This can set up an expectation for praise, and create anxiety when it is absent. The way you word praise and your voice tone and volume make a big difference. Words of guidance will be sought elsewhere—from school, TV, peers, or other adults—if not received from parents.

Although it may seem obvious, words of negativity really hurt, and the greatest enemy of encouragement is anger.

Make sure to say “I love you” on its own, not with qualifiers such as “but …” or “will you …” attached.

3. Spend quality time with your child. Kids really seem to crave this, especially any one-on-one time. This love language is fairly self-explanatory. It can be going somewhere or just hanging out. Think of those moments when you’re sharing thoughts and feelings, having good, quality conversations. Mealtime, going for walks, story time, or bedtime can be good opportunities.

4. Giving gifts can be one that parents roll their eyes at. Of course kids like gifts! However, it is more about the thought behind it. In a child’s mind: “You were thinking of me and got it, since I’m important.” Other languages need to be combined with gift giving. It is not a paycheck or bribe, nor should it be a substitute for time spent. As with praise, excess gifts lose their meaning. You can tell gift giving is important if kids express excitement when receiving a gift or based on how it is presented, or display it proudly.

5. Acts of service is a big part of being a parent, as the list of tasks, errands, and to-do list items never seems to end. Acts of service refers to going above and beyond making sure kids’ needs are met. This could include offering to help with something before they ask, or at least not saying “in a minute” when they do. Encouraging a hobby, checking homework, hosting events for the kids at home, or doing things to make an illness more bearable are other examples.

To discover someone’s primary language, note the following:

1. Observe how they express love to you.
2. Observe how they express love to others.
3. Listen to what they request most often.
4. Notice what they complain about the most.
5. Give them choices between two options.

You need to show love in all five ways, but try to discover the person’s primary language (or top two or three). When the person is under 5 years old, try to hit all five languages.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about “good enough” parenting that seemed to strike a chord for many readers. Some challenged the idea that “good enough” could lead to complacency and short-change our children, but most expressed an appreciation for the self-acceptance inherent in that model. This month, at the risk of stirring up even more debate, I want to talk again about an approach to parenting.

After the birth of my son, I realized that if I ever wanted to take a shower again, I was going to have to let him cry it out for a time. This was very hard, but it was an important first step in my parenting journey that led me to embrace the art of benign neglect. It soon became clear to me that I would not physically be able to attend to my child’s every need every moment of the day. He would have to wait sometimes. He would have to entertain himself sometimes. He would have to delay gratification. This wasn’t a conscious parenting choice; it was just our reality. As it turns out, it was a pretty good thing.

Once my post-childbirth head started to clear, I remembered some words of wisdom from one of my favorite grad school professors. She opened the year by making the bold statement, “Our kids don’t suffer enough. They should suffer more. Thank you.” This was my introduction to the woman who led courses in achievement motivation and social and moral development. I was struck, even intrigued, by her words. As I followed her courses, I began to get what she meant. It was not, however, until I became a parent that I truly understood the implications, and challenges, of this concept.

What my professor was talking about was not abject, crushing, demoralizing suffering, but a more tempered form of discomfort and struggle. She was not advocating throwing our kids into the deep end of life and letting them sink or swim. What she was talking about was allowing them to face adversity while they still had a safety net, letting them stumble over little obstacles as practice runs at life’s larger challenges. Noted psychologist Lev Vygotsky talked about the concept of scaffolding—a way of providing appropriate support to children to allow them to stretch beyond their current abilities. As parents practicing the art of benign neglect, that’s what we try to do. If we do everything for our kids, if we smooth out every bump in the road, if we do everything in our power to remove pain, challenge, and discomfort from their young lives, we deny them the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to develop the coping skills they will need as they become independent adults.

When I think about the skills I want my son to develop, I want him to be secure. I want him to be confident in his own abilities. I want him to struggle through things, work them out on his own, ask for help when needed, and bounce back when things go wrong. I want him to be determined and resilient. In order to do all of this, sometimes I need to do nothing. I need to give him the chance to fail. I need to let him fall down, but be there to pick him up. This is what separates benign neglect from just plain neglect. I need to know where he is. I need to know what he is doing. I need to know that I’ve put the sharp knives out of his reach. It means, though, that sometimes I need to not intervene even when I so very much want to.

I see this in action when we are on play dates with friends. No parent wants his or her child to be pushing other kids or to be the kid being pushed around. Those practiced in the art of benign neglect will watch to see how events unfold. Do the kids sort themselves out when they scuffle? Are things escalating? Is anyone in danger of getting seriously hurt? Most of the time, the kids work things out on their own, learning valuable lessons and negotiation skills in the process. Sometimes, adult intervention just makes things worse. Other times, adult intervention is exactly what is needed to prevent full-scale descent into a Lord of the Flies scenario. When well-intentioned parents are ever-present, however, and intervene at the first hint of discord, our kids don’t get to learn how to work things out.

For the parents who are worried that if we don’t intervene our kids will learn poor strategies, hold those concerns for just a moment. Just because we do not intervene doesn’t mean we lose the teachable moment. Sometimes, our kids are more open to learning after an event rather than in the heat of the action. We can talk with them about their interactions. We can hear how they felt about it. We can talk about the consequences of the choices they made. We can teach them new strategies that they can try out next time. We can share wisdom and perspective, talk about our values and the way we want them to treat others, and we can encourage their independent growth. We can encourage them to think about why what they say and do is important, not because “we said so,” but for reasons that feel real to them. In short, we become resources for them and partners in their learning.

Practicing benign neglect as a parent is not about abdicating responsibility, ignoring limits, or letting go of all boundaries. On the contrary. It is about creating clear limits and boundaries, which all children need, yet allowing for enough freedom within those limits for true learning to occur. It is about watching and waiting and being intentional in the ways we intervene. It’s about allowing our children to feel some discomfort, letting them struggle, and helping them work through it. It is about loving them enough to let them experience the world in a way that lets them grow and learn, even when, with every fiber of our being, we want to shield and protect them from the bumps and bruises they will get along the way.

It is not unusual for people to come to therapy with feelings of confusion about what they want, think, and/or feel. I find that many grew up in families in which one or both parents involved themselves in their children’s lives in ways that interfered with the development of separate, individual thoughts and feelings. Most of these parents were well-intentioned. Their intrusion into their child’s life typically came from a need to protect the child from painful feelings or to assure that the child’s behavior and choices were the “right” ones. As a consequence, these children grew up relying on their parents to define not only what they should feel or how they should behave, but ultimately their identity: who they are as individuals. As adults, these children spend a lot of time in their heads worrying about the choices they make, how they are seen in the world, if they upset their parents by having separate ideas, if they did the right thing, etc. They become confused when the thoughts they have about themselves are different from what they know their parents believe. “What is true and real about me?” becomes the question that these patients bring to therapy.

“Sam” came to see me filled with anxiety. He didn’t know if he should continue in a relationship that was becoming serious. “I think I’m in love with Kara,” he said. “We have a really good time together, and she is very good to me. But then I get confused: Do I really want to spend my life with her? My father thinks she isn’t a good match for me. She’s Italian, and I’m German. I never really thought about things like that, but my father thinks that the cultural differences are too much. He also thinks that Kara’s family is very different than ours and that will be a problem when we have a family.” Sam continued to describe his uncertainty about how he felt and what he should do. I asked him if he thought he would be less unclear about Kara if his father approved. It was striking to me that this question seemed to startle Sam. It hadn’t occurred to him that his father’s opinion about what was good for him had such a profound influence.

Sam agreed to begin therapy, and we began to explore how he thought about himself and how he determined what he wanted and needed. It soon became apparent to both of us that Sam’s father had always played a big role in characterizing who Sam was. Sam recalled that he wanted to take guitar lessons when he was about 10. His parents bought him a guitar, and he liked strumming it and learning to play, but he had trouble with dexterity and was not developing into a very good player. After about six months, his father told him, “You’re not very musical. You should find a different hobby. You should try chess; you would be good at that.” Sam recalled: “Even though I enjoyed playing and fooling around on the guitar, I stopped the lessons. My father started to teach me chess. I did get pretty good at it and joined a chess club in middle school. My father always says with great pride how he knew I would love it because I’m such a rational and logical person, that chess is perfect for me.” Sam paused and thought a minute and said, “It’s funny, I never thought about this before. I think of myself as a logical guy, but then I never know what to make of all the feelings that seem to boil up in me. My parents don’t see me as emotional.” Sam paused again, seemed deep in thought, and then sadly said, “Wow, I guess I hide that part of myself from them. They don’t really like emotions.”

As Sam and I continued to talk, he became increasingly upset as he began to discover that much of what he thought about the kind of person he was mirrored his father’s view of him. He also began to realize that there was a judgmental attitude when his father told him what he thought. For example, his father still believed that Kara was not for him. His father had explained, “You’re not someone who can deal with opinionated people. She is too aggressive for you.” Instead of becoming confused and wondering if his father’s idea was true, Sam began to consider his own experience. He was learning to ask himself what was happening in his internal life and to study what went on externally. He thought about Kara and her opinions and realized that many of her ideas were different from those of his parents. But he also saw that she was flexible and, in fact, he often agreed with her. As he was more able to focus on himself and create some space apart from his father’s influence, he could consider how he felt. He didn’t feel conflict with an opinionated Kara. Rather, he was becoming aware that he disagreed with his father. This was not an awareness that he allowed himself to experience very often. It made him anxious, but now he second-guessed his experience less, and he was beginning to make space for his separate feelings and ideas to emerge.

Sam and I still have work to do. He is working on his relationship with Kara. As he develops the ability to know what he wants and feels, he is more able to express himself to Kara and that relationship is getting stronger. Sam continues to work on individuating from his father. After 30 years of relying on him to define and characterize who Sam is, it takes time to develop confidence in his own thoughts and feelings. There is still anxiety for Sam when he asserts his newly found voice with his father. Sam has recognized that his father’s judgmental tone has made it difficult for him to feel that his own perspectives are valid. His memory of his father telling him, “I’m your father and I know what you like and what is best for you” no longer feels just about his father’s love and concern. Sam is beginning to understand that his father is anxious, too, and that it is his anxiety that drives him to try to control Sam and to believe that he knows what’s right. Hopefully, as Sam’s sense of identity becomes more solid, he will be able to negotiate the relationship with his father so there will be room for multiple thoughts, feelings, and perspectives.

Well-intentioned parents who are critical and controlling may promote their child’s reliance on them to determine and define what is good and acceptable about the child. When a loving parent is so certain that he or she knows what is right for the child and does not consider that the child may have valid, different ideas about what he or she wants, needs, and feels, there is no space and no invitation for the child to develop the ability to express his or her own self with separate ideas, feelings, and needs. Over time, as the child grows to adulthood and is exposed to more ways of thinking about things, there is typically a good deal of confusion about identity, thoughts, and feelings. Unless there is an opportunity to develop a separate sense of self, there will likely be a lot of anxious thinking about what is real but little ability to think for oneself in a self-reflective way.

When parents view their child’s “problematic” behavior, attitudes, or troubles as a reflection of them, it can be a terrible blow to the ego. For parents with positive self-feelings, anger, hurt, and disappointment can occur when they don’t see themselves reflected in their children. (“My child should be just like me.”) For parents who do not feel very good about themselves, seeing a child as being “just like me” can feel devastating. Parents who lack self-esteem often feel like their child’s problems are their fault. Their inability to differentiate themselves from their children can also result in guilt and painful feelings of responsibility that are often overstated and inaccurate. Many parents who struggle with the idea that their child is a reflection of them (for better and worse) have not separated from their children. These parents tend to feel some responsibility for their child’s situation. Most often they believe that, either in their early behavior with their children or in their biological contribution (or both), they have profoundly affected their child’s life and character.

“Peter” came to his therapy session in a rage about “Adam,” his 25-year-old son. He had just come from his son’s apartment and was disgusted about the dirt and disarray he encountered: “What is the matter with that kid? He’s such a slob. There is stuff everywhere. It feels so chaotic! I have the same feeling when I think about how he gets drunk with his friends on the weekend. He’s a mess!”

When I asked Peter what made him so angry about this, he began to express remorse about being so enraged. Choking up, he said, “I guess I’m really hurt. I feel like Adam is being disrespectful to me. He knows I hate his messes and his drinking behavior. I feel like he’s on a terrible path of disorganization and disaster. I keep asking myself, ‘How did he turn out this way?’ ”

I asked Peter what he thought about why Adam was like this. “I don’t really know,” Peter said. “But I honestly believe it’s my fault. You know I was a terrible workaholic during Adam’s first 10 years. I neglected him when he was growing up. Then I think, if I was a workaholic, will he be an alcoholic? I know I made him this way. I’m a mess of a father.” Peter was tortured by his painful feelings and disappointment that his son hadn’t turned into the ideal adult that Peter wished he could be.

Over time, as we explored Peter’s feelings, it became apparent that he put all the responsibility for the person Adam was at age 25 on himself. He found it very difficult to see Adam as a separate individual with his own reasons for behaving the way he did. Slowly, Peter was able to consider that his influence hadn’t only been negative and that he wasn’t the only influence on Adam’s development. Adam’s mother was nurturing; Adam had many friends growing up. Peter could even recall some teachers who were influential in Adam’s life. He acknowledged, for example, that a high school teacher had encouraged Adam to stay with his music, and Peter admitted that Adam was a successful musician.

“I guess I haven’t focused enough on Adam’s successes, just on the ways I see him as a failure and blame myself,” Peter said. “Sometimes I still think that maybe Adam is punishing me when he messes up in ways he knows I hate. I guess I really have to admit that it isn’t all about me. Adam is a different person from me. It’s just hard to be OK with that. But I do want to get there. I know that would be best for our relationship.”

Peter is slowly beginning to separate from Adam and experience Adam’s successes and failures as more about Adam than him. He is also beginning to take Adam’s character and behavior less personally. Giving up the idea that “it was all my fault” makes space for Peter to see Adam as a separate individual.

“Rose,” another client, began to talk about her 10-year-old daughter, “Jessica,” in our therapy sessions.  Rose was obsessed with worry that Jessica, who had learning disabilities, would never have a successful life. She said with some sadness: “Her brain is damaged. How will she ever be OK?”

“What do you mean, ‘Her brain is damaged’?” I asked.

“You know that we had her tested and she has so much trouble focusing and organizing her thoughts,” she responded.

“Yes, I know she has some learning disabilities, but seeing her as ‘a person with a damaged brain’ seems a rather extreme way of defining your daughter,” I said.

“I sort of know what you’re saying is true,” she said. “But you know I had learning disabilities as a kid. No one identified them; no one did anything about it. I still struggle at work and in my life in general with being focused and organized. I get so depressed and anxious when I forget things or don’t get stuff done like I promise my husband or my boss. I know my brain is messed up, and Jessica is just like me. Why would I think her fate is going to be any different?”

Rose had a very strong belief that biology was determining her future as well as her daughter’s. She was reluctant to consider that her daughter’s life could take a different path from hers. She had a difficult time thinking about Jessica as a separate person with her own unique characteristics. I reminded her that she and her husband had been addressing Jessica’s learning problems and getting help for her. I also pointed out that this was very different from her own experience growing up. I emphasized that there are many influences other than biology that influence a person’s development. I also asked Rose to tell me anything she could think of about Jessica’s accomplishments. We both listened to the list Rose came up with: “Great piano player, really good artist, hula-hoop champion, kind person, good swimmer, and I guess other stuff, too.” Rose reluctantly acknowledged, “Yes, I suppose her brain works OK in some ways.”

Rose and I spent a lot of time talking not only about Jessica, but also about Rose’s negative sense of self. It was harder for her to take seriously that she has her own accomplishments. It was even more difficult to consider that Jessica was like her in some ways and not others. (Rose is a terrible artist and swimmer!) Our work has centered on Rose’s struggle to experience herself in positive ways and on seeing Jessica as a separate, differentiated individual. We have also been talking about how painful it is to see your child have areas of deficit, and even worse when you feel you are the cause. Helping Rose to talk about her impaired sense of self and its development has allowed her to make distinctions between her own experience and Jessica’s. I have tried to help Rose consider that while there could be some biology at work in regard to Jessica’s learning disabilities, so much more than being “just like me” is involved in what makes Jessica who she is.

We are familiar with parents feeling great pride in how they played a role in their children’s successes. But when parents boast incessantly about their children’s accomplishments to the extent it doesn’t feel like typical parental pleasure, we typically consider them to be narcissistic. For Peter and Rose, their great dismay in what they perceived as their children’s deficits, problems, and failures was also narcissistic.

The term narcissism comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, in which Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection in a pool. The notion of reflection is pertinent to the experiences of Peter and Rose. Rather than experiencing narcissistic pleasure, these distraught parents experienced a narcissistic wound. They couldn’t tolerate the pain of looking into the pool (i.e., at their child who also represents the parent) and seeing something that is not “beautiful” reflected back. When they looked at their children, they saw a reflection of themselves. It was intolerable that the reflection they saw was “a mess” or had a “damaged brain.” It was not “beautiful.”

These parents are responding narcissistically, and they have not differentiated themselves from their children. One has to wonder how parents, who view their children as reflections of themselves, may have influenced their child’s separation/individuation process. As parents become more aware that their beliefs that their children are or are supposed to be “just like them” are assumptions, they will be in a better position to examine those beliefs. As a result, parents will experience less pain, and their children will be helped to develop into separate, unique individuals.

A client recently described how thrilling it was to take her daughter to see the Broadway musical Annie.  She recalled that her mother took her to see it when she was a child, and it had been an indelibly wonderful experience. Now she had the pleasure of providing the same thrill for her daughter. I thought how special it was for my client to share this with her daughter and how lucky my client was that her daughter had the same feelings about the experience. It also reminded me that so many parents who want to provide what they believe to be all the right things for their children are not always met with such good feelings.

I recalled another client whose desire to recreate his delight for his son was dashed when he took him to the rodeo and was met with the response, “This is stupid.” In spite of their most nurturing and positive intentions, parents may find that their wishes and rules for their children are met with rejection. This can create painful feelings, including insult, hurt, anger, and disappointment. “Drew,” a 42-year-old client, was in a prolonged struggle with his 8-year-old daughter about piano lessons she adamantly refused to take. He told me, “When I was a kid, I refused to continue piano lessons after a few months. My parents never insisted I continue. I’m not going to let that happen to my daughter. She isn’t old enough to know what she wants or what the consequences of her actions will be.”

As Drew and I explored his feelings, it became clear that he not only felt disappointed, he felt rejected by his daughter. “It feels like she is telling me, ‘Get out of here, you don’t know what’s good for me,’ ” he said. I responded: “I can see how upset you are about this, but I wonder what it is that makes you feel so personally rejected. Is it possible that your daughter is different from you?” Drew’s first response was, “She’s my daughter and she is like me. I just know this is very important for her to do. When I was a child, I didn’t know I was making a terrible mistake. My parents should have known and pushed me to continue.”

It took a lot of talking for Drew to become aware of his many disappointments about the ways his parents had been involved in his life when he was a child. He began to consider that he might not need to protect his daughter from this disappointment. He recognized that his daughter might, like him, regret not learning the piano, but forcing her to take lessons could easily turn her away from the piano. He realized that her experience and development was and will be different from his and she is a different person with her own thoughts and feelings. After all, she has different parents than he did. The more Drew could understand his daughter’s need to differentiate from him, the easier it was not to feel so rejected and hurt.

When parents assert their desires for their children, it is not unusual for them to be met with expressions of different or opposing wants and needs. Pushing back against what parents want is a necessary part of a child’s development. For a healthy sense of self to grow, children need to differentiate from their parents and become unique, separate, individual selves. This doesn’t mean children are totally different from or always in opposition to their parents. It does mean children need to develop minds of their own. Having one’s own mind is about being able to think about your needs and wants without being overly influenced by others. Ideally, the wishes of others are considered, but ultimately one makes his or her own life choices. Obviously, the degree of autonomy for a 4-year-old differs from that of a 13-year-old and again for a 20-year-old. When children are not given the space to differentiate from their parents and don’t develop a self that is confident and strong, they will not have developed the autonomy to make life choices and get what they want as they enter full adulthood.

At age 53, “Anne” was struggling with her teenage son, “Noah.” She came to therapy expressing feelings of anger and insult from their encounters. She explained that he fought her at every turn about anything she asked of him: cleaning his room, doing household chores, getting his college applications completed.  “I don’t believe how he treats me,” she said. “He says things like, ‘Leave me alone and mind your own business.’ Is that any way to speak to your mother? I feel so hurt and insulted. Doesn’t he know I only want what’s best for him?” In great distress, Anne added, “He has become a terrible person. He is so mean and inconsiderate. He seems like a completely different person than the son I felt loved me a year ago.”

As we talked, Anne described how when she was growing up she never went against her parents. When we explored her past and present relationships, Anne began to wonder if her early experiences being compliant are related to her difficulty asserting herself as an adult. She described how difficult it is for her to disagree with her husband and how she doesn’t always feel so good about herself. She realized that it wasn’t just with her son that she felt so badly treated. “I guess I don’t feel very powerful,” she said. “I have a lot of trouble believing that what I think and feel is OK. I always followed the rules with my parents. Maybe I didn’t develop what Noah needs to do—be someone who feels OK asserting himself when there is opposition.” Many parents with teenagers experience difficult feelings in their parent-teenager relationships. For Anne, the feelings of insult and rejection were intolerable. Even worse for her was the terrible shame she felt about her negative feelings toward her son: “I’m the terrible person. Mothers shouldn’t feel this way.”

How to handle this kind of situation with teenagers is controversial. Furthermore, how any parent hears what a child says is open to interpretation and may be related to how the parent differentiated from his or her own parents. While Anne felt insulted and hurt, another parent in these circumstances might shrug and think, “When will these awful teenage years pass?” On one end of the continuum of parental response, parents might believe that a child of any age should never be permitted to say anything that is hurtful, disrespectful, or angry to a parent. At the other end of the response continuum, parents might accept any expression their child makes without intervening. An extreme example might be if a teenager said, “You’re an awful parent, you have no business having children,” and a parent made no protest about being treated that way. On this far end of the continuum, the lack of a parental response to push against doesn’t provide the child with the feeling that there is a strong parental self to separate from. If there is no other out there to individuate from, it becomes difficult for a child to develop a sense of who he or she is and the ability to be autonomous. The child is left wondering, “Who am I?” Potentially more problematic, the child may be left with a feeling of powerlessness. He or she has not been given the experience of successfully asserting his or her developing self in the world.

There is a lot of room along this continuum for parents to develop responses that feel comfortable to them while allowing some room for their children to develop their unique selves. It helps if parents let their children know what behaviors are acceptable. For instance, telling a child, “You can’t talk to me that way” is not the same as saying, “You can’t be angry at me,” or “You are hurting my feelings.”

When children respond to parents in disappointing or unacceptable ways, it is important that parents stop and consider how they will meet that response. Each situation requires thought. Sometimes, interfering with the child’s wishes or experiences provides an opportunity for the child to push back against the parent and feel a sense of his or her developing self. At other times, supporting the child’s differentiation provides the child with a sense of confidence and recognition of his or her developing self. No matter the age of the child, parents who are curious and interested in why there is disparity or opposition are communicating their openness to more than one way of behaving and/or feeling. This openness to difference helps children develop into self-confident, autonomous adults. Moreover, parents are less likely to repeat the dynamics of their own childhoods if they consider their children’s behavior from a developmental perspective. They will be in a better position to not take things so personally and will feel less hurt, insulted, or disrespected by their children.

We are all familiar with the experience of good intentions having negative consequences. In my work as a therapist, I often encounter this phenomenon when I work with parents who, in their desire to make things better, easier, or less painful for their children, interfere with their child’s ability to develop the capacity to do for themselves. These are parents who feel an urgent need to fix their child’s problems. For the purpose of this discussion, “fixing” will refer to the intervening and usurping of problem-solving when one’s child experiences difficulty.

Gloria wanted to fix her daughter Alice’s feelings. She worried when Alice was unhappy, angry, upset, or had any feeling she felt caused discomfort for her child. For example, when Alice got frustrated and tearful when she practiced piano, Gloria suggested she stop her lessons. In therapy, Gloria told me how disturbing it was to her when Alice was upset. She recalled, “When Alice was an infant, I couldn’t stand to let her cry even for a minute. My heart felt like it would break. When Alice gets upset because I say ‘no’ to her, I always give in. I can’t stand it. It always seems like I’ve hurt her when I say ‘no.’” Gloria urgently needed Alice’s bad feelings to go away. What Gloria eventually came to understand was that what was urgent was that she, Gloria, be rid of her own uncomfortable feelings.

[fat_widget_right]Fred had a hard time when his fifth-grade son Eddie brought home average grades from school. He told me that he felt Eddie was much smarter than his grades showed, and he felt his job as a parent was to help him do better. This sounds like a responsible, caring parent talking. Unfortunately, Fred didn’t just provide some assistance so Eddie could do better, like going over his homework and helping him with his social studies projects. Rather, Fred intruded in what Eddie needed to do every day. For example, when Eddie was assigned to do a book report and make a diorama about the life of the protagonist, Fred read the book, bought supplies, outlined what should be in the diorama, and essentially did the project for Eddie. Eddie got an A, and Fred was thrilled!

While Fred’s intervention did fix Eddie’s grades, Eddie was given little opportunity to figure things out for himself. In therapy, Fred became aware that “this isn’t helping my son. I’m really scared that Eddie could follow in my footsteps and repeat my terrible academic failures.” As we focused on Fred’s anxiety around allowing Eddie to become a separate, self-confident individual with his own strengths and failures, Fred was increasingly able to talk with his son. He was able to encourage Eddie rather than take over his academic life.

Pam, a 29-year-old woman had difficulty dating and forming relationships. When she started therapy she told me that she didn’t have much trouble meeting men, but there was always some difficulty in the relationships, and they never got very far. As we explored her life and dating experiences, she explained that her biggest help was her father. She described him as exceptionally loving and caring and her “go-to” person when she had trouble in a relationship. She explained that a typical difficulty when she dated was that she would feel very hurt and upset when someone she dated didn’t call or text her quickly enough. Pam said, “When that happens, I call my father right away and I know he will comfort me. When I was a kid, he would do the same when a girlfriend hurt me. He gives me the same advice with guys as he did with those girls. He always says the same thing: ‘get rid of them—you don’t need people who hurt you in your life.’”

As we explored this dynamic further, it became evident that Pam’s well-intentioned father couldn’t bear witnessing Pam feeling hurt or upset. He would fix her relationships by encouraging her to get rid of the person who hurt her. This would not only alleviate Pam’s hurt but would take away the feelings he couldn’t tolerate. As a consequence, Pam had not developed the ability to manage her feelings and correctly judge how others were treating her. She had not learned how to deal interpersonally with another person in a relationship.

When parents can’t allow their children to struggle through problems and feelings, it is often because they, themselves, can’t tolerate how watching the struggle makes them feel. Some parents identify with their child. They recall their own feelings, like frustration or hurt or anger, and may assume that their child is experiencing what they experienced in that situation (although it may be a very different experience for the child). The desire to protect one’s child is necessary and desirable in a parent. But when the protection stems from the parents’ discomfort around their own feelings, it can create issues that impact the child’s development of self.

Children who are never allowed to cry, for example, may not learn how to soothe themselves. When children don’t learn how to self-soothe, they are frequently unable to cope with the normal stresses and frustrations of everyday life. Very often a parent’s worry about their child’s feelings can be communicated to the child. When a parent anxiously steps in to help or fix, the child may feel (consciously or unconsciously) that the parent doesn’t think the child has the capacity to work things out on his/her own. Children whose parents take over their work and do it for them are deprived of experiencing “I can do it.” Their ego enhancement, self-confidence, and self-esteem are interfered with. Parents who interrupt whenever a possible failure lurks do not prepare their children for success, because one must be able to tolerate failure in order to achieve success.

While there certainly are times when it is useful and wonderful to be there for your child and be helpful, the “fixer” parents described here did not help their children. They made themselves feel better. They may have made their children feel temporarily better: Eddie got his project done and got an A, and Pam felt reassured that she knew what to do when a date didn’t respond the way she wanted. Alice was relieved of her painful feelings, but didn’t develop the ability to cope. Not one of these children was helped toward developing a strong sense of competence or the ability to manage his or her feelings in the world.

Rather than extreme fixing, there are alternative behaviors when the urge to fix things for your children is present. Trying to address the problem with your child—rather than springing into action to help—can allow a child to feel like a participant, giving him or her a sense of self-esteem. Leaving space for a child to be uncomfortable communicates that you have faith that your child can find a way to figure out what he or she wants, and how to get it. It is important to communicate that it is okay to struggle, that it is a human experience that we all must learn to endure. It has to be okay to be uncertain and not know what results efforts will bring. Parents have to be able to tolerate their own anxiety and not jump in to solve their child’s problems. This allows the child to develop a healthy separate self and become a competent, assertive, and confident person in the world.

We all manage the impressions other people have of us. We think about what we might wear to an event or a job interview, we consider how free we can be with “expletive deleted” words in a given social situation, we may carefully choose what information we reveal about where or if we went to college or what kind of work we do. When it is appropriate, impression management helps us get what we want. However, when we manage other peoples’ impressions of us in most of our interactions, we run the risk of interfering with our identity by impeding the development of our sense of self.

Excessive impression management involves overly focusing on creating a particular view of who we are and controlling how people think and feel about us. When so much of our attention and energy is placed on controlling how we are perceived, there is little room for us to think about, be interested in, or develop our real selves. Typically, when we are overly invested in impression management, our sense of self has little substance. In trying to become the person we believe people want us to be, we become chameleons, changing our shape and form, altering our ideas. Sometimes, we may not even notice our own ideas (or be interested in developing them), because we are so intent on being seen as the impressive person we have assessed this particular situation requires.

Why would it be a problem if we are successful in creating the impressions we desire? Why does it matter if today we determine that it would be good to be viewed as creative and funky, and tomorrow we know we have to come across as smart and conservative?

My experience as a therapist has allowed me to witness the damage that can result from constant attention to impression management. People who have practiced impression management excessively for years (some quite successfully) often find that they begin to experience a vague sense of something being wrong with their lives. Many have had difficulties in relationships or in forming lasting relationships. When they come to therapy, they have difficulty finding words to explain an emptiness or tired dissatisfaction with life. It’s as if a false structure of self collapses and leaves little underneath to hold the person upright. What becomes apparent by talking in therapy are the underlying feelings that have been pushed aside in the process of creating false impressions. As these clients talk in therapy, they begin to uncover shame, a lack of self-confidence, anxiety about failure, self-hate, and many other feelings they’d defended against.

Lily, a 31 year-old client, is a successful executive in a publishing firm. She makes an excellent salary and has steadily risen in her profession. She is  active socially and is often the life of the party at the many events to which she is invited. When she came for her first appointment, directly from work, Lily was conservatively dressed in an expensive suit and carried a designer handbag. In our first session, she reported feeling depressed and had a difficult time trying to explain a feeling of unease about herself and her life. She told me “I don’t know exactly what I am feeling or what the problem is. I should be happy. I have a great job. I am always going out and having fun. But I guess I’m not really having fun. I don’t know. Maybe I’m beginning to feel I should be thinking about some kind of relationship. I go out on a lot of dates, but I haven’t wanted to be in a relationship. I just don’t know what the problem is. I shouldn’t be feeling this way, even though I guess I really am not sure what I am feeling.”

Lily and I began to work together, and in the fourth month of our work, she came to her appointment on a day that she didn’t go into her office. She wore torn jeans, a short cropped top and had a pink streak in her hair that hung loose instead of her usual bun. She also had a small ring in her nose. It took a moment for me to realize who she was! It wasn’t just her change of wardrobe that I was responding to. Somehow it felt as if I were in the presence of a totally different person than the one I was beginning to know. As she sat down, I said, “Wow, you look really different today.” Then I asked  if she could talk about her two very different looks. What Lily described to me illustrated excessive impression management.

Lily said she was going to meet some old friends she knew from college. She hadn’t seen them for five years, although she stayed in contact, mostly by email several times a year. She had already told me that she had been popular in college but hadn’t mentioned that she was a drama major and hung out with a group who were generally outsiders on the campus. She also hadn’t made it clear that while she was popular within her group, that wasn’t the case in general. She said, “I might not have been popular with everyone, but I did keep them intrigued by how I looked and by my in-your-face style. I had dyed pink, green, or striped hair; I smoked a lot of weed and was usually the one to buy for the rest. We were a very tight bunch. We kinda slept around inside the group. It was a great time in my life.”

I asked Lily whether her choice of dress was related to this meeting with her old friends or whether she usually dressed this way with friends when she wasn’t at work. “Oh no,” Lily said, “I would never dress this way with my friends today. I guess I have a whole variety of clothes that I wear, depending on who I’m with. For instance, I would never wear my designer stuff with the girls I go out for drinks with on most Wednesday nights. They don’t know I make so much money, and I would feel funny around them. I also have other clothes I wear with family. I can’t be too funky or too fancy with them. They would be really critical if I looked like that. They don’t really get what I do now, the same as they never knew much about me in college. I’m really selective with what kind of information I reveal to people. I’m really worried about how to dress today because I’m not sure where everyone is at. I didn’t think the corporate look or the way I dress with my Wednesday group would make the right impression, so I thought this would be a good compromise.” With what sounded like great pride, Lily continued, “I suppose I am a woman for all seasons. I can be whatever I think people want me to be.”

As Lily and I continued to work in therapy, she began to recognize that as a “woman for all seasons” she didn’t have a sense of what kind of a woman she really was. While we all have many different parts of ourselves, and it’s not so unusual to be different with different people, Lily had no sense of a core self. She began to understand that her unease and empty feelings were related to the absence of knowing who she was and what she wanted. This awareness motivated her to commit to work in therapy. Over time, she discovered how she got to be without a strong self, what parts of herself were there but not attended to, and what feelings she had trouble tolerating. Most of all, Lily developed an identity. She became aware of her own desires, feelings, and dreams.

Have you seen the movie? There are a lot of parenting situations in it that we can relate to. The main one that I see is with Marlin and Nemo. Nemo has a short fin and his dad is very protective of him, which is natural. Nemo wants to show his dad what he can do in spite of his short fin, but this is a scary situation for Marlin (the dad), because he does not know how to protect Nemo.

Nemo is reacting in an age-appropriate way: He wants to show his dad what he can do; Dad won’t let him, and then Nemo does it anyway. Sound familiar? This pattern happens a lot and at different ages and stages with parents and kids. As the kids get older, we may become more comfortable with letting go, but it will still be hard.

The question is this: How do we allow our children to do more things on their own when our own fears get in the way?

At a young age, kids begin to pull away and search for independence, and as parents, we encourage that, support them, and cheer them on. When they stumble, we help pick them up and tell them to try again. When they succeed, we feel great! When they “fail,” we get discouraged and/or keep cheering them on. The latter is a healthier response: to keep cheering for and encouraging them and to allow kids to keep striving.

The challenge is when they are hurt or held back by a physical or mental challenge that as parents we want to protect them from. We may also want to protect them because of our own fears or beliefs that someone is going to hurt them even more. When a child is showing the desire to try again or to show you that he can do something, that is when it can be okay to allow it.

With Nemo, he wanted to show his father he could swim far (out to the boat) and come back. Yes, he was being oppositional and was not listening or following directions, but that is not really the point.

Marlin was afraid that Nemo would not be able to swim to the boat, and from my perspective, Marlin was afraid that he would have to go get Nemo, and Marlin was more afraid of that than anything else. So here is something to think about: we need to be aware of where our fears come from as parents. Do our fears arise from our own insecurities or doubts that we will not be able to swim to the boat? Or maybe the fear is that when our child does well, he will need us less.

Wherever Marlin’s fears were coming from, Nemo did what he believed he could do. Yes, he got caught, and his dad searched and found him; and then Nemo was able to show Dad that in spite of his short fin, he was still able to do great things. Maybe if Marlin had allowed Nemo to show him earlier, then the situation would not have had to go that far, but then the movie would not have been made.

It took Dori to point out to Marlin that maybe it was time for him to let go. Yes, they were in the whale, but Marlin got the message: Allow Nemo to show what he can do, even if Marlin has some fears.

But let’s look again at the question posed earlier: When is it okay to allow your child to have more freedom? How can parents manage their fears when a child is insisting on what he can do?

1. Identify your fears. Be aware of them. When we look at our fears, we can do something about them. Are the fears more about your child or that you may not be able to protect him from getting hurt? You are not always going to be able to protect your child; he may get hurt, but he probably will also be okay.
2. Focus on what your child is able to do. Look at where improvements have been made, and see how you can help encourage him. Look at how you can support him to try something new or a little more challenging.
3. Is your child asking to try something new? Is he wanting to try more? If he is, then believe in him, and try to understand that he believes he is able to try it. You can share with him your thoughts and concerns. He may disagree and still want to try, and if so, then trust him. Yes, he may not fully succeed, and that’s okay. He will learn more about himself and become more confident in himself. When he does succeed, it will feel wonderful and he will be very proud to show you.
4. If you have conveyed your thoughts/fears to your child and he’s still insistent that he can do whatever it is, then support him. Encourage him and be there for him.
5. If he “fails”, do NOT say, “I TOLD YOU SO” because that would be your fears talking. Encourage him to try again; failure means not trying at all.

Back to Marlin and Nemo: Marlin learned that Nemo was able to do a lot of things, even with a short fin. He succeeded, and Marlin also succeeded: He learned that letting go is not only scary at times but also very rewarding. Nemo told him that he loved him and was thankful, and the letting go helped their relationship become more fun. Marlin also became better at telling jokes!

One last thought: When Marlin allowed Nemo to show what he could do, I think Marlin found his own “Nemo,” which I guess opens the door for another article on this topic: Finding “Nemo” Part II.

Related articles:
Increasing Children’s Self-Esteem
Importance of Coping Skills, Part 2: Building Resilience
When Not to Say “No” to Your Child

The word bridezilla has become an oft-used part of our lexicon, and many people who have never been married are confused by the panic and stress that seems to surround wedding planning. But a newly engaged couple quickly learns that the stress of wedding planning is not the overexaggerated fantasy of people who simply have no stress tolerance. Wedding planning is stressful for almost everyone, and yet people never stop to think about why this is. Here’s what is really going on.

Expectations vs. Reality
A wedding is a major rite of passage, and many people—especially women—have been raised to expect their wedding to be a perfect fairy tale. But nothing can be perfect, even a wedding, and the drive for perfection can be profoundly stressful and emotionally fraught. Many people use their wedding as an opportunity to take stock of their lives so far. If they can’t afford a dream wedding, they may feel like failures. Some people have a specific list of things they intended to do before they got married. No matter how unreasonable this list might have been, unfulfilled dreams can still cause stress when you’re planning a wedding.

A Stressful Engagement
The time before you get married should be one of the happiest, most romantic times in your life. Instead, many people spend this period frantically planning a wedding, stressing about finances, and fretting over guest lists. Wedding planning can cause you to pull away or turn on your future spouse, and constant planning certainly eliminates any opportunities for romantic time together. Thus some people arrive at their wedding day feeling pretty humdrum about their future marriage and pretty frustrated with the process that got them to the altar.

Finances
Disagreements about money are among the most common marital problems. When surveyed, people indicate that financial problems are one of the biggest stressors in their lives. Weddings are expensive, with the average wedding in the United States costing well over $30,000, so it’s no wonder people can be driven to a state of panic by weddings. Couples frequently must make huge sacrifices, compromise with their parents, and work extra hours to get the money to pay for their weddings, and all of this effort can take a toll.

Requests of Others
Many newlyweds report that it wasn’t the wedding planning itself that was stressful. It was the constant pressure, opinions, and criticism from other people, such as the mother who’s enraged that you’re keeping your maiden name or the father who insists on a traditional wedding ceremony. A wedding frequently puts the differences between parents and their children on full display. Many engaged couples worry about their parents making snide remarks just before their wedding, or spend the entire time they’re engaged bending over backward to please their parents, only to find out that nothing they do is enough.

Relying on Others
No matter how much you might want it to be just you and your fiancée, a wedding is a group event. From bridesmaids to florists, officiants to flower girls, you must coordinate with many people, not all of whom will be cooperative. Trying to get everyone to understand your vision for your wedding can be like herding cats. And even simple tasks such as getting your best man to finally get fitted for a tux can be extremely stressful. When people have to rely on others to get tasks done, their stress levels tend to rise. This reliance on others is made even worse by the stress most couples feel to create a perfect wedding.

So, no matter how simple you may try to keep the wedding plans, there will still be stressors that you should anticipate and plan for, just as you plan for your cake and photographer. Start thinking about the people and events that may create stress for you and your fiancé, and take steps to reduce those predictable conflicts. Acceptance of the things you can and cannot change is key, and practicing now can only help once you become a partner in a marriage.

Sources:

1. Miller, R. S. (2011). Intimate relationships. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
2. Reis, H. T., Rusbult, C. E. (2004). Close relationships: Key readings. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Related articles:
The Fear of Hurting the Other and the Inhibition of Self
Embrace Conflict as a Path to Deeper Connection
Decision Making in Relationships: Three Important Values to Help you Know When to Give in or Dig in

Bad person feelings typically develop early in life. Although it may not be intended, children can get the message that it isn’t simply what they do or think or feel that is bad, but that they themselves are bad.  When these feelings are communicated, verbally or nonverbally, children soon learn to avoid them by working very hard to please and not disappoint parents. They may try so hard to be good (i.e., to be the child the parent expects), that they have little room to develop their own unique selves.

The Experience of “I Am a Bad Person”
When parents yell at their children or verbally or physically abuse them, we can imagine that this might frighten, shame, humiliate, or terrify a child.  But parents can also respond in more subtle ways that can damage a child. When a parent expresses hurt or disappointment by a sigh, a look, crying, head shaking, or leaving the room, the impact can be devastating: “How can I have done this to my parent? I must be a terrible person.” When the parent’s displeasure is expressed as hurt, it is especially difficult for the child to mobilize a strong sense of self and fight back.  The parent’s hurt is evidence that the child is a bad person. It then feels necessary to always please others and behave in ways to avoid the “I am a bad person” feeling.

People Pleasing
In my practice of psychotherapy, I frequently work with patients who have a strong desire to please. They often come to therapy when they find that their anxiety about pleasing others is having a serious impact on their lives.  Worry and rumination about whether or not someone “likes me” characterize most relationships.  Their concern is not only about the feelings of significant others; coworkers and casual acquaintances can create as much worry about being liked as a parent, spouse, or boss.
The focus on pleasing others interferes with developing the ability to consider what would be pleasing to oneself.  Alan came to therapy struggling with what to do with his life. At the age of 29 he wasn’t sure how much he really liked the woman he was dating. He felt he couldn’t trust his feelings. He also had doubts about his job and couldn’t figure out if he was being realistic in what he wanted. He reported that he was tired of trying to keep his girlfriend and his boss happy.  He wasn’t comfortable telling them what wasn’t working for him and he worried that he was too demanding. As is typical with people pleasers, he frequently second guessed himself and questioned what his true feelings were.  Alan spent so much time avoiding displeasing others that he hadn’t developed a sense of who he was, what he wanted, and how to get it.

Disappointment
When struggling with bad person feelings, experiences of disappointing and being a disappointment are prominent. My patient Diane often described how she felt a pit in her stomach or on the verge of tears when she thought she disappointed someone. But what was totally intolerable was when she felt she was a disappointment. She recalled that her mom would look sad and hurt and shake her head when Diane refused to wear what mom had chosen for her. She told me that it wasn’t simply that she felt that her behavior had hurt and disappointed her mother. Tearing up, she said “I felt that I am a disappointment and it felt like that defined my very essence.”
Diane also would become very anxious when she felt that someone disappointed her. She felt she had no right to such feelings and believed she was wrong or exaggerating if she allowed herself to feel that way. She told me “If I let my husband know some of the things that trouble and disappoint me in our relationship, I will hurt his feelings. Then I will feel terrible, that I am a bad person.”  What Diane described is her fear of asserting herself:  someone could get hurt and this will be proof of her badness.

The Tenacity of the Bad Person Feeling
Both Alan and Diane were overly attentive to pleasing others, not disappointing, and protecting themselves from bad person feelings. Both found it difficult and dangerous to please themselves, believing that if they focused on their own needs, they would create hurt and disappointment in others. Both worked to maintain a positive self-image by vigilantly trying to be sure that they never were experienced as having negative impact.
For people who struggle with bad person feelings, the most important goal in relationships is not so much to be related to with positive regard as to avoid negative regard. As a result, whatever positive regard is directed toward people pleasers tends not to be taken seriously.  Alan explained: “I know I bend over backwards to make sure no one is upset or angry or displeased with me. So when people like me, deep down I don’t give it much credence. Sometimes I think I am always acting.”  The point here is that the bad person feelings continue to define the person and are not easily changed by experiences of positive regard from others.

Changing the Bad Person Feeling
The bad person feeling typically digs its claws into the internal life of those who suffer with it.  It feels real, inevitable, and a fundamental part of “who I am.” The feeling defines how one thinks about the self and typically was developed through early relationships with significant others.  As one develops, many relationships mirror the dynamics of the parent-child relationship where the aim is to avoid hurting the other and to not feel like the bad person. Reflecting on these feelings, it is not so easy to consider that a parent, even without intention, was involved in the development of these terrible feelings. If that were to be accepted, it would mean accepting that I am the hurt one. This perspective turns the way the world has been understood upside down. With such a radical shift in thinking needed, how can these feelings be diminished?
You have to be willing to consider alternative ways of thinking about your early experience. Thoughts that once made sense have to be reflected on and reconsidered.  Even if at first, you can’t emotionally accept a new way of thinking, it is important to start by logically considering what you believe about your experiences, perceptions, and feelings. It will be important to become aware of how many of your relationships mirror the anxieties you felt (and feel) with your parents.
Objectively, you may be able to consider that children do no wrong even if a parent feels hurt when they have independent thoughts or don’t do as the parent asks. Can you apply this thought to yourself?  Can you become aware and intellectually accept that as humans in relationships, we all hurt those we love in unintended ways and that this does not make us bad people? Coming up with new ways of thinking about old assumptions is an important beginning in changing bad person feelings. However, it is not enough. To accomplish a change in your definition of self, from the bad person who is a disappointment to a good enough person who doesn’t always please and can disappoint from time to time, requires an emotional shift internally. Therapy is one means of facilitating this shift. Another means is to gradually use your rational thoughts to urge yourself to risk responding honestly.  By this I mean, it becomes necessary to first remind yourself “Yes, I am human and it is okay to express my own unique thoughts even if they are different. I know someone could respond negatively but this doesn’t mean I have done something wrong.”
This takes time. As you repeatedly risk the possibility of making a negative impact by asserting your separate thoughts and feelings, your tolerance for anxiety, risk taking, and bad person feelings will increase. You need to be able to gradually tolerate situations where you do hurt someone. The goal is to increase the experience of being yourself in relationships and learn that typically, you will not hurt the other by being a separate, individuated self. This lesson is crucial.  Most important is the emotional registering of the other person maintaining their acceptance, love, and admiration for you, even when they feel you have hurt, disappointed, or made them angry. This is the emotional experience that will finally lead to change. The end result is that your tolerance for the other’s feelings of anger, hurt, or disappointment are increased and the bad person feelings are diminished.

Related articles:
The Fear of Hurting the Other and the Inhibition of Self
The Price Paid for Being the Perfect Child
Getting to Know (and Esteem) Yourself