Using children to fulfill your adult needs

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Using children to fulfill your adult needs

So what are some of the problems that occur in a family system with kids when one of the parents is too involved or enmeshed with their parent? When there aren’t clean lines between generations it might look something like this: you know, mom and dad I’m glad you’re there, I love, I want to see you but I can’t have you running my marriage. When that line isn’t there, there is a greater risk that son, let’s say it’s a son, who has been over involved with his mother, taking care of her because she’s angry with her husband, his father. Then he might be more inclined, because now he’s going to behaving problems with his wife, to turn to his daughter, to comfort him, to listen to him. So, there is a greater likelihood that enmeshment can occur within that next family system where we see the next generation of boundary problems where the parent turns to the child. Or maybe the wife who’s involved with the man who’s enmeshed with his mother, maybe she turns to the son. I can’t get your father to pay attention to me, but I can get you to pay attention to me. So once there is a crossover between generations, it often spills into the next generation in which children are being used to fulfill the needs of a parent. That really isn’t their job to do and the parent is always responsible for the boundary. The child is not responsible for the boundary. Many kids are more than willing to come to their parent’s aid and there’s nothing wrong with that, we want our children to be sensitive, we want our kids to be tuned in, right. Sometimes if they aren’t, it becomes its own problem. But when the parent hijacks that and uses it for their own self-centered or selfish needs chronically, it binds the child to the parent inappropriately, through guilt and inappropriate demands for loyalty.