Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist

Parents with young children are totally involved in caring for and protecting their kids. They are enmeshed with their young children. That deep level of codependency of parent and child ensures the survival of the children.

But change comes quickly. Your kids learn to do things for themselves, and then demand to do them. They develop their own personalities.

You celebrate each time your young children learn to do something independently, like tie their shoelaces, hammer a nail or write a story. Then they enter the teenage years, those few years of rapid physical and emotional transition from childhood to adulthood. They feel sexual urges. They feel very “adult.” They begin to flex the independence you so strongly encouraged up to now.

As the children in healthy families grow into their teens and become increasingly independent of their parents, the parents normally become less and less emotionally enmeshed in the lives of their offspring. The love, guidance and friendship continue, but the codependency drops away.

Some Families Get Stuck

With some families, however, the level of enmeshment does not diminish through the teen years and even early adult years. The two generations may remain so codependent that the relationship becomes an ongoing liability for both.

When their kids make some scary choices, their parents panic. Just when the kids begin to make faltering steps to handle adult issues, some parents in their fear become more restrictive and less trusting. They desperately try to regain control, just when they should be letting go.

Parents who can’t let go typically fluctuate among the unhealthy alternatives of disowning the kids, rescuing them, punishing them and bribing them. For the kids the typical result is choosing to leave home too early in a defiant attempt to take responsibility for themselves

"Our kids have just as much right to make poor choices as we did at that age."

Think back. Did you teach them to take responsibility from an early age? Yes. Did you hold them accountable to increasing degrees as they progressed through childhood? Yes. Did you love them and show it? Yes.

So what went wrong with your parenting? Probably very little!

Our kids have just as much right to make poor choices as we did at that age. If we taught them well, they know what to do. Whether or not they do it is their choice, just as we must choose all the way through adulthood. Most will make a few mistakes and learn from those mistakes, just as we did.

Trust

Trust is a key issue, because your teens need your trust in their transition to adulthood. If you are asking yourself how you went wrong, it is a sure sign you don’t trust yourself.  Cut yourself some slack or you won’t be able to maintain what your kids need most in their transition. They need an ongoing, loving, respectful relationship with their parents, based on mutual trust.

Remember, your kids are hard-wired to learn, love and grow into productive adults, emotionally and intellectually independent of their parents. It’s their job to learn to be independent of their parents in every sense. And it’s your job as a parent to further loosen control and to facilitate and respect their choices.

So cut yourself some slack when you see your kids making some poor choices as they enter adulthood, and trust that you did a good job as a parent in raising them.

Copyright © Neill Neill. All rights reserved. Dr. Neill Neill maintains an active psychology and life-coaching practice on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He is a member of the treatment team at Sunshine Coast Health Centre , a drug and alcohol addiction treatment facility for men. He writes regular newspaper and magazine columns on psychological healing and self-improvement. His goal is to facilitate growth in human consciousness and increase the human store of hope, happiness and generosity of spirit.