Can I Be A Friend To My Child?

A mother talked to me about her disrespectful children. During their childhood onwards, she handled the children by pushing them into a friendship with her. Instead of being a parent to them, she’d converse with them as if she’s just a friend or companion and not an authoritative figure. The side effect of  her parenting style is conditioning the children to take disrespectful liberties with her.

I call it psychological abuse when a parent handles children inappropriately. In this instance, the mother denied the children the parenting they needed because she allowed her role to be compromised by her need for companionship and friendship. It’s a thin line of parenting behavior. Crossing it leaves a child with an undefined and empty view of himself.

Perhaps, the children would be accommodating to your unmet need as a parent. But only for a short while. In their hearts and minds, it stretches them. The role reversal does  strain what their parent-child relationship was meant to be. A parent forcing water from their children that should come from someone else or other adult sources is a relevant parenting lesson.

Let’s be wise parents to our growing children. Make sure we don’t make their tender, immature frame handle undue weight prematurely. Eventually, time will arrive when our children could handle adult weight or issues. But prematurely, the weight becomes a source of potential psychopathology, even a curse.