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Can't give an inch...
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<blockquote data-quote="Scott_G" data-source="post: 642540" data-attributes="member: 16626"><p>Personally I think that one of the biggest steps to take on the road to detachment is to first learn what "help" actually is and isn't. What we give our adult difficult child children is NOT, and I repeat NOT help. What we as parents of difficult child children think of as helping our kids is actually enabling our kids. Paraphrasing what someone else already said, if the "help" we are giving them is something they should be able to take care of themselves, it is NOT help. If the "help" we are giving makes us uncomfortable because we are doing something we know we shouldn't, it is NOT help. If the "help" we are giving them is getting them out of a mess of thier own creation (for example, our son asked for a ride to a court appearance for a criminal charge. He had no car because he decided buying drugs was more important than making his car payment), it is NOT help. Our actions do not help difficult child children. Our actions enable difficult child children. In fact, our actions actually hurt our adult difficult child children. Every time we rescue them from themselves, we are actually cheating them. We are robbing them of the experiences of adult life (at 32 years old my son can't even fill out a 1040-EZ and file his own taxes). So then who are we helping? Some of you might be angry at the answer-ourselves. Has anything any of you done for your difficult child (besides detachment) actually made the situation better for them long term? My guess is the answer is no. Over the summer it was one year since I first posted here. I was thinking about that one day and refelcting on what had happened over the last 12 months with our son. Well, 12 months later our son was exactly in the same place he was at when I made my first post here- a homeless, broke, and jobless junkie. All the help, all the money, all the turmoil, all the anguish, and all we got was another year older and a few hundred dollars poorer. Then I thought further back, back to when he was 15 and all this rotten behavior started. Here we are 17 years later and we have the 32 year old man-child. When I look at my son, I see a 15 year old boy trapped in the body of a grown man.</p><p> </p><p>Our actions (enabling) don't help our kids become fully realized adults. Our actions merely help us to sleep at night for a short time. Look, we all have these horrible thoughts: our homeless difficult child child freezing to death sleeping on a park bench, or found dead in an alley with a needle in their arm, or the victim of a drug deal gone bad, or............ As parents, we can't bear these images . We can't bear these things possibly happening to our children(and our kids know this and sometimes use this against us). Also, we can't bear the judgemental thoughts of what kind of people we must be if we turn our backs on our own offfspring, so we "help". We take action to enable, to quiet these voices and dispel these images of horrible things, even if only for one night. But all we are really doing is kicking the can down the road. They want us to be mommy and daddy indefinitely, and when we enable, we oblige. </p><p> </p><p>While I don't consider myself a easy child, I was far from difficult child and I remember my mother telling me that letting go is one of the hardest things for a parent to do. But as parents, we MUST let go in order for our children to become fully realized adults. The only way to learn to be an adult is to be an adult-to learn from our mistakes, to live with the consequences of our actions, to solve problems, to be responsible and productive members of society. It's hard enough for good kids, but they tend to make it easier on us, because they want to be independent, fully realized adult members of society. But when the offspring is struggling to leave the nest and fly, it makes it so much harder to let go. If we don't "help" them then the horrible things we imagine happening might actually come true.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scott_G, post: 642540, member: 16626"] Personally I think that one of the biggest steps to take on the road to detachment is to first learn what "help" actually is and isn't. What we give our adult difficult child children is NOT, and I repeat NOT help. What we as parents of difficult child children think of as helping our kids is actually enabling our kids. Paraphrasing what someone else already said, if the "help" we are giving them is something they should be able to take care of themselves, it is NOT help. If the "help" we are giving makes us uncomfortable because we are doing something we know we shouldn't, it is NOT help. If the "help" we are giving them is getting them out of a mess of thier own creation (for example, our son asked for a ride to a court appearance for a criminal charge. He had no car because he decided buying drugs was more important than making his car payment), it is NOT help. Our actions do not help difficult child children. Our actions enable difficult child children. In fact, our actions actually hurt our adult difficult child children. Every time we rescue them from themselves, we are actually cheating them. We are robbing them of the experiences of adult life (at 32 years old my son can't even fill out a 1040-EZ and file his own taxes). So then who are we helping? Some of you might be angry at the answer-ourselves. Has anything any of you done for your difficult child (besides detachment) actually made the situation better for them long term? My guess is the answer is no. Over the summer it was one year since I first posted here. I was thinking about that one day and refelcting on what had happened over the last 12 months with our son. Well, 12 months later our son was exactly in the same place he was at when I made my first post here- a homeless, broke, and jobless junkie. All the help, all the money, all the turmoil, all the anguish, and all we got was another year older and a few hundred dollars poorer. Then I thought further back, back to when he was 15 and all this rotten behavior started. Here we are 17 years later and we have the 32 year old man-child. When I look at my son, I see a 15 year old boy trapped in the body of a grown man. Our actions (enabling) don't help our kids become fully realized adults. Our actions merely help us to sleep at night for a short time. Look, we all have these horrible thoughts: our homeless difficult child child freezing to death sleeping on a park bench, or found dead in an alley with a needle in their arm, or the victim of a drug deal gone bad, or............ As parents, we can't bear these images . We can't bear these things possibly happening to our children(and our kids know this and sometimes use this against us). Also, we can't bear the judgemental thoughts of what kind of people we must be if we turn our backs on our own offfspring, so we "help". We take action to enable, to quiet these voices and dispel these images of horrible things, even if only for one night. But all we are really doing is kicking the can down the road. They want us to be mommy and daddy indefinitely, and when we enable, we oblige. While I don't consider myself a easy child, I was far from difficult child and I remember my mother telling me that letting go is one of the hardest things for a parent to do. But as parents, we MUST let go in order for our children to become fully realized adults. The only way to learn to be an adult is to be an adult-to learn from our mistakes, to live with the consequences of our actions, to solve problems, to be responsible and productive members of society. It's hard enough for good kids, but they tend to make it easier on us, because they want to be independent, fully realized adult members of society. But when the offspring is struggling to leave the nest and fly, it makes it so much harder to let go. If we don't "help" them then the horrible things we imagine happening might actually come true. [/QUOTE]
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