Are you over-identifying with your child?

In this week's episode, Dr. Nanika Coor talks about over-identifying with your child and how you can re-establish some boundaries.

Sometimes it’s like you don’t know where you end and your child begins. This is a common feeling in relationships that are characterized by a particular kind of emotional entanglement where the psychological boundaries between parent and child are permeable and overly diffuse. While a close relationship with your child is usually a great thing, there is also such a thing as being too preoccupied with your child—needing to be needed by them.

Children have a basic developmental need for autonomy, competence, and relationships. When a child is the recipient of over-involved and directive parenting, their autonomy is often thwarted, and they may have low self-esteem and an underdeveloped sense of self-efficacy and competence. They may have trouble developing coping and problem-solving skills. As your child begins to expect things to be given to them and done for them by an ultra-involved parent, they can develop a sense of entitlement—like they deserve more and are entitled to more than other people are. This can look like a tantrum (even in a teen), extreme demandingness, or selfishness which can get in the way of relationships with peers and authority figures.

Providing excessive material goods, giving excessive praise, and not enforcing boundaries, along with overprotective parental behaviors, might mean that your child doesn’t have an accurate sense of their true capabilities, doesn’t get to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with experiencing and overcoming frustrations, and their authentic independent self doesn’t get nurtured. A parent and child can be so interdependent that the child becomes preoccupied with and particularly sensitive to parental or familial stress. All of these factors can impact a child’s present well-being and lead to interpersonal and mental health difficulties in the future, such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, perfectionism, and unhealthy eating behaviors.

If you’re hearing you and your child in these descriptions, listen to this episode to hear some steps you can take to re-establish necessary boundaries.