As kids return to school I want to share with you some thoughts from a friend of mine, David Olson, the Director of the Samaritan Counseling Center of the Capital Region, in Albany, New York. David has some important thoughts about making kids responsible for your own self-esteem. How many times have you seen obnoxious parents yelling g at the children at a sporting event, guaranteeing that their kids are not having fun? Parents seem to do this in other areas, too. They pressure kids to get good grades so they can get into the best colleges and get good jobs. The question often is whose needs are being put first: the child or the parents’?

Family therapists are concerned with two types of families: disengaged and enmeshed. Disengaged families are under-organized, unsupportive of children’s activities and often unaware of what is happening in the children’s lives. It is often unclear who is in charge. Kids therefore don’t receive the supportive boundaries and encouragement that they need to thrive.

Consider Your Child’s needs. On the other hand, enmeshed parents are over-involved in their children’s lives. The boundary between child and parent is fuzzy. There is often pressure on the child to live out the parents’ agendas. Kids in the long run will have trouble breaking away and forming their own values and identities. Enmeshed families place too much emphasis on everyone being the same or being perfect. In the end the child’s needs are not considered and are subsumed by the parent’s. Examples include: the little league parent; a mother consumed with her children’s school work, college choices or achievements; a father obsessed with his teenager having the father’s values, types of friends of religious beliefs. In each example, the parent shows no capacity for genuine empathy. Empathy is contingent on parents being separate from their children, and listening and trying to understand a child’s “true self”, instead of trying to turn the child into who they think they should be.

Don’t focus on your own agenda. Too often, without realizing it, we are not empathically attuned to our children because we are too concerned about them living out our agendas. Effective parents can contain their anxiety and empathically tune in to their kids’ needs. They can both listen and support, as they try to prepare for the eventual launch of their children.

As kids head back to school, parents would be wise to spend a little introspective time. Understanding what is unresolved within us from our own childhood experiences, as well as being honest about our agendas for our children is a start. Obviously, the goal is not to become distant from our children. Rather, the goal is to effectively tune in and listen and support, while holding our own agendas in check. From there we all need continued practice e listening noon anxiously and being supportive non-judgmentally. This does not at all mean parenting “value-free.” It means listening, teaching and supporting our kids to become the people they want to be, rather than clones of ourselves to boost our own self-esteem.

This article originally appeared in the Observer Eccentric newspapers.

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