Can I get my own way? Yes. Am I loved? No.
Children in this home learn that their parents don’t care what they do and that their parents do not enjoy them. Because the parents are unwilling both to suffer the hardship of enforcing boundaries and to embrace the joy of truly loving their children, there is a soul-less and in-human home.
The children in this home lack a conscience and have no concern for others. A boy will typically learn to survive on his wits; a girl often will get by on her body’s assets. This is how we get macho, self-absorbed athletes and girls who get what they want by dispensing sexual favors. A child who grows up in such a home must find both love and rules elsewhere. Their search will usually lead to a gang or other group that serves as a surrogate family. Children need to experience the strength of enforced boundaries and the mercy of being loved completely, despite their failure to live up to standards.
Quadrant 2: The Indulgent and Distant Home
Can I get my own way? Yes. Am I loved? Yes
This is the typical spoiled American home. All parents believe they are innocent of this style of relating, but perhaps many of us are blinded by the insatiable idol of finding life in the success of our children. We thereby indulge them and demand the indulgence of others to insure their success.
“Indeed, while many people have heard about the helicopter parent phenomenon (indulgent home), it’s tough to find moms and dads who consider themselves one.”
Mike Ellis, Director of Career and Life Education at Delaware Valley College
These parents often are well-to-do on some level either financially, in education, or in cultural status. Even if they lack the funds, they care more about public image and appearances than the hearts of their children. They dispense love through gifts, the provision of a nanny as a surrogate parent, or overprotective, overly possessive care. A middle-income family can do the same things through the frantic effort to help their kids keep up in activities, sports or music lessons to keep pace with the more elite kids. The children are sent to their media-enhanced bedrooms. They have their own computer, phone, and internet. (Your children’s life should not be their bedroom. Rethink how you want to create space in your family for your children.)
The children in this family are likely to accuse their parents of being manipulative, since the parents are unwilling to embrace suffering and are finding joy outside the home. The children’s accusations surface through acting out, getting in trouble, or pushing the limits to see if anyone will be strong enough to truly care. Their souls cry out for someone to stop the indulging while at the same time they demand more, more, more. They keep hoping that the credit card, the cell phones, or the “activities for their good” frenzy will perhaps have some love mixed in, at least a little.
This child grows up in a home in which they know they have power. They make the rules. They instinctively know their parents idolize their success and will give them what they want. This child grows up with a great sense of external confidence and prestige. They learn at a young age how to make things work: How to walk into a room and master the attention of adults and others. They have learned the answers to their core questions are “yes,” so they demand “yes” in every new situation they face.
Quadrant 2 creates children who are confident, but deeply insecure. They are impatient with discipline and authority structures. They find ways to escape the discipline, and they find ways to threaten their parents. They sometimes become the morose child—drawn to darkness, physically harming themselves, driving fast, or creating havoc. It appears that they need more love, but they really need clearer strength and leadership from the parents.
“We tend to hover, trying to make everything right for our kids. One outspoken high school principal I talked with said, “This hovering causes a situation similar to one in which a mother bird with only one or two precious eggs to protect works very hard to protect and manage each egg. And it’s the over management, which, I think, causes the most difficulty. Some tough things are going to happen to the kid. Parents both embarrass themselves and embarrass and hurt their children by being overprotective. Too many parents are unable to assume that a little pain is not only manageable but is actually desirable; that their child may actually grow from the experience.”
By: Dan Kindlon, Too Much of a Good Thing
Next month, we will look at the other two quadrants of parenting and will answer the core questions. Please seek the Lord, and do not quickly assume, that you are not in a given quadrant simply because you can find one or two exceptions to what has been said above.
Sincerely,
Adam