Principle 2: Focus on Self

This principle is aimed at the need for parents to refocus their energy on their own development rather than over-focusing on children. An over-focus on children often includes seeing a child as overly needy and helpless, trying to fix them with “love,”and overfunctioning for them. This tends to create an imbalanced codependent relationship and it tends to limit the identity development of both parents and children. 

If parents can begin to trust in their children’s capabilities and to treat them as if they are not needy and helpless, then children can begin to grow toward their potential. This also helps parents to put their focus back where it belongs–on their own personal development. This means that parents decide to work on themselves and take responsibility for their own happiness rather than taking responsibility for the child’s happiness. 

As parents do so, it frees both parent and child to become more self-reliant, and therefore, more confident and happy. Both will learn how to tolerate their own anxiety rather than letting this bleed over into the relationship. This fosters a mutual respect for boundaries and a more balanced and connected relationship. Both can also begin to develop a more solid “self,” discovering what their beliefs, values, and interests are, and to follow meaningful, intrinsically motivated goals. 

True Growth

The true goal of this principle is to help parents to focus on truly growing themselves, and by so doing, to free their children to grow as well. It is not meant to encourage parents to neglect meeting their children’s realistic needs, nor is it meant to encourage parents focus selfishly on themselves and their own immature needs. Rather, it is meant to help parents to meet children’s needs for autonomy and independence by no longer treating children as overly needy and helpless.

It is also meant to help parents to get beyond their own immature needs and grow to be more self-reliant. This ensures that parents’ relationships can become more balanced and less codependent. It also ensures that the parents’ personal goals can truly be intrinsically motivated and meaningful, not about getting others’ praise and approval. 

The Family Projection Process

This principle is based in Bowen Family Systems theory, a main family therapy theory. Specifically, it is based in the theory’s concept of the family projection process. This concept details a process that can ensue when parents let their fears about their children dictate how they relate to them. The parents’ fears can color how they see the child, leading the parents to treat the child as if their fears are reality. This worried focus and the behaviors that stem from it tend to foster these very problems in the child, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. By over-focusing on the child and acting to relieve their “problem” the child truly comes to have this problem. 

One common example of this is that a mother is very devoted to her child’s happiness, and is extremely sensitized to any sign that the child is unhappy. It is her worst fear that she will fail to help the child to be happy, and when she sees the child acting unhappy, this is triggering to her–so she acts to relieve her anxiety by doing more for the child to ensure their happiness. However, in her over-devotion to the child’s “needs” she ends up creating the outcome she was most trying to avoid–the child becomes dependent on her for happiness and is unhappy if she is not giving them an excessive amount of her attention, involvement, and support. 

This can create a process of the mother trying to “fix” the child by always doing more for them, which only stunts the child’s development even more. They are slowed from developing the inner capacity to manage their own discomfort and rely more and more upon the mother and the solutions she provides. Often the mother will involve others in this process, trying to fix the child with therapy, with certain health regimes, etc. The mother is usually desperate to find some external cause of the child’s issue, such as a diagnosis that explains their behavior. 

The mother does not want to accept that she has any role in the child’s challenges because it is her worst fear that she has failed the child and led them to be unhappy. However, in being led by this fear, she is unable to see her relationship with her child clearly and cannot see the way her over-devotion to the child’s needs and her seeking to fix the child plays into the child’s issues. She must find some external cause of the child’s issues in order to avoid facing her worst fear–that she played any role in contributing to the child’s symptoms.

Parent-Blaming

Some may find this concept to be a bit parent-blaming as it recognizes that parents can play a role in children’s onset of symptoms. However, it doesn’t suggest parents cause children’s problems, only that a relationship dynamic is involved. And, it is a relationship dynamic that starts out of the parents’ best intentions to ensure that their child is healthy. Yes, these intentions are colored by the parents’ fears, but its hard to fault someone for having good intentions and being fearful. 

Bowen theory also suggests that people’s level of anxiety and ability to calm themselves down is highly influenced by the families they grow up in. So if a parent is more anxious than others, you can’t fully fault them for that either. Additionally, Bowen theory recognizes that when certain traumas or challenging circumstances happen in a parent’s life around the time that a particular child is born, this can make the parent more anxious and more susceptible to anxiously over-focus on the child. This of course is out of the parent’s control. 

Taken together, these many variables show that the family projection process is less about blaming parents, and more about identifying a relationship dynamic that, despite parents’ best intentions, ends up fostering symptoms in children. If parents can understand these things, it can help them to get beyond blaming themselves and instead to accept the reality of the situation, and then work to change their role in fostering the relationship dynamic. This often means that the parent finds a way to step back and allow the child to take more responsibility for themself, balanced by meeting the child’s realistic needs. This may not fix things overnight, but over time, it can make things better for everyone. 

Calming One’s Anxiety

This is all easier said than done of course–it can feel nearly impossible for parents to step back and stop overfunctioning for their children, because, as soon as they do, they will be met with their worries and anxiety about the child and if they will be able to handle themselves. This is when “focusing on self” comes into the picture. Parents will be used to acting on their anxiety by over-focusing on their children. But instead of doing this, they can turn their focus inward to calm their own anxieties and remind themself that they can best help the child by stepping back.

In reminding themselves of the facts, parents can soothe themselves and begin to foster a more balanced relationship with the child. This will then help the child to draw upon their internal resources to meet some of their own needs as they are capable. With time, the child will grow to be more self-reliant and their symptoms will lessen. 

As the relationship begins to follow this upward trajectory, parents will have the life energy needed to put some focus on their own growth in their relationships and personal goals. Doing so can help the parent to be responsible for their own happiness and grow toward their potential, both individually and relationally–which will also help them to be stronger and calmer within themselves and more capable of continuing to parent their child in balanced ways. Additionally, they will be calmed as they see progress in their child’s development, coming to see a more positive self-fulfilling prophecy take place–as they treat the child as if they are capable of self-reliance, the child truly becomes self-reliant.