Let’s teach children to part with us

It is not easy for many parents to accept the idea that their children, sooner or later, must leave them, fly out of the family nest. The very idea may seem unnatural – to nurture independence in a child in order to make it easier for him to leave us! A different situation is common, when 25-30-year-old men and women still continue to “live with their parents.” The problem, of course, is not that adult children stay in their parents’ house (the cost of renting an apartment often exceeds their salary), but their unwillingness to take independent steps. Fully capable of independent living, they stubbornly refuse to part with their parents. They are guided by their opinion and constantly quarrel, seek their approval and are afraid to upset. They do not seek to create their own family, as if being in a protracted wait. Why is this happening? It would be a mistake to completely shift the responsibility to children, explaining their infantilism with a lack of willpower or spinelessness. In fact, and this is confirmed by our experts, the inability to leave the parental home on time is not associated with innate inclinations, but solely with upbringing. This behavior indicates that a person has not mastered two important skills necessary for independent living. I didn’t learn to endure breakups and didn’t acquire the practical skills that are necessary to cope with adulthood on my own.

deep fear

Young people who, in the process of psychotherapy, try to understand why they are hesitant to leave their parents often discover hidden reasons for this behavior. It often turns out that the basis of their indecision is the anxiety that they always feel (and always have) when they have to endure separation from their parents. Isn’t it strange? After all, we are talking about parting with childhood – and for some it becomes unbearable. Parents try to support and reassure the children, reminding them: “We will always be there”, “You can come at any time”. And yet we are talking about a real parting. This situation returns to all past separations, recalling the most painful experiences associated with them. And there were many of them, because the development of a child consists of a long series of partings, and often double partings. After all, at each stage of growing up, the child must not only “leave” his former self, but also take another step away from his parents, gradually becoming an independent person, unlike them.

The feelings that a child experiences in moments of separation from the mother, our experts remind us, are associated with the type of attachment between them. Only a “safe attachment”, a relationship in which the son or daughter is sure that the mother will return, and therefore, having grieved a little, easily returns to their studies, allows them not to experience strong fear and anxiety when parting. The experience of separation is not an easy task for everyone: for parents who need to support the ongoing changes without showing excessive concern, and for a child who needs to feel that, despite all the metamorphoses, he remains himself.

The path of loss…

A series of partings begins from the moment of birth. The real test for the baby is the birth, when he not only leaves the mother’s body, but also enters the aquatic environment into the air. Here, in order to survive, you need to learn how to breathe in a matter of seconds. If he is met by parents who are ready to help him get used to the new world, then their warmth, tenderness, intonations and the words with which they address him help to perceive the world around him as a new “container”, as comfortable as his mother’s stomach. If, getting into the world, he feels emptiness, does not hear tender words, and his body is treated roughly, then the first parting becomes synonymous with suffering and insecurity. And if in the future he does not have a positive experience of parting, it is quite possible that, taking the very first separation as a model, he will perceive with anxiety all subsequent partings in his life.

The next step is weaning, when there is less physical contact with the mother. Psychotherapists and analysts believe that it is at this time that a child can experience such strong feelings that years later, when parting, he will feel unaccountable anxiety and fear. This stage of psychological development is successful if three conditions are met. Separation will not be so painful if at this point the connection with the mother was “good enough”: you can only separate from the one with whom you were previously united. It is equally important to choose the right moment: to stop breastfeeding not too early and not too late. The transition to a new relationship will be more painless if the mother can transfer all the warmth and caress of bodily contact into the words with which she addresses her child. Otherwise, parting will become for him a synonym for irretrievable loss – not only closeness with his mother, but also himself. After all, with this gap, he loses all the previous landmarks. Then the child gets up and learns to walk. Children acquire not only a new degree of freedom, but also feel new anxieties. They learn to overcome them thanks to a special psychological mechanism that will continue to operate throughout their lives. The bond between a child and a mother can be compared to an elastic thread that connects them. When a child, playing somewhere in the park, gradually moves away from the mother, he can move away from her only at a certain distance, no more than the thread between them allows. Then he gets frightened and, in order to get rid of this unpleasant sensation, returns to his mother. The child needs to make sure that she is still in the same place, that he can always return to her, touch her. And then, as if recharged, he again goes to explore the world. If he is sure that his mother or another close person is waiting for him and he can return to them from time to time, then gradually the length of the thread (and hence the distance that the child can safely retire) increases. The growing up of a child is somewhat reminiscent of an obstacle course, each of which threatens to fall. Inevitable separations can be supplemented by traumatic separations that cannot be insured against: the unexpected departure of a nanny, the death of one of the relatives, a divorce … It is this unconscious burden of difficult separations that later prevents young people from easily and naturally leaving their parental home.

…and acquisitions

In order for a child to grow up and develop, he needs to be able to create and maintain (of course, according to his age) mutual friendships with other people, our experts say. At an early age, this is the ability to interact separately with the mother, separately with the father, and with the two of them as a couple. For a small child, this is a very difficult task, but at the same time a great achievement – to be able to cope with jealousy, envy, fear of loss, which are inevitably present in the family triangle. In a family where the child is raised only by the mother, the grandfather, grandmother, or someone from close acquaintances can become such a third. Without this skill, it is difficult for a child to cope with situations when the mother is distracted by something else, such as talking on the phone. And at the same time, he himself cannot be distracted from her, because it begins to seem to him that he is losing her.

Therefore, the child first “liberates” his inner space (which belonged only to the mother) for relations with someone else. Then he needs to let his parents go so that he can enjoy playing with other children. Later, he needs to go even further and free his mind to learn new things. At an older age, he will be able to fall in love, find new authorities and interests. For all this, a teenager needs to feel like an internally free person. Free from the fear of losing parental love.

Into independent life

To dare to leave the parental home, a boy or girl must feel able to face the dangers of the outside world. But some people lack this confidence. Or because, through the efforts of overly caring parents, they were cut off from reality, which is now completely unfamiliar to them. Or because, due to the absence of difficulties in their lives, they never had to face them, which means they did not have to cope with them, and gain confidence in their ability to overcome them. Parents can prepare a child for independence only by observing two basic conditions.

The family is open to the outside world.

• The guidelines that children receive from their parents correspond to those accepted in society. If what is considered natural in the family is what is forbidden outside it (beatings, rudeness), then a gulf arises between it and the outside world, which may turn out to be insurmountable for the child.
• The prohibition of incest is clearly marked and enforced. An unconscious belief in the possibility of marrying a mother or marrying a father, even in adulthood, prevents young people from parting with their parents. They retain a childish sense of omnipotence, but there is a fear that someone more powerful may be found outside the family.
• The family understands and accepts the law of generational change – after all, it is he who gives meaning to care: “I part with my parents in the same way that they themselves once left the family.” Parents-“friends” who act like their children’s peers prevent them from moving on to an independent life.
• Parents do not feel a strong need to keep their children near them because of fear of loneliness or jealousy. Otherwise, the feeling of guilt (often also unconscious) will prevent the adult child from internally separating.

Parents help the child to leave the house. He needs to be called upon and even pushed to cross the border of the outside world. Parents should not follow him, but a little ahead of him: evaluate his capabilities at each stage of development and encourage him to do what he is now ready for. Only in this way the child will be able to feel successful and skillful, will be able to understand that adults believe in his abilities. Sometimes children seem to be marking time, not daring to take a step further. The task of adults is to choose a test that the child can overcome. It is the positive experience of achievements (before he did not know how, but now he has learned) that helps him gain self-confidence. Another parental task is to teach the child to endure frustrations. Not to strive to instantly fulfill all his desires, but to accustom him to the fact that sometimes you need to wait or be patient. But the waiting period, as well as the degree of frustration, should be within the power of the child. The message of the parents in this case is: “Be patient a little – I know that you can – and I am still here, next to you …” In addition, it is important to encourage him to be independent:

THE CHILD NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THE MOTHER IS IN THE SAME PLACE, THAT HE CAN ALWAYS COME BACK TO HER, TO TOUCH HER.
• independently do what he can or is able to do in accordance with his age (for example, tying shoelaces at 6 years old);
• to think independently, to understand what he feels;
• independently solve their problems in communication (teaching a child to defend his rights at a break is just as important as teaching him to read);
• independently organize the purchase of small things that he dreams of (this is how interest in pocket money appears), etc.

The role of the father

For all children, staying still means “holding on to the mother’s skirt.” This does not mean that all mothers spoil their children more than fathers. Just by inertia, we all look back to where we came from – and we appeared from the mother’s womb. The father who makes the child understand that he and his mother are a couple and that the child will eventually have to find such a couple, exactly fulfills his role and can block this road to retreat for him.

In raising a child, parents cannot do without anxiety, fear of making a mistake and hurting the child with their excessive severity. But only at such a price can one achieve the ultimate goal of education: one day, when the day comes, to let him go. Leave without fear, even knowing that “parting is a small death.” After all, symbolically dying for his childhood, a person is reborn for adult life – the life of a man or woman.