How can you tell when your noble and altruistic desire to care for someone turns into a need to control them or things in and around their life?

It is a delicate balance between caring for and controlling people with whom we are in relationship.  The progression is toward more caring and less control but it is difficult and scary to let go of control.  Often, the two major reasons are :

1) We fear something bad will happen to them and we won't be able to protect them.

2) We fear not getting what we want or expect from them. 

If you think about trying to balance on a high wire, you can get a true sense of the challenges faced in the relational caring/controlling balancing act. The higher up on the wire, the more frightening it becomes. 

Parents are often very close to their infant children so the risk or concern of something happening to them that they can’t control is generally minimal.  The parent controls every aspect of their child's life so controlling at that time is indistinguishable from caring. They care so they do everything that is needed to meet their child's needs and their own needs as well.  

As the child grows and gains more mobility and autonomy, the further the child can and ultimately wants to get away from the parent.  Around the age of two years, parents will  already start seeing the child resist control.  This undoubtedly increases the child’s risks and the parent’s concerns.  

The effective process of developing a mutually close and caring relationship with growing children requires parents to care more and control less.  Yet this is very hard to do when the parent sees or perceives danger that the child does not see. When a parent holds onto their fears, they tend to assume more unneeded control which does not always feel like caring. 

Important things for parents to remember;

1. You can’t control everything, you can barely control yourself so, be patient.

2. Pain and failure are part of life’s growing process. Encourage your children to embrace the pain, learn from the failure, and move forward with hope.

3. Too much controlling does not look or feel like caring, it looks like dominating and feels like suffocating.

As each of us grows and develops into the individuals we are becoming, we need less control and more care. Even God did not over control Adam and Eve in the garden when they made the biggest mistake of all humanity.  

If you are a parent and you need help and encouragement to find that delicate balance to enrich your life, please contact PILLARS to schedule an appointment.