Parents at an impasse
«But I want ...», we said as children. «We know best what's good for you,» our parents replied, expressing the enlightened absolutism that characterised life in many families. A lot has changed since then. As a therapist, I often come across families in which the parents have more or less given up and the children have taken over. But children are by no means power-obsessed. But what do power and responsibility in the family actually mean?
Parents bear the responsibility
Responsibility in the family clearly lies with the parents until the children reach the age of 14 to 16. Parents are solely responsible for the atmosphere in the family, i.e. for the tone in which people talk to and about each other, and for the way in which conflicts are resolved and decisions are made. Children have neither expertise nor experience in these matters, and nothing good ever comes from leaving children in charge.
Of course, children are clever observers and hold constructive views - very often even - but it is up to the parents to set processes in motion that are right and appropriate for the family. Power in the family also rests on the shoulders of the adults. Not only when it comes to aspects such as finances, place of residence, working hours and childcare, but also the decisions that are made. In other words: responsibility has to do with processes, power with content.
Power is what you decide, and responsibility is exercised through the way decisions are made. In the long run, the quality of the decisions made in the family depends on the quality of the decision-making processes. So you could also say that the health and well-being of the whole family depends almost entirely on the process and not - as most people believe - on the content.
The decisive factor is not which rules apply, but how adults introduce and handle them.
It's not about whether the children watch one, two or five hours of television a day, whether they are allowed to eat sweets or not, whether they have to be home at 9 or 11 pm or the importance of homework. Rather, the decisive factor is how these rules and guidelines are introduced and handled by the adults.
For example, many parents try to teach their children to act responsibly by constantly controlling them. But this method almost always fails. Instead, the children become experts at evading their parents' constant control, whereupon they like to complain that they «have to say everything a hundred times».
The reason is that process and content contradict each other. It's like saying: «I want you to take personal responsibility, so I control you all the time.» A mental contradiction that costs a lot of energy and leaves both sides perplexed.
The burden of decision
There are families in which the children undoubtedly hold most of the power. In which they largely determine the fate of the family, which leads to an energy-sapping power struggle between parents and children. An example: Finn doesn't want to go to school. He is eleven years old and lives with his mother and six-year-old brother. His mother married early and her marriage broke up shortly after the birth of her second child. Her husband drank a lot and was violent towards his wife and children.
Over the past four years, Finn's behaviour has become increasingly difficult. He is often aggressive towards his little brother. He rarely does what his mum asks him to do. When she tries to get her way, he starts shouting and destroys objects. To top it all off, he has been refusing to go to school for six months without giving any specific reasons. Until then, he had been a good pupil who enjoyed going to school.
A child wants a mother who takes responsibility in a way that allows them to be a child.
You might think that Finn has taken over power in the family, but that is not the case. Rather, the mother never managed to fulfil her responsibilities. She was married to a man who held all the power and called it responsibility.
Whenever she tried to take on responsibility herself, for example when it came to raising children, he marginalised her. She was always afraid of conflict as she had never learnt how to resolve it. At the same time, she felt her husband was too strict and would have liked her children to have more freedom and a gentler upbringing. When she is now invited by her sister and asks Finn if he would like to visit his aunt, he answers «no» without further ado.
No as a symptom
When Finn was younger, he was happy to co-operate. Over time, however, no became his standard answer, and the many small no's combined to form one big, unmistakable no to school - a so-called school phobia. But very few school phobias have anything to do with school. Finn refuses to go to school for various reasons. The two most important ones are described in more detail below:
- School is very important to his mum. She helps him with his homework every day, talks to him a lot about school and repeatedly expresses how important she thinks it is that he does well there. In this respect, Finn behaves like many other children who develop symptoms in the areas that their parents are sure to notice.
- Like all first-born children of single parents, Finn has a huge responsibility. Children in this situation feel much more responsible for the well-being of their mum or dad than most people realise. In addition, his mother unwittingly burdens him with responsibility for the decisions that affect their family. Her relationship with her husband was characterised by a lack of autonomy, and although she is now older and more experienced, she still leaves many decisions to the «man of the house».
At first glance, this connection may not be obvious. The mother's ideas about child rearing are confusingly similar to a democratic, accommodating and flexible attitude. Most people would praise her for this attitude, but her fear of conflict - which grows as the number of conflicts increases - significantly reduces the quality of the process. As a result, Finn has to take on a lot more responsibility than is good for him. His «school phobia» means, among other things: «I'm responsible for my mum. That puts such a strain on me that I can't go to school as well.»
Many parents try to teach their children to be responsible by constantly controlling them. This method almost always fails.
But why does Finn say no so often? Above all, he wants a mother who takes responsibility. Who has the courage to show her colours. Someone he can rub up against and develop thanks to. This doesn't mean that he wants an authoritarian mum who sets strict rules for everything and enforces them without compromise. But he does want a mother who takes responsibility for herself and her family in a way that allows him to be a child. Of course, Finn finds himself in a dilemma. Because children his age are not yet able to find the right words for the process in their family.
Finn can't go to his mum and say: «Listen, Mum. It's great that you want my opinion, but I'm not old enough to make decisions for our family. Ultimately, it's you who has to take on this responsibility. If it's too difficult for you to do it alone, you should seek the help of a second adult.»
Like all children, Finn cannot say no to the process, but only to its content. And if his mum is unable to hear and correctly interpret this «no», he has to repeat it louder and louder - in the hope that she will eventually understand what he is trying to tell her. Finn's situation is serious, and unfortunately children in his situation all too often develop in a destructive direction, becoming little dictators at home and at school or turning their frustration inwards and becoming self-destructive.
It's not about power
Parents like Finn's mum are often advised to set stricter boundaries. But as understandable as this advice may seem, it is almost invariably doomed to failure because it focuses attention on the power struggle within the family. However, the real conflict is not to do with power, but with responsibility, which means that the power struggle is more bitter than ever. It is certainly a good idea to set boundaries where they were previously lacking. But first of all, parents need to be helped to fulfil their responsibilities. Otherwise, it can all too easily happen that their child now also has to monitor compliance with the boundaries and the symptom-creating process in the family is reinforced.
The way in which parents take responsibility and what boundaries are needed varies from family to family. It depends on the norms and values of the adults. In any case, it is already a great relief for children when their parents no longer claim that they cannot control them, but instead seek help and say: "We want to learn to be responsible for our family in a constructive way.
Original title «Når børn får ansvaret». Translated by Knut Krüger, July 2021
