Parenting Pathfinders Establish Healthy Boundaries with Children

Sub-step 2: Do ANGER Workouts on the lack of healthy boundaries with your children
Anger Issues Resulting from a Lack of Boundaries in a Family

Sub-step 2: Do ANGER Workouts on the lack of healthy boundaries with your children

Once you have ALERTED yourself to the emotional hooks in your family life with your older children which keep your boundaries weak, then you need to do ANGER work about how angry you are that there are these hooks in your family which are so strong and powerful. You need to get your anger out about: "Why can't my family life be like the ideal fantasy, I always dreamed it would be." "How hard it is to establish and maintain a good family." "It takes so much work to keep our family healthy." You need to do your anger work about how unfair it is that nothing in life comes easy and how you have to work so hard to be healthy and ALERT to all of the hooks which keep you unhealthy with your older children.. To do your ANGER work you must be sure to address the different faces of anger takes due to the lack of boundaries in your family life.

Anger Issues Resulting from a Lack of Boundaries in a Family

1. Becoming Invisible in the Family

As a result of getting hooked in your family life and having no boundaries in it, you might become invisible. This comes from your needs being ignored, your being socially isolated and being made to deal with the family life on your own, alone and away from your extended family, friends and support system. You need to get out your anger over your rights being ignored. You need to get your anger out over your fear of not speaking up lest you "cause waves" or start a conflict with your older children. You need to get your anger out that you are not seen, heard or considered in your relationship with your children. You need to get your anger out that you stopped thinking, feeling and acting on your own lest you were seen by your children and problems resulted from your independence of action.

2. Silent Withdrawal from Your Children

As a result of getting hooked in your family life and having no boundaries in it, you might experience silent withdrawal. This withdrawal involves not allowing yourself to feel feelings of anger or disappointment because things are not going well between you and your older children. You might even be driven to compulsive behaviors to medicate your negative feelings. You might become more compulsive in your drinking, drugging, gambling, overeating or other addictive behaviors (eg.: shopping, credit car use, risk taking etc.). This act of holding in your anger, about your power struggles with your older children and their not giving you what you wanted or expected, just exacerbates your anger. Your keeping silent to maintain a "Peace at any price" stance to avoid conflict with your children just makes your anger greater and more intense. If you continue to hold your anger in, you may became more and more depressed which feeds the need to self-medicate and withdraw more from your children. By this action you may also pull away from your spouse, extended family, friends, support networks and life in general. You need to get your anger out about how hurt you are that your family life is not what you wanted. You need to get your anger out about how you have given and given to your children until you have no more to give. You need to get your anger out about how you have lost yourself in the relationship with your children resulting in you have no boundaries between you and them. If you verbalize your anger in healthy ways you will become a better problem solver in your relationship with them.. This will help you and your older children to creatively address and confront the issues pulling you both apart.

3. Rage over Your Pain and Hurt in Your Family

As a result of getting hooked in your family life and having no boundaries in it, you might experience rage which comes as an over-reaction to your hurt and pain. You might finally realize that you have been conned and duped by your children into an unhealthy relationship and get so angry that you fly off into rages. You need to get your anger out in healthy ways so that you do not feel guilt after these rages. The guilt will only hook you back into the unhealthy relationship. You need to get this rage and anger out in healthy ways so that it does not turn into anger-in which results in your becoming depressed which feeds your compulsive self-medicating behaviors of drinking, drugging, gambling, overeating etc. You need to get this anger and rage out so that it does not turn into self-anger and self-destructive rage. You need to get this anger out so that you can forgive yourself for "being so stupid" or "being so naive" that you could have been "conned and manipulated" so by your children. You need to get your anger and rage out in a healthy way so that you do not act "crazy" with your children which then can be used against you later. You need to get this anger and rage out of your system in healthy ways so that you can be "squeaky clean" with your children as you confront the problems in your relationship with them.

4. Need to Run Away

As a result of getting hooked in your family life and having no boundaries in it, you might want to run away. You might find yourself wanting to get away from your older children and create a "geographic change." This is thinking that in a different place you can work out your family issues in a better way "with the kids not so close" to you.. You need to recognize that this is just holding in your anger and things won't be any different in a new place away from the kids. You might be so wrapped up in your fantasy and ideals, of how family is supposed to be, that you run away without replacing the unhealthy fantasy or ideal. You will still feel the pain and hurt of unrealized fantasy and ideals in your new "hide out." Your new effort at piecing a new family life together may more closely approximate what "it is supposed to be" and yet it is not. Running away from problems is only to run right back into them in a different format, place or time. You need to get your anger out about your current family problems so that you do not repeat the same pattern in the future. You need to rid yourself of all of the negative feelings and emotions which come from the unhealthy aspects of your family life so that you are free to experience healthier, more positive feelings in the future. You need to confront head on the anger and rage you feel about being disappointed, duped and conned in a boundary-less relationship with your older children so that you do not repeat the pattern in the future. To run away and not face it, is a guarantee of repeating the pattern in the future.

Use the tools in the Tools for Anger Work-Out (Messina, J.J., Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa, 1992) to get your anger out in healthy ways so that it does not become a destructive force in your family.

Coping.org is a Public Service of James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D., Email: jjmess@tampabay.rr.com Š1999-2007 James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance Messina, Ph.D. Note: Original materials on this site may be reproduced for your personal, educational, or noncommercial use as long as you credit the authors and website.