When Is Close Too Close?

October 31, 2013 at 1:16 pm 7 comments

Is there ever a time when is a Parent – Child relationship too close?

What does that mean? If you spend time with your son or daughter or talk on the phone daily, is that too close? Does your close relationship interfere with your ability to parent that child? If the lines are blurred, meaning you such good friends, that you can’t give well-deserved consequences for misbehaving, then YES, you are probably too close.

I believe that teenagers and parents can’t be friends because when you need to discipline them or expect them to follow your rules, because they won’t understand how you’ve switched from friend to parent and may not obey you. On the other hand, if you are an aloof parent – the kind that just administers rules and won’t allow a close relationship to develop between you and your tween or teen, how do they learn that important skill of allowing others to be close to them?

However, what happens when your child becomes an adult and a real friendship develops? How much sharing is too much? Can you go out together and drink socially? Can you share the disappointments that you are experiencing in your own life? How do you maintain those relationships in a friendly way and yet not get hurt, the way adults do when one ‘friend’ feels differently or doesn’t respond in a way that you expect? We recently had a social event, and one of my friends, (she’s 40ish), told me that she asked her mother not to attend, so she could comfortably go and ‘have fun’. I had a completely different experience with my mother. Once I went away to school, we became friends and it was not uncommon to come home during break and be part of one my Mom’s famous parties. We’d have a blast!

So share your experiences with your mother. Email me at: cgwwbooks@yahoo.com

Hope you will follow some of my new #blogger friends:

Phil Rowlands Blog: Kindle Authors http://bit.ly/1ix9A3T (password: childsplay)

Christie Edwards Blog: Living Simplistically http://bit.ly/HwlFui

…

C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru

Author & Parent Coach
http://www.clynnwilliams.com

Order My Books on Amazon.com:

Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! (220 Communications, 2013)

Entry filed under: consequences, friends, friendship, mothers, Parenting, parenting adult children, relationships, tweens. Tags: besties, daughter, Family, father, Friendship, Home, Interpersonal relationship, Mother, Parent, parent-child friendship.