It is vitally important to learn when your Inner child needs attention.
Homecoming
JOHN BRADSHAW
No matter how hard we try to be good parents to our own children, we will always make mistakes. However, in order to avoid making the kinds of mistakes our parents made by modeling unloving behavior and giving us messages and beliefs that came from their own inner disconnection, we can truly understand and put into practice loving self-parenting.
If we have an authoritarian Inner Parent who is constantly shaming our own Inner Child, we might find ourselves projecting this onto our children, emotionally abusing them with yelling and criticism. Or we might put aside our own Inner Child, putting ourselves last, not taking good care of ourselves because we believe our children are more deserving than we are. If we have a permissive Inner Parent, one who is absent or indulgent with our Inner Child, we might find ourselves being absent or indulgent with our children, allowing them to behave in ways that are harmful to themselves or others.
People who operate from a completely abandoned Inner Child because the Adult is absent have no Adult to set limits for themselves and may abuse their children emotionally, sexually, or physically. Child abuse occurs from a rageful abandoned Inner Child with no functioning Adult to create appropriate boundaries.
Even when we try hard to be good parents, when we are not being loving to our own Inner Child, we are teaching our children to be unloving to themselves.
As parents we are faced with many challenges, such as when and how to discipline, when to set limits and when to let go, when to help and when to stand back, as well as how to meet our own needs while also meeting our children’s needs. We can’t possibly know how to handle all these situations in loving ways when we are out of touch with our inner feelings, reactions, and needs. When facing these challenges, most parents respond from their primary codependent position, their narcissism or their caretaking.
Let’s take the example of Brad, age fourteen. He states at the dinner table that he has a paper due in school the next day and doesn’t want to do it. His narcissistic father responds, “Get to work, Brad. Don’t make me ashamed of you. I don’t want your teacher thinking I got a dumb kid.” His caretaking mother offers to help him and ends up doing it for him, which Brad knew would happen if he complained. Neither response is loving; both responses come from the parent’s internal disconnection.
A loving response in this situation would be an intent to learn: “Brad, there must be a good reason you don’t want to do the paper. Do you want to talk about it?” In order to respond with an intent to learn, his parents must not have an investment in Brad succeeding—that is, their worth cannot be attached to how well Brad does in school. Only through Inner Bonding and defining their own worth can they truly be loving and supportive to Brad.
Karen and Thomas had originally come to my office for marriage counseling. One day, after I had not seen them for quite a while, they called about a problem with one of their daughters. I suggested that they all come in for a family session.
Hilary, ten years old, clearly dominated the session. Outspoken and vivacious, she was constantly cutting off her parents and her older sister Alana, age fourteen. When any of them objected to being interrupted, Hilary would whine and pout, saying, “Nobody ever lets me speak.” All three of them would give in to her at this point.
Karen and Thomas were worried because Hilary was afraid to be alone—not alone in the house, but alone in her room or alone in the kitchen or wherever she was. She always wanted to be with Alana, and Alana was getting frustrated. She wasn’t getting any time to herself, or time to be with her friends without Hilary.
Karen worked part-time as an illustrator, and Thomas was a very hardworking and successful chiropractor. Because they both worked, they had a housekeeper to take care of the house and children when they weren’t there. The housekeeper, along with the rest of the family, constantly catered to Hilary’s demands. Hilary would yell, cry, and pout when she didn’t get her way, and everyone would put aside their own needs to shut her up. As a result, she never learned to take responsibility for herself and was becoming more and more unpleasantly demanding. She was in total control of the household.
By the end of the first session, Hilary was quite upset with me because I set boundaries by not letting her interrupt when others were speaking. Surprisingly, when I asked her if she wanted to come back, she said yes. I told her that first I needed some sessions with her parents.
MARGIE: |
Why are the two of you afraid to say no to Hilary? |
THOMAS: |
I’m not afraid to say no, but I’m not around a lot. I work long hours so I have kind of let Karen manage the child-raising. I’m not the one who Hilary usually comes to when she is unhappy. |
KAREN: |
It’s been hard for me to say no to both of my daughters, but it hasn’t been a problem with Alana. She has always been such a responsible child, even when she was little. I guess I feel like a bad mom when I say no. (False belief: It’s unloving to say no to your child if it upsets your child.) |
In previous sessions, when I had worked with Karen and Thomas on their relationship, we had explored Karen’s background. Her father had died when she was two years old, and her mother had become a street person. Karen had been put into numerous foster homes, where she was often badly abused. She was finally adopted when she was six by an older couple who had no children.
Because she had so little mothering when she was very young, Karen was determined to be a good mother to her daughters. She wanted to give them everything that she didn’t have, to be there for them in the way she had wished someone had been there for her. The problem was, though, that in not taking responsibility for her own Inner Child and in taking responsibility for Hilary’s feelings, she was teaching Hilary to be a narcissistic codependent.
MARGIE: |
Karen, how does your Inner Child feel when you ignore her and give in to Hilary? Would you ask her now? |
KAREN: |
Okay. (Talking to her stuffed rabbit) How do you feel when I give in to Hilary? |
CHILD KAREN: |
I feel just like I always felt when I was little—like I don’t count. Other kids who had parents mattered, but I never mattered. Hilary matters, but I don’t matter to you. She’s much more important to you than I am. Sometimes I hate you. You let Hilary walk all over me. |
It soon became apparent through more dialogue with her Inner Child that Karen had never accepted responsibility for her own Inner Child. It also became clear to her that unless she was willing to accept it now, nothing would change with Hilary.
MARGIE: |
Karen, how would you feel about trying to take care of little Karen instead of Hilary this week and see what happens? |
KAREN: |
Well, I can try. But Hilary is going to hate it. |
MARGIE: |
How will she ever learn to show up as a loving Adult for herself when you don’t show up as a loving Adult for yourself? She needs a role-model. |
KAREN: |
Okay, but I don’t know what to do when she gets upset. |
MARGIE: |
What are the things she does when she is upset? |
KAREN: |
She pouts, or cries, or has a temper tantrum, kicking and screaming; or she whines and talks incessantly, trying to convince me to do what she wants. |
MARGIE: |
What are the things she gets upset about? |
KAREN: |
Not getting to be in Alana’s room with her, not having someone make her a snack, not having someone play with her when she doesn’t know what to do, not being able to watch TV when everyone else wants it off, not getting to go over to her friend’s house across the street as much as she wants because she hasn’t gotten her chores done. |
Karen agreed to try. Two weeks later, she came for a session alone. She had worked very hard at taking care of herself; and while she could not yet do it all the time, she was feeling much better about things. She had experienced some intense feelings of inner joy at taking care of herself, especially when she was able to get beyond the guilt of not caretaking Hilary. Hilary, after being very angry for the first week, soon found out that escalating her obnoxious behavior got her nowhere. She was actually beginning to learn to make herself happy by herself.
Karen noticed that Alana wanted to spend more time with Hilary than she had before. The four of them even spent some enjoyable family time together over the weekend, something they had not been able to do in a long time because there had always been so much tension. I continued to work with Karen once a month for the next few months, helping her explore other areas where she had not been loving to her Inner Child. More and more, Karen saw her own Inner Bonding being reflected in her daughter’s behavior.
Hilary and Karen had two more sessions together. I taught Hilary the Inner Bonding process. She was resistant to being a loving Adult to her Inner Child, but was able to do it in a role-play when I played her angry, blaming Child. Once Karen saw that she was capable of being there for herself, she felt better about backing away from the caretaking. Karen became aware of the fact that whenever she did not take care of her Inner Child, Hilary would abandon herself as well. Recognizing this proved very important in motivating her in her own Inner Bonding process.
Annette, a dance teacher, and Marvin, a successful architect, had been married for eleven years. They had been in various forms of therapy for years because of violence in their relationship, but Marvin had continued to physically abuse his wife. Annette was planning on leaving the relationship, but decided to give therapy one more try.
Both worked diligently with Inner Bonding, and within a few months Marvin had control over the anger that led to the violence. He learned to take responsibility for his Child’s anger and to discover the beliefs and behavior that led to the anger. He learned to act in his Child’s behalf rather take his anger out on Annette. Annette, who had felt very much the victim in the relationship, had begun to learn what it meant to take her own power and take care of her abandoned Child.
They were in the midst of dealing with many other related issues in their relationship—time, money, sexuality—when the issue of six-year-old Todd, their only child, came up. On a Saturday afternoon a few days before their session, Todd stayed home with Annette while Marvin was out doing errands. Todd had spent the whole time trying to hit Annette. She tried to talk to him, she yelled at him, she tried to hold him, but nothing would stop him. She was quite distraught in the session as she talked about it. I asked her if this was the first time this had happened, and she admitted that it was a fairly frequent occurrence. She said she had tried over and over to find out why he was so angry at her, and he refused to talk about it. I asked if she ever hit Todd, and she said no. I asked them to bring Todd with them to the next session.
It quickly became apparent that Todd would not talk to me in the presence of his parents. He just sat quietly with his eyes cast down and a feeling of pain about him. I asked him if it would be all right with him if his parents left the office for a while and I talked to him alone. He nodded.
MARGIE: |
Todd, you can tell me anything you want and if you don’t want me to tell your parents, I won’t. It will be up to you. Okay? (He nods his head, still not talking.) Are you angry at your mom? (Again, he nodded) Are you angry at your dad? (He shakes his head no.) |
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Do you know why you are angry at your mother? (Again he nods.) Would you tell me? (Silence) Does your mom yell at you? (He nods.) Does she hit you? (Again he nods.) A lot? |
TODD: |
(Looking straight at me, struggling not to cry.) She yells at me a lot, and sometimes she hits me a lot. |
MARGIE: |
How does she hit you? With her hand? With a belt? |
TODD: |
With her hand. She gets so mad sometimes she just starts hitting. Then she’s sorry and she holds me. |
MARGIE: |
Is that why you hit her? (He nods.) Can I tell your parents you told me this? |
Todd hesitated a minute and then agreed. I gave him a hug and told him he had a lot of courage. When Annette and Marvin came back into the office, I told them what Todd had said.
ANNETTE: |
(Defensive) I don’t hit him very often. It’s hardly ever happened. |
MARGIE: |
Annette, in Todd’s experience you hit him a lot. Remember when you first came here for therapy and you told me Marvin hit you a lot? He became defensive and said it happened only about once a year? (Annette nodded.) And I’m sure you remember me telling Marvin that in your experience it felt like all the time because the threat of it was there all the time. You never knew when it would happen or what would trigger it. |
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Todd feels the same with you. And hitting is the only way the two of you have taught him to deal with anger. Marvin, you taught him to hit by hitting Annette; and Annette, you taught him by hitting him. You both abandon yourselves when you are angry and allow yourselves to harm others. If you want Todd to learn other ways of expressing anger, then both of you have to role-model other ways, which I know you are beginning to do. Annette, I want you to consider the possibility that some of your anger at Todd is really anger at your father (who also hit her a lot) and anger at Marvin. Would you work with your Inner Child about this at home? (She nods.) |
The following week Annette came in by herself.
ANNETTE: |
You were right. I’m enraged at both my father and Marvin. My Inner Child is also furious at me for letting Marvin hit me and for hitting Todd. What do I do with this anger? |
MARGIE: |
Let’s see if you can get some of it out right now. Imagine that your father is sitting in that chair, and you can say anything you want to him without punishment. What would you say? Let yourself be little, the little girl in you. |
ANNETTE: |
(Tears welling up) Oh Daddy, I loved you so much. How could you be so mean to me? How could you hit me and hurt me? I was just a little girl. I tried so hard to be good. |
MARGIE: |
Annette, where is the anger? |
ANNETTE: |
I don’t know. I always just start to cry when I think about my father. |
MARGIE: |
Try putting Marvin there in the chair. |
ANNETTE: |
I don’t feel angry at him either. He’s been so great lately. I think it’s myself I’m mad at. I think my Child is very angry at my Adult. |
MARGIE: |
Okay, then be your Child and put your Adult in the chair. |
CHILD ANNETTE: |
(Shouting) Why do you always let people hurt me? What’s the matter with you? You’re supposed to take care of me and protect me. I don’t like you. I hate you. Where are you when I need you? (She starts to cry.) Oh God, I’m really angry at my mother for letting my father hit me and not protecting me, and now I’m acting just like my father acted with me. |
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(To her Adult from her Child): How could you let me hit Todd? You’re supposed to be there for my anger and help me deal with it. And how could you let Todd hit me? Do something! Do something! |
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(Back into the Adult mode): God, that’s the problem. I don’t know what to do with my anger and I don’t know how to stop Todd from hitting me. What do I do? |
Annette and Marvin each kept working on taking responsibility for their own anger. Within a few weeks of the above session, they began to see a change in Todd. I told them about hitting the bed with a pillow, or a rolled up towel, or a plastic bat when they were really angry, and asked them to teach that to Todd. Todd really liked that. All of them were finding appropriate ways of expressing their anger, rather than dumping it on each other.
Any time we allow our children to abuse us, we are being unloving to ourselves and to them. However, it won’t work to abuse them in order to stop them from abusing us or abusing siblings. I’m reminded of the cartoon showing a father spanking a child and saying, “I’ll teach you not to hit kids smaller than you.” Clearly the father is teaching exactly that—that when you are angry or frustrated, it is appropriate to express it by hitting someone smaller than you. Often hitting between siblings can be traced back to the children being hit by the parents. “Oh, I just spank him once in a while, when he really deserves it,” many parents will say. Hitting is hitting, whatever you want to call it. If you don’t want your children to hit others, then don’t deal with your anger by hitting them.
Older teenage children can sometimes become extremely abusive to their parents—stealing, living at home without working or going to school, using drugs, or being verbally or physically abusive to their parents. If their parents have been overly permissive, allowing their children to violate the parents’ boundaries, the children grow up with no Inner Adult to set limits on their behavior. They may be very self-centered and self-indulgent, having no regard for their parent’s rights or anyone else’s. The book Toughlove, and the Toughlove classes, teaches parents how to start being loving to themselves, which may mean setting very strong limits for their children.1
The best situation is for parents do their Inner Bonding work before having children. Hopefully, more and more people will realize the importance of this before having their children. But it is never too late to do our own work, and it is never too late for it to have a positive effect on our children, even if they are adults and no longer living at home. In the last six years, through my own Inner Bonding work, I’ve gone through major recovery from caretaking, and I can certainly see the positive effects of my changes on my adult children.
Lynn, Ben, Amy, and Ryan came in for therapy because the school had recommended it for nine-year-old Amy. Amy was not only having a hard time concentrating in school, but she was constantly getting into fights with the other children and ended up hitting and biting them. Even when she had a friend at home with her, the friend would often end up somehow getting hurt during play with Amy. Lynn and Ben stated that this had been going on since preschool. They had been to different therapists and tried different things, but nothing had worked. Their baby, Ryan, was almost a year old, and they were concerned that Amy would hurt him.
Ben informed me that he would not be available for most of the sessions. He traveled a lot in his work and just did not have the time. In addition, he did not feel this was his problem. Since he was gone most of the time, he felt certain that Lynn was responsible for the problem. I told him that I did not necessarily see it that way, but that I accepted his decision and would work with Lynn. I asked Lynn to come with Amy for the next session.
The first part of the session was spent with Amy, trying to get a handle on the source of her anger. The essence of it was, “Nobody likes me. My mom doesn’t like me, my dad doesn’t like me, my teachers don’t like me, and the kids at school don’t like me.” (Belief: I’m not lovable.)
MARGIE: |
When you feel someone doesn’t like you, is that when you hit them? |
AMY: |
I try not to, but sometimes I just get so angry I can’t help it. |
MARGIE: |
Why do you think your mother doesn’t like you? |
AMY: |
Because she is always yelling at me and she never wants to be with me. She spends all her time with Ryan. |
MARGIE: |
Are you angry at Ryan? |
AMY: |
No, I love Ryan. He so cute! I like to play with him when Mom lets me. She thinks I’m going to hurt him, but I won’t. |
MARGIE: |
Why do you think your dad doesn’t like you? |
AMY: |
Well, I guess he likes me, but he’s never home. Sometimes he’s nice to me. |
MARGIE: |
Amy, do you think that when you hit the kids at school, you might really be angry at your mom or dad, but you can’t hit them so you hit the kids instead? |
AMY: |
I’m angry at Mom when she yells at me, and I’m angry at the kids at school when they won’t play with me. (Belief: Either I can have control over their liking me or playing with me by getting angry with them, or I can avoid the pain of the rejection by getting angry.) |
MARGIE: |
Maybe they won’t play with you because they are afraid you will hit them. What do you think? |
Amy agreed that might be the reason. Then I asked her if I could tell her mom what she had said, and she said yes. I brought Lynn back into the office and told her what Amy had said. I then asked Amy if it would be all right if I talked to her mother alone for a few minutes, and she said yes.
MARGIE: |
Lynn, how do you feel about Amy? |
LYNN: |
Well, I love her, but I’ve never felt close to her. I don’t know why. I feel much closer with Ryan. |
MARGIE: |
How about when she was a baby? Did you feel close to her then? |
LYNN: |
Not like I do with Ryan. |
It was evident that Lynn had never bonded to Amy, and Amy’s angry behavior was a reaction to this rejection. We began to explore why Lynn felt the way she did.
Lynn grew up in a very cold and distant family, a family where the girls, she and her younger sister, were supposed to be “seen and not heard.” Her older brother, whom she adored, was apparently allowed to be seen and heard. Lynn had no sense of her Inner Child. Her Child had been ignored her whole life, first by her parents and then by Lynn herself. When Amy came along, Lynn treated her the same way she treated her own Inner Child—she just ignored her. She could bond to Ryan because he was a boy and therefore important; but to Lynn, Amy was just “there.”
Lynn began the work of learning to acknowledge the importance of her own Inner Child through the Inner Bonding process. Within a few weeks she found that she was feeling closer to Amy. She stopped yelling at Amy about homework and cleaning her room, and started to spend more time with her. Within a few months Amy’s behavior showed a dramatic change, and one day she came into a session beaming. Some of the kids had eaten lunch with her that day and played with her at recess!
As Amy’s self-esteem rose, so did her ability to concentrate in school. When she was feeling insecure and fearful, it was very hard to concentrate on school work. As she felt safer both at home and at school, her mind wandered less and she was able to get much more work done.
As Todd had in the earlier example, Amy learned appropriate ways of expressing her anger, such as writing it out or hitting the bed with the pillow. She really liked using the pillow as a way to express her frustration; and she found that even when she was feeling frustrated and insecure at school, she was able to deal with it without hitting the other kids.
Richard and Carol came in for therapy because they were disturbed over how much their sons Michael and Patrick, ages ten and eight, were fighting. Their sons were in constant power struggles. Michael would want to play basketball, and Patrick would refuse. Michael would tell Patrick to get out of his room, and Patrick would refuse. Michael would tell Patrick to stop following him around when he had friends over, and Patrick would continue to follow him around. Michael would try to control Patrick by yelling at him, and Patrick would resist. Michael would then threaten Patrick or hit him, and Patrick would run to tell their parents. Richard and Carol felt sad that their children weren’t friends and wanted to do something about it.
Carol, a physician, worked outside of the home; Richard, a building contractor, had his office in the house. They had a housekeeper to help with the children, but Richard was the one they came to when problems occurred.
Richard, Carol, and I spend a number of sessions exploring the codependent system within their family. It became clear to them that Richard was on the narcissistic side of codependence and Carol was the emotional caretaker. By always being there for Richard to bolster his self-esteem and to offer him awarenesses about himself, she perpetuated his dependence on others for his insights and good feelings. Richard realized that he also made his children responsible for his good feelings, and felt rejected and angry when they didn’t treat him the way he wanted to be treated. Both Richard and Carol recognized that they were teaching their children to be codependent, just as they were.
MARGIE: |
Richard, how do you feel after you have been controlling with your children? |
RICHARD: |
Tense, and angry that they only do things for me when I threaten them. |
MARGIE: |
Anytime you feel tense and angry, it indicates that the way you are dealing with your children is unloving to yourself and therefore unloving to them. So let’s begin to look at what the loving behavior would be. |
We spent the next few sessions working on these issues with Richard as well as with Carol on caretaking issues. Richard found he was having fewer problems in dealing with his sons, but they were still fighting with each other as much as ever. Now it was time to deal with them directly. I asked Richard and Carol to sit down with the boys and tell them about power struggles so that they all had the same vocabulary to describe what was happening. They agreed, but said what they really wanted to know was what to do when the boys were fighting or when Patrick came complaining to them.
They both agreed to try it. The next week they reported that they had both talked to their sons about power struggles and how sad it made them to see their boys fighting. After the first time they asked Patrick if he wanted their help, he stopped coming to complain. By the end of the week, Michael came to them saying, “We are in a power struggle and we need your help to get out of it.” Richard was able to talk to both of them. He heard both sides and was able to help each of them find other ways of handling the problem. Michael burst into tears after telling Richard how bad it felt always to be blamed. Richard and Carol saw that it was impossible for their boys to be friends when Michael was always getting the blame for situations that were equally created.
By doing their own inner work and learning to be more loving to the Inner Child within each of them, Richard and Carol were learning how to take care of themselves around their children. The more loving they were to themselves through taking responsibility for their own feelings and needs, rather than trying to control their children, the more loving they were to their children.
Parents often come into my office asking how they can get their children to do their homework, stop hitting other kids, brush their teeth, take a shower, eat right, do the chores, get to bed at a decent hour, stop watching so much TV, stop lying, and on and on. My response is that they need to stop focusing on “getting” their child to be different and start focusing on how they are not taking care of themselves. What are they role-modeling? Are they teaching codependence by taking responsibility for their children’s feelings, successes, and failures, and by making their children responsible for the parent’s feelings of anger, frustration, or aloneness?
Many of us have tried so hard to be good parents, being there to meet our children’s needs in ways our parents were never there for us. But have we been there for ourselves? If we are there for our children and not for our own Inner Child, we are not role-modeling personal responsibility, which is the most important thing we can teach our children. Learning to set our own boundaries with our children is a major part of loving parenting and loving self-parenting. Behavior that is unloving to ourselves cannot possibly be loving to our children, because it is teaching them to be unloving to themselves.
It is only when we are willing to do our own inner work and take full responsibility for our own Inner Child that we can change the dysfunctional, codependent parenting that dominates our society. As we become healthy, so will our children and their children, leading to a healthy society.