How to Identify Enmeshment in Your Relationships with Teens and What To Do

Knowing where to set limits can help stave off enmeshment.

Relationships between parents and teenagers can be embattled at times due to parental control over various issues. Though the majority of parents opt to take on the role of authority figure, some choose to be more of a friend than disciplinarian. In such cases, parents and teens can become enmeshed. Learning how to handle, control and resolve enmeshment to get back to a traditional parenting model is necessary when the friendship role causes more harm than good.

Things You'll Need

• Journal

Instructions

1. Know that enmeshment is not something that happens overnight. It is an end result of continually acting and behaving in a certain manner. Enmeshment between teens and parents occurs when the lines have been blurred and roles have potentially been reversed. One form of enmeshment is when the parent and teen act more as if they were friends, compared to traditional parent and child. Alternate forms of enmeshment can happen when a parent becomes unreliable and a teen must take on the role of family caregiver.

2. Look for small steps to begin untangling the parent and teen lifestyle which caused the two parties to become enmeshed. For example, if a parent continually attends parties with a teen and their friends, the parent needs to stop trying to be a friend at all times and step back. As enmeshment takes time to develop, it too will take time to undo.

3. Have the teen and parent or caregiver sit down to discuss the relationship. Have each write independently in a journal how they view their relationship with the other. Look for words and phrases referencing one another as a peer, confidante, friend or foe. Recognize that enmeshment can also create tension and stress for a teen that feels the parent is not functioning in a reliable, responsible or caregiver role. This type of enmeshment becomes damaging to teens over time as they are unsure how to respond or react to the parent.

4. Choose to dissolve portions of the parent and teen relationship. For example, if a teenage girl and her mother have become more friends and the mother is not disciplining the child properly; have the two start doing things independently of one another. Know that the parental bond will need to be rebuilt, with clear and distinguishable boundaries. The teen and parent must both agree to change the relationship in order for the teen to receive proper parenting, discipline and guidance.

Tips & Warnings

• Ask the opinion of those you trust and have witnessed the relationship first hand, such as family members, to get others' insight on how the relationship should change.

• Seek professional help or therapy if the enmeshment has become damaging to the child.

References

• PBS: Programs for Struggling Teens
• Odessa Wellness Center: Signs of Parent Enmeshment Checklist