Funny how personal and professional can often combine. This might be another example discussed by Jung regarding the collective unconscious. As always, descriptions of clients are materially changed to protect confidentiality.
A client contacted me re: his adult son with a longstanding history of emotional problems. The man, in his late 20's was wanting to travel to see his newfound girlfriend for an impromptu holiday get together, much to the consternation of his parents. The relationship was his first, and despite his age, his parents were concerned about his travelling to see her. In order to do so, he needed to borrow their car to drive hundreds of miles away from home despite his lack of experience in highway driving, concerning his parents re: his safety on the road. Ultimately he was convinced that driving was not the wisest choice to make the trip and she, with more driving experience, came to see him.
I've known the young man for a while and have competing concerns. One is for his independence. He is old enough to be independent. On the other hand, he's inexperienced enough as a driver that his parents understandably are cautious about giving him the keys to their car to drive. All in all, however, he deserves the chance to spread his wings some to experience the realities of relationships and life.
At the same time I'm travelling over the holidays, staying with friends who confide in me that their son, in his late teens, seems to have some poor judgement about his life. He's doing the right things: he's in school, doing well in his studies, but at the same time he's pretty immature as to how he's considering his life goals. He's unconnected with his emotions, despite being in therapy (which, after all, is supposed to help one focus on being in the present with both thought and feeling) regarding a number of key issues in his life.
In both cases my response has to do with the boundary between parents' responsibility for the physical safety of one's child and parents' responsibility for the emotional safety of one's child.
We hate to see our children hurt, but at the same time our ability to protect them from hurt is finite. Toddlers are bound to take their first steps, and will fall and scrape their knees. Or their elbows, chins or noses. These are indeed painful lessons, lessons that teach, hopefully, how to hold ones self in the world. I remember when my youngest was in his teens and we were playing catch - a reasonable activity for a father and son to do. The ball got away from me and when I ran to retrieve it I mis-stepped and fell, ripping open a patch on my elbow. Even as an adult we sometimes have to learn lessons of childhood about safety.
There are some things we can do to protect our children from physical harm. Giving the keys to an inexperienced driver is unwise. At the same time parents of children, both on and off the autism spectrum, have to assess carefully how much they can protect their children from the reality of life's scrapes and pain.
I often say to my clients' parents that the older the child, the less influence a parent has, parental influence fades as children age. The amount of influence we have on a twelve year old is very different than the influence we have on that same seventeen year old. Knowing the individual strengths and challenges of one's child is skill that parents have to practice is an ongoing challenge, and some parents are better at it than others. Some kids make it easier for parents to learn than do other kids.
Providing safety is the number one job of parents - think of the care parents take with their newborns. Over time, however, the ability we have to protect our kids grows thin. Our job as parents is to measure, with care and accuracy, when we do, and when we do not have power over re: our ability to protect our children both physically and emotionally. It's a tough balance, but it's what parents are charged with in parenthood.
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