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Enabling and Detachment, Part One

© Jean Hamman

If you have an unruly, out of control teen, you know how long weekends can seem. Summer can often feel like a giant miserable weekend. The stress we parents feel beginning on Friday afternoons which doesn't let up until Monday mornings when the teen will, hopefully, at least be busy for a few hours in school, often snowballs to unbearable proportions over the summer months. Already I've witnessed several emotional breakdowns in parents at their wits end just two weeks into the dog days of vacation. Therefore, I want to pass out a little emotional ammunition to help support you through the summer months.

This week, I'm going to talk a bit about "Enabling". Members of Alanon can tell you all about the ramifications of enabling. Out of control teens and alcoholics show many of the same behaviors and have much the same effect on their families. In order to best show the similarities, below is a brief quiz designed to assess whether we are helping or enabling an alcoholic. To show the similarities, I simply exchanged mentions of alcoholics or alcoholism with "teen" or "behaviors".

Have you ever blamed yourself for his/her behavior?

Have you ever excused a school or work absence for your troubled teen, or lied about his symptoms?

Have you avoided talking about his/her behavior in order to "keep the peace"?

Have you bailed him out of jail or paid for his legal fees?

Have you paid bills that he was supposed to have paid himself?

Have you loaned him money to avoid argument after your troubled teen frittered away his salary?

Have you given him "one more chance" a dozen times over?

Have you threatened consequences but then did not follow through?

Have you ever finished a job or project that troubled teen failed to complete himself?

Members of Alanon will tell you that "Helping" is doing something for someone that they are incapable of doing for themselves and that "Enabling" is doing things someone should darned well be doing for themselves. Now, answer truthfully. Are you Helping your out of control teen or are you Enabling his or her behaviors?

Why is knowing this important? Understanding that we must cease enabling our troubled teen's out of control behavior is the first step toward following through with another Alanon key word, "Detachment". Learning to detach ourselves from the emotional turmoil the behaviors of our out of control teens cause is what eventually saves both us and them. Detachment returns our sanity by allowing us to find a place of mental peace and spiritual strength for ourselves. In order to think clearly, act decisively and help our children without enabling, we must learn the art of detachment.

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