Intimacy with parents

The downside of intimacy with parents is the only child s sensitivity to disharmony between them, and a ten-... 

Only children can be both beneficiaries and victims of intimacy with parents. To keep them from becoming victims of excessive attachment, limits must be set. In doing so, there are some warning signs parents can look for to discover if intimacy is enmeshing the only child in their emotional life. 

Communication skills of deeply sharing, deeply sensing, and deeply listening that have often been learned with parents can well equip the only child for satisfying intimacy with friends and other loved ones as an adult if the risks of intimacy have been safely managed in the family. 

What is too close for comfort For the only child, it is when the emotional life of parents, separately or together, comes to dominate the emotional life of the boy or girl. It is when the child, to feel better himself or herself, must find a way to fix unhappiness within or between the parents. It is when the child takes responsibility for parental well-being, and faults himself or herself when unable to make things right. It is when the child s emotional state depends on the emotional state of the parents "If they are feeling happy or unhappy, then so am I." It is at this point that intimacy can cause the child to feel trapped, to feel enmeshed with parents. Emotional independence has been lost. 

Intimacy means risking vulnerability by allowing oneself to become deeply known. If parents want to nurture intimacy in their child, they must treat what is confided with care, and they must manage conflict in a way that encourages the child to keep speaking up when differences arise. 

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