When Parents Love Too Much: What Happens When Your Parents Won't Let Go - Hardcover

Parents who "overparent" can be as destructive to their children as those who abuse or neglect them. In the view of the therapist-authors of this study, emotional overinvolvement by parents, often an effort to control their children's lives, is a powerful, painful capacity that cuts across all economic strata. Adult children of such parents can become preoccupied with self-image and with pleasing other people, to the detriment of their relationships. To examine this type of co-dependency or enabling behavior in its variety, the authors supply case histories that trace patterns of personal and familial dysfunction, e.g., perfectionism, pervasive guilt, and suggest how disabling behaviors can be changed. Addressed to parents and grandparents, as well as adults damaged as a result of often well-intentioned overindulgence, this is a helpful and informative view of an underrecognized problem. Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Skillfully using case studies to illustrate how a child smothered with attention can become an adult who has problems with personal relationships, the authors here take aim at parents who love too much. Such parents are obsessed with being a "good" parent and raising a "good" child and are overly anxious about their child's successes and failures. But overparenting discourages independence, diminishing decision-making capabilities in adulthood. Further, attempts to mold children according to a preconceived image robs them of opportunities to explore limits and often engenders unrealistic expectations, forcing them to see the adult world as hostile and uncaring. The authors advise both parents and children on recognizing and changing destructive behaviors. A solid contribution to popular collections.
- Jodith Janes, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.