10 Signs of Codependency in Children and Tips to Help | CBT Parenting Tools

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on 10 signs of codependency in children and tips to help. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Remember, CEUs are always available@Allce.com Cody CEUs the first sign we're going to talk about is separation anxiety. Now remember, separation anxiety is a very normal developmental event. However, children who have excessive separation anxiety, who are unable to be consoled, unable to be calmed down when their parents drop them off at school, for example, may be struggling with something that's a little bit more than your typical separation anxiety. So ensure they're safe. If children don't want to separate from their primary caregiver, stay. Sometimes it means they're afraid in their current situation. So ensure that they are safe and they're not trying to communicate to you, hey, when you leave, bad stuff happens. Reassure them that you will return and it's really important for children to hear from you that you will be back, that you love them and that you there is a certain time you will be back. So if you say I will be right back and then you don't show back up for eight hours, that is going to really stress that child out. If you help the child understand that he will be back at X time, then it's a little bit easier for them. Now still, for a 18 month old, 2 year old, 3 year old, it's kind of hard to conceptualize time. So if you can help them understand band a little bit more, maybe by an anchor, I will be back after lunch and after nap time, then I will come back to pick you up then that may help the child. Now if the child is older, elementary school age and they're displaying separation anxiety, of course that's later than you would expect to see this particular developmental phase going on. So you do want to extend, explore what is contributing to them feeling anxious, feeling unsafe, feeling disempowered, or fearing that you're going to abandon them. And how can you help them feel safer? What is it that'll help them feel safer? Even for the younger child, if they have a security item, it's a, if it's a blanket, if it's a stuffed animal, if it's a picture of you, if it's something that they can look at, that they can hold, that they can smell, that helps them feel safer, that can be useful. Now if separation anxiety has become severe, then working with a counselor to develop a plan to slowly increase the amount of time that you're away from the child and, and so they know you're going to come back. So you may initially leave the room for five minutes, and then you may end up gradually working up to where you're leaving the house for 30 minutes and then 45 and then an hour. Remember, for children, time goes seems like it's going a lot slower than it does for adults. So jumping from 30 minutes to an hour is a huge jump for a child. So you want to make little baby steps in order to make sure that you don't trigger their anxiety in the interim. And then when you come back, make sure to greet them. Make sure to let them know how much you missed them. Make sure to help them feel safe. And that can include, for some, giving them a hug. Not every child wants to have physical contact, but it is important to recognize when what will help the child feel safer and feel more welcomed upon your return. If the child displays high rejection sensitivity, that is an indication. Not a total indication, but it's an indication that they may be developing codependency. Now, it's important to recognize that people with ADHD often have high rejection sensitivity as well. But for people with high rejection sensitivity, they are fearful of abandonment. They are fearful that their feelings or their thoughts are wrong or will cause them to be, guess what? Rejected. So validate their feelings of anxiety about having differing opinions or being rejected. Explore the rejection for alternate causes and meanings. If they feel like they're being rejected by somebody at school, you know, explore what might be going on. Is it really rejection? Is that person overwhelmed with somebody else? And sometimes it is rejection. Not all of us fit together, not all of us work together well in relationships. So sometimes it's better to not be in a relationship with somebody. But it's important to explore those things, especially exploring the rejection sensitivity with people with whom the child may be developing codependent tendencies. If they are fearful of rejection from their caregivers, for example, then that is a warning sign and it's something you can do something about. It's important to validate that child's feelings, but also help them recognize that you're not going to reject them. You may disagree with their opinion, you may not like some of the things that they do, but you will always love them. You will always be there to help them stay safe and differentiate rejection of ideas from rejection of the person. Whether it's rejection coming from the caregiver or coming from somebody at school or another caregiver, like a teacher, help them recognize that just because somebody doesn't agree with them doesn't mean that they are being rejected. Children who act older than their years are also at risk of being codependent. Now it's important. Again, this is another developmental phase. A lot of children go through a period where they want to play house, where they want to play caregiver, where they want to act adult. And that's okay if that's part of their play, if that's part of their pretend or their fantasy life. But when they become overly concerned about adult issues like their parents fighting or their dad drinking or their sister sneaking out the window at night, then that's going to be something that's more important to address. If they, if you feel like they are actually stepping into that role and trying to be a additional caregiver or trying to be the primary caregiver, then that's something that certainly needs to be addressed and set those boundaries. Discuss the function of that behavior. If they are trying to mediate between caregivers or if they are tattling on their siblings, discuss the function of that behavior. Why are they doing that? And are they doing it to get gain favor with caregivers? Are they doing that to try to keep their siblings safe? Are they, what is it that they're trying to accomplish? Then help them recognize what they, as a child are responsible for and assure them they're safe. You know, maybe they're trying to mediate between caregivers who are fighting, okay? Help them recognize what they're responsible for. Help them recognize that caregivers disagree. Caregivers may get into arguments and sometimes they may even get loud, but they, the child is safe and they are not responsible for mediation. The caregivers are responsible. The child. It's not about them and it's not their responsibility to fix it. And they will always be safe. So help them recognize that this can happen and they can still be safe. This can happen. And maybe the caregivers are even fighting about something the child did, okay? It happens. Caregivers disagree about parenting strategies. That's okay. That's between the caregivers. And it's not the child's responsibility to fix it. If the child is parenting caregivers or siblings, this is a, an indication that they may be leaning towards codependency. If they are comforting their caregivers when their caregivers are upset with regularity and to the exception of other people. Now it's compassionate if a caregiver is upset for a child to come up and give them a hug or pat them on the back and mimic whatever the caregiver would have done. But if the, if the child is having to tuck their parents in at night, if their child is having to make meals for the family with regularity, it's not just a hey, I want to try to learn how to cook, it's they have to cook or nobody's eating, then that's a problem. If the child is being put into a position where it's their responsibility to take care of the caregivers and or other siblings or it won't get done, then that can be a problem. Another sign of codependency in children is hyper vigilance. It's important for them to recognize when they're safe. And hypervigilance is means that they're constantly scanning the environment for threats. They're constantly looking for signs of unsafeness or abandonment. And it's important to help them feel safe in their current environment. The focused attention meditation can be helpful for calming that hyper vigilance. Focusing their attention on one thing, help get them into a place, have them get into a place where they feel safe, whether it's their room or the bedroom, wherever it is, where they can feel like they're not going to be bothered or disturbed, or they feel like they can be less on guard. And then encourage them just to spend time focusing on something. My son used to have a fish tank in his room and he would sit before bed, he would sit in front of his fish tank and he'd watch his goldfish swim back and forth and back and forth for about 20 minutes. And that helped him calm his mind. And that is what we're talking about with focused attention, where he felt he didn't have to be worried about what was going on around him, he was able to just focus his attention on those little goldfish, encourage them to develop distress tolerance skills. So when they start feeling hypervigilant, when they start feeling on edge, they can tolerate the distress and recognize when they are safe. And I have safety mantra here because a lot of times that desire to be hypervigilant happens when somebody feels unsafe encouraging them, obviously look around, make sure they are safe. 99.9% of the time they are going to be safe. So then following that feeling of distress with reminding themselves, I am safe in this situation, I am safe and I have these resources. Whatever their safety mantra is to help them remember that they don't have to be hyper vigilant, that they are, are safe in that environment at that moment. Another issue we see in children is when they have difficulty, when they're not in control developmentally all children go through a period where they want to be independent and they want to have control over things and that's normal. However, when the child indicates that they need to be in control of everything at all times, then that's when it starts to become a little bit more problematic. Help them identify why feeling out of control about something is so frightening. So when they feel out of control, when they can't control what their friends are doing or what the test outcome is going to be, or what their caregivers are doing, or when their caregivers are going to be home, you know, help them identify why that is so frightening to them, why each of those things is so frightening, and what they can do in order to feel safer and again develop distress tolerance skills. In life, there is virtually nothing that they are a hundred percent in control of, therefore developing distress tolerance. Recognizing that, hey, sometimes I'm going to feel out of control and I can feel I cannot be in control of everything and I can be safe at the same time. That's that Radical acceptance, self blame and guilt for others problems is another sign of child codependency. Explore with the child why they think it is their fault. A lot of time we make the mistake of saying it's not your fault, don't worry about it, and telling them what to think, telling them how to feel. And that misses the point. We need to explore why is it that you think it's your fault? And help them try to understand, try to come to the belief in their own mind that it's not their fault. Otherwise we're violating their boundaries, we're telling them what to think instead of helping them arrive at their own conclusions. You want to different differentiate for them compassion versus codependency. If they have a friend or a caregiver or a family member who is hurt, who is sad, who is suffering, having compassion for that person and wanting them to feel better, that is normal, that is healthy, that's empathy. Trying to fix it for them at their own expense, or taking responsibility for things that are not response their responsibility, especially as children, that's when we start moving into codependency. So it's a fine line between having compassion for somebody and wanting to help them, wanting to help them feel better versus trying to fix it. And it is a boundary that moves as adults. You know, as caregivers, we do sometimes try to fix things that are making our children unhappy or uncomfortable. And they may learn that and they may think this is what I'm supposed to do. But there's also Times as adults, as caregivers, we have to step back and say, oh my gosh, I see that you're really hurting and it's sucks. And I'm here to be a support, I'm here to comfort until you figure out how to address it. I remember my daughter when she broke up with her first boyfriend, when she changed her major, there, there were several pivotal points in her life that were painful and I wanted to jump in there and fix it. I wanted to make it all better. But. But I had to step back and say, I'm here, we can talk about it. And I'm going to empower you to figure out what the next best step is. Help the child identify what they are responsible for and options to improve the next moment while respecting other people's boundaries. So if their friend is upset or if their friend is in a bad situation, sometimes you'll hear of a child that knows another child at school, and that child at school's parents are always fighting or always intoxicated. And the child from the healthy family will say, wants to fix it, wants to caretake, wants to bring in the child from the dysfunctional family. And that's where we may see some codependency between children, where the child from the healthy family is trying to fix something that they have no control over. If a child has a lack of a sense of self, we want to encourage mindful exploration of their feelings, thoughts, needs and interests. If a child is moving toward codependency, then they are often chameleon. Like instead of identifying their own feelings, thoughts and needs, they're always trying to figure out what other people's feelings, thoughts and needs are. What do you want to eat for dinner? What do you need right now? What are your thoughts about this? And whatever those are, then those will be mine. Well, that's not necessarily true. So we need to encourage children to reflect on their own feelings, thoughts and needs in a safe environment, in a safe home base where they can feel free to come in and go, you know what, I totally disagree with that. I watched a television show, Madam Secretary, and it was a really good show. And she was Secretary of State. And one of her children was very, very opposed to pretty much everything she believed in. They loved him, they, they respected his choices. However, they didn't change theirs. And it was an interesting dynamic to see how they interacted with one another. But she provided or they provided a very safe home base for that child to assert his beliefs in opposition to his parents. And they were like, okay, we love you we don't agree. We love you though. A child that lacks self awareness is also at risk for codependency. A lack of a sense of self means they are not sure who they are, what they like, what they want, what they need. A lack of self awareness is more temporal. It's more in the moment. They're not sure. They're not even checking in with themselves. If you ask them, how do you feel? They're like, I don't know or fine. Because they're not checking in with themselves. They're so busy surveying everybody else and for what their needs are or where any threats are, so busy being hypervigilant that they're not aware of what's going on inside them. So it's important to encourage for them regular mindfulness and assertive communication. Checking in with themselves and actually encouraging, strongly encouraging them to give you something besides fine, you know, how do you feel right now about this situation? What emotion best describes how you're feeling right now? Sometimes with children, it's easier to use emojis or animals or something like that, but encouraging them again to try check in with themselves. Sometimes we think children are going to feel a certain way and they don't. We don't want to make the mistake of making assumptions either. If they only feel lovable for what they do, not who they are, it's important that we remember. Love the child, dislike the behavior. I love you, but I really am angry about what you did. You can also love the behavior and the child. And this is another mistake we often make. Even if you're careful when you're being critical, when you're addressing behaviors that you don't like, you can say I love you, but I really dislike this behavior. Okay, that's great you separated child from behavior. But then we often make the mistake when they do something good. We say, oh, you're such a good boy or you're such a good girl instead of saying I love you. And that was an awesome thing to do. Making sure that whether it's good or bad, we're separating the child from the behavior and proactively spending time together that goes into that craves mnemonic for secure attachment, consistent, responsive and attentive. When you are proactively attentive, instead of waiting till the child needs something and being responsive when you ask them, hey, I would like to spend time with you or what do you think about this? I am interested in your thoughts. That helps improve the child's self awareness as well as self esteem. It helps develop their Communication skills. It helps in so many ways. If the child always wants to please others, it's important to discuss the difference between being nice and being sacrificial. There is helping somebody with their homework or helping somebody move or helping somebody with something because you want to and you have the time and the resources. And then there is doing things for others at the expense, expense of your own happiness, at the expense of your own relationships, at the expense of your own fill in the blank. And that is a huge difference. Now, every once in a while, you may make a choice to say, you know what? I, I'm gonna two bad choices right now. I either disappoint this person or disappoint that person. Okay, that may happen every once in a while. But if you're regularly sacrificing what's important to if the child is regularly sacrificing what's important to them in order to do things for somebody else, in order to try to rescue or protect or heal, then the child is likely moving towards codependency. And it's important to help them recognize that. That it's wonderful to have a good heart. It's wonderful to help, but you can't lose yourself in doing that or you're eventually going to kind of run out of energy and run out of everything and you won't be able to be there for anybody. It's also important to explore with them what pleasing others means for them. You know, sometimes it's just when I do nice things for people, it makes me happy. Well, that's great. That's not codependent. When they do nice things for other people and it causes them distress or it causes them problems, that's what we're talking about. If they're doing things to please others because they're afraid, if they don't, then they're going to be rejected or abandoned. That's a whole other issue that needs to be addressed. If the videos on this channel have been helpful for you, please support us in our mission of making high quality, practical content available to everyone. You can support the channel@docsnipes.com donate. You can join the channel@docsnipes.com join or you can purchase a thanks on any video that's particularly helpful. Codependency in children is very similar to the signs of codependency in adults, although it's important to differentiate developmental stages like autonomy and initiative versus codependency. Autonomy and initiative are the children trying to figure out who they are, step out of their comfort zone master some new skills. Codependency is stepping over into being an adult and parenting people when they don't need to and doing things to the extent that it starts causing them problems. Causes of codependency usually include abandonment anxiety and adverse childhood experiences, including having a caregiver with a mental health issue and or codependency or complex post traumatic stress disorder. Treatment goals are often to improve attachment security, emotion management, and interpersonal skills in both the child and their caregivers. Other videos on this topic can be found at Docsnipes.com codee on counseling and parenting children@docsnipes.com kids and on developing secure attachment@docsnipes.com attachment list.