Staying in Bounds

By Cynthia A. Frosch, Ph.D.

Having recently watched the Super Bowl with my 5-year-old son, I was struck by what went on when a player went out of bounds. The play stopped, the order of the game ceased temporarily, and often the player was thrown out of his own territory into the territory of another. Family life is a lot like football—there are players (mother, father, children, or some combination) and teams (parent-parent, parent-child, child-child), and for the game to flow smoothly, everyone needs to know where they stand. Everyone benefits by knowing what their role is in the game and where the boundaries and goal posts are.

But what happens if the players switch roles? Using the football analogy, what happens if the quarterback tries to be the receiver? The kicker—the linebacker? What if the team falls apart and stops working together? Mothers and fathers go separate ways. Children take on the role of parents and parents take on the role of children. The plays don’t work, the goal posts are at the wrong ends, and the game starts to break down.

And while young children may experiment with a variety of roles in dramatic or pretend play—taking on the role of superhero, mother, father, uncle, aunt, even the family dog—what happens if this happens outside of the safety of play?

Of particular interest to Dr. Macfie (Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville) are the family factors that contribute to the development of one kind of family breakdown—parent-toddler role reversal. Parent-toddler role reversal occurs when a parent looks to the child to meet his or her own unmet needs for comfort, intimacy, or companionship.

When we as researchers talk about role reversal, we are describing a relationship pattern where the parent (or adult) may look to the child for attention and affection; in other words, the parent’s physical affection is not in response to the child’s needs but is more about what the parent needs or wants. The parent may ask for or demand attention from the child or touch a child in way that is inappropriate. Role reversal can also reflect an absence of supportive guidance and appropriate limits. In relationships marked by role reversal, it is often difficult to tell who the parent is and who the child is. A child may be able to order a parent around and the parent complies passively. Or a parent may initiate or become involved in play or antics that detract from the situation at hand—for example while a toddler is focused and working diligently on a puzzle, the parent starts tickling the child.

What effect does parent-child role reversal have on children’s development?
In a series of papers, Dr. Macfie and her colleagues examined the predictors and outcomes of parent-child role reversal. Dr. Macfie found that parent-child role reversal is problematic for children because it predicts social and attention difficulties as well as behavior problems. The specific outcomes of role reversal depended on whether the role reversal occurred in the father-child or the mother-child relationship. The child’s gender also mattered. In other words, sons and daughters were affected differently by parent-child role reversal.

What predicts parent-child role reversal?
Dr. Macfie has examined several factors that may contribute to the breakdown in boundaries between parents and young children. In her research on infants’ exposure to marital conflict, Dr. Macfie and her colleagues suggested that parents in more conflicted marriages may be more prone to role reversal with their children. The experience of conflict with a spouse may create or reflect the parents’ unmet needs which are then “played out” with the child. So a parent who is not receiving intimacy, comfort, or companionship in the marital relationship may seek them out in their relationships with their young children.

In one paper, Dr. Macfie and her colleagues found just that. Marital conflict predicted role reversal in the parent-child relationship. When mothers were more conflictual towards fathers, fathers showed greater role reversal with their children. And when fathers were more conflictual towards mothers, fathers then tended to withdraw from mothers. Fathers’ withdrawal, in turn, contributed to mothers’ role reversal with their children. So this means that marital conflict contributes directly to father-toddler role reversal, and indirectly to mother-toddler role reversal via fathers’ withdrawal from his spouse.

Parent-child role reversal is also related to mothers’ and fathers’ experiences in their own families of origin. Specifically, Dr. Macfie and her colleagues found that mothers who reported role reversal with their own mothers as children tended to experience more role reversal with their toddler daughters than mothers who did not report role reversal with their own mothers. And when fathers reported greater role reversal with their own mothers as children, their wives experienced greater role reversal with their sons. In other words, fathers who experienced role reversal as children were more likely to grow up and marry women who role reverse with their sons. What these results suggest is that role reversal may have an intergenerational component such that parents who experienced role reversal with their own mothers as children then go on to have relationships with their own children that are marked by role reversal as well. 

Why does parent-toddler role reversal occur?
The demands on parents can be enormous—economic stressors, lack of extended family and support networks, and simply a lack of understanding of the unconscious processes at work within ourselves may all contribute to a breakdown in the boundaries surrounding marriage and parenting. Women, especially, may be aware of a general lack of boundaries in their lives as a search through local bookstores or on-line sites confirms. Marital conflict, unresolved childhood issues, and psychological factors may all be at play as well.

What can parents and caregivers do?
Become aware of your own relationship history and whether there was role reversal with your own parents or caregivers. Dr. Macfie’s research showed that parents who experienced role reversal as children were more likely to experience role reversal with their own children. Thus, becoming aware of this intergenerational process may help to break the cycle.

Ask yourself what are my needs? What are my child’s needs? How can I work towards creating wholeness for myself so that I can nurture my child and my relationship?

In a timely article posted today on Mothering.com, Amy Bush Bradley writes about the process of discovering and trusting our children. The author highlights the key role of parents in the lives of young children and points out that when parents work on themselves, they create positive changes in the lives of children. “Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and making a change for the positive will have an impact, one much greater than any damage previously done.” - Amy Bush Bradley (Digging for Roots: The Innate Nature of Children, February 6, 2009
www.mothering.com)

In summary, as adults, we can:

• Understand what role reversal is and reflect on the relationships we shared with our own parents as children.
• Become aware of our unmet needs and how they are being played out in our relationships, health, and inner lives.
• Examine our relationships with children to see whether the boundaries are clear or if we may be looking to the child for structure, reassurance, comfort, intimacy, or companionship.
• Strengthen our marital or partner relationships and identify ways to better meet our own needs so that we can provide the nurturance and safety our children need.
• Respect our children’s autonomy and independence; honor the separation/individuation process without re-activating our children’s attachment needs.

Clear boundaries require both connectedness and separateness. A key developmental task for toddlers is separating and becoming more independent and autonomous. Yet maintaining the security of the parent-child relationship remains an important task as well. Secure parent-child attachment relationships provide a “safe space” or “secure base” for children well beyond infancy.

In The READY Method™, Dr. Margaret Owen and I talk about finding ways to support children’s independence and autonomy while parenting with connection and maintaining boundaries. We encourage parents to reflect on their own needs so that they can better meet their children’s needs.

An upcoming talk in the “Food For Thought” series sponsored by the Texas Association for Infant Mental Health will address the issue of separetness and connectedness. On February 20, Elizabeth Francis, MS., ECEd, IMH-E (IV) will present a talk entitled “Now I’m a Toddler, Learning to Leave” at KERA studios in Dallas. The talk will focus on the ways that toddlers and their caregivers can remain emotionally connected while separating from each other. For more information, visit: www.taimh.org.

Learn more about Dr. Jenny Macfie.