Christian Relationship Help: Five Signs You Are Enabling Your Parents

This Christian relationship help will give you five signs that you are your enabling parents. 2 Corinthians 12:14 says, "After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children" (NIV). You don't anticipate having to make difficult choices as an adult as to what you will and won't do for your parents because you assume that as adults they will take care of themselves. Yet, many adult children are facing difficult decisions on how to help or not help parents who are making bad choices with their own lives. While there are justifiable reasons to help parents sacrificially that include poor health, catastrophe, and things beyond their control, there are also things you can do that are unhealthy for you and them. Enabling is when your intervention allows someone to continue to do things that aren't good. Here are five signs that you are enabling your parents: You are paying their bills because they have made irresponsible and bad choices. When your parents have misspent their money through bad decisions, addictions, and irresponsible spending, it isn't your responsibility to bail them out. If it feels like it is your responsibility and as a result, you are paying bills for them that they could have paid had they not made poor choices, then you are enabling. They need to experience the direct consequences of their actions. You are having trouble taking care of your own responsibilities. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your own immediate family (1 Timothy 5:8). If you are taking care of your parents and as a result failing to meet your own obligations, then you are being irresponsible. You are resentful toward them but continue to help. When things are done out of obligation, guilt, and manipulation rather than choice, people become resentful. If you are helping for any of those reasons, then it isn't for healthy motives. If you value a healthy relationship built on honesty, then you would risk being honest about why you cannot help. Your spouse is resentful about what you do for your parents. If your spouse is resentful about what you are doing for your parents, you need to look at his/her conce s. This may mean that you are enabling. People that aren't as close to the situation and emotionally involved can often see things clearer than you. While it is possible that your spouse is overly critical in this area, it is worth taking a look at. You are doing things for them they should be doing for themselves. One of the easiest tests to see if you are doing too much for your parents is to assess whether it is something that they should be doing for themselves. Think about what you typically expect from adults in similar situations. Are your parents doing those things or are you getting drawn in to do them for them. If you are, you are enabling. It is important for adult children to honor their parents into their old age by being there for them. However, it is dishonoring yourself, your immediate family, and your parents when you enable them to continue to do things that aren't right. God understands the difference.