Adult Children and Boundaries with Parents

Relationships can be tricky. The relationships you have with your parents as an adult can be even trickier. We’re torn between our attachment with them from childhood, our beliefs around our responsibilities for them, and our own wellbeing. Oftentimes, our wellbeing is the one that gets put to the bottom of the list, almost by default. Some people in your life might have relationships with their parents that look a lot different from what you experience, and it might leave you wondering why. In this article we’re going to go over why you might want to set boundaries with your parents, what those boundaries could look like, the challenges with setting these boundaries, things that might come up for you when thinking about or trying to enact boundaries, how to deal with the inevitable pushback of boundary setting, and the responsibility of boundary setting. 

And a sidenote, in this article I will use the term parents, but you might have challenges with only one parent, or the person who raised you might not have been a parent but another caregiver. For ease of reading, I will always use the term “parents” but know that it includes these other possibilities. 

Also, before we even start getting into the details of boundary setting, it’s important to note that it’s not about blaming your parents or punishing them. It’s not about saying your parents are bad people, or that they didn’t do the best they could. But it might mean that what they were able to provide you wasn’t what you needed, or that the ways they want to be in relationship with you are harming you.

Why You May Want to Set Boundaries

Let’s start with why you might feel like you want to set boundaries with parents. Some possible reasons could be: 

• you’ve tried to tell them over and over again not to do something but they don’t listen 
• you feel resentment towards your parents for the things you do for them 
• your parents try to be involved in your life in a way that feels like it’s too much for you 
• you feel like you’re responsible for your parents’ feelings 

Take a moment to think about why you’re feeling like setting boundaries with your parents might be something you need or want to do. What behaviours of theirs are hard for you? What feelings come up for you when you interact with your parents? 

The Responsibility of Boundaries

You might have tried to set boundaries with your parents in the past, but felt like nothing actually changed. Could there be a missing piece to your attempts to set boundaries with your parents? 

Think back to a time when you’ve tried to set boundaries with your parents (or if you haven’t tried yet, think about a boundary setting attempt with someone else). Whose responsibility did you feel like it was to set and enforce those boundaries? It’s completely understandable if you felt like it was both of your responsibilities – you shared what the boundary would be, and you hoped the other person would respect your boundaries and do the thing (or not do the thing). BUT… the thing is, enforcing boundaries is actually 100% YOUR responsibility. Without understanding and truly accepting this piece, you are very likely to always feel frustrated setting boundaries. Of course it would be amazing and ideal if you set a boundary and the other person respected it. But when it comes down to it, you need to be firm in your boundary and know that enforcing it is all on you. Accepting this is actually going to help protect you and make enforcing boundaries easier because you don’t have to try to figure out what you can do to try to get your parents to change. 

Why Boundaries Feel So Hard

Setting boundaries with your parents as an adult is not easy. It can be messy, stressful, exhausting, guilt-inducing and so many other things. There is a part of us that wants to make our parents happy and doesn’t want them to be upset with us. There can also be a part of us that feels like if we can just do enough and act perfectly, our parents will be happy and we can finally have the relationship we long to have with them. This is called a healing fantasy – completely natural to have, and it might be part of what’s keeping you stuck.

Have you had these kinds of thoughts before, or does this feel at all familiar to you?

What Boundaries Can Look Like

Now what could boundaries potentially look like? Usually they would involve putting some kind of limit on interaction, such as: 

• topics that are off limits 
• how often you will see or talk to them 
• how long a phone call or visit will be 
• where visits will occur 
• guidelines around behaviour (ex. calling before they visit) 

Boundaries need to be clear – what are you willing to do and not willing to do. 

It’s also important to take your culture into consideration. What kind of beliefs does your culture have around boundaries? Which of these beliefs are important to you to continue to uphold? Are there any beliefs that you might want to shift?

Emotions That May Come Up

When you think about putting limits on your interaction with your parents, what kind of feelings come up for you? If you are able, stop reading, and take a moment. Maybe close your eyes and take a deep breath, and see what comes up for you. It might be a feeling in your body, it might be an emotion, it might be something else. Whatever comes up for you is completely valid, and can be used to help guide what boundaries might feel good for you. 

Feelings that might come up for you after doing this exercise: 

• grief, a deep sadness that you might not be able to have the relationship you want to have with your parent 
• relief, maybe a loosening of tension in your body, you might feel like a weight has been lifted, a sense of freedom 
• anger, at the unfairness of being in a situation where you have to set a boundary with a parent 

You’re not a bad person to want to have limits on your relationship with your parents. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them, it doesn’t mean you don’t care about them. You have just gotten to a place in life where you are realizing that maybe you don’t have to sacrifice your wellbeing for your parents.

Boundaries Can Change

You can always change the boundaries – you are under no obligation to keep them the same. If you feel like you need to have stricter boundaries, that is completely valid and you can change them. If you feel like you might want to have less strict boundaries, you can loosen them. And if you loosen them and find out that it doesn’t feel good, you can adjust them. Boundaries need to be firm, but they can also be changed as needed.

How to Handle Pushback

Expect the other person not to be happy with the boundaries when you set and enforce them. Be prepared for push back. They might tell you you’re being too sensitive, over dramatic, ungrateful, unreasonable, unfair, or a number of other things. I can tell you you’re not being any of those things, but it might be helpful for you to reflect and check in with yourself to see if it feels like what they’re saying is really true. 

What can you do if they push back? There is a helpful acronym to keep in mind when dealing with pushback – JADE. You do not need to: 

Justify – you do not need to justify to them why you are setting this boundary, know that you have put in the work to be thoughtful about this decision for yourself and they might never understand, agree or approve. 

Argue – you won’t be able to convince them with the “right” argument. 

Defend – you do not need to defend yourself, the person you owe accountability to is you. 

Explain – you do not need to get into overexplaining why this is the right choice for you, hoping they will understand.

When Boundaries Are Crossed

What can you do when you are in a situation where your boundaries have been crossed, or you aren’t sure what to do? It definitely helps to have a plan in advance, but as we all know, unexpected situations come up all the time, and not only that, but when we are actually in the imagined situation, it can feel different than we imagined it would be. It can feel very hard to enforce a boundary in the moment.

Here are some suggestions/reflections for what you can do: 

Do whatever feels like it will keep you feeling the most safe in that moment and try to have self compassion for whatever this is. It’s okay if you don’t enforce a boundary in the moment – enforcing boundaries can be extremely difficult. After you are out of the situation, you can take time to work through what happened, what you would like to have happened, and brainstorm some ideas for what you could do when this comes up next time. 

Setting boundaries is messy. It’s hard. It takes time. 

Planning for next time might look like: 

• deciding in advance what time you will end the call or leave, setting an alarm might be helpful 
• calling a friend or having them call you to support you in leaving the situation 
• having specific phrases you will say if something comes up, like “I’m not going to talk about ____, let’s talk about _____” 
• planning some topics in advance that you are comfortable talking about 

Caring for Yourself and Moving Forward

Another important consideration is how you are taking care of yourself through these interactions. If you know that you will be interacting with your parents and that it will be stressful, what can you do for yourself afterwards? Self-care is different for everyone, so think about what might be restorative and/or regulating for you – what would make you feel good? Or maybe there’s something you can even do in the moments of interacting with your parents to help you feel regulated – taking 3 deep breaths, bringing a fidget, petting an animal. 

If or when you share with others in your life about the boundaries you have set with your parents, they may not understand. They may question you. They may tell you that your parent just cares, they just love you, that it is your duty to be there for them because they raised you. Hearing those messages might make you doubt yourself, feel more alone, question your own beliefs and decision making, make you feel misunderstood, make you question your boundaries. If you share with someone about the boundaries you have set with your parents and it doesn’t make you feel good, consider talking to someone else in your life about it. Someone you feel safe with and accepted by. This might be a partner, a good friend, a counsellor, or someone else. You don’t need to feel alone in this journey, and you deserve a judgment free space to explore your emotions and experiences around boundaries with your parents. 

Boundaries can help you to maintain your relationships with your parents in a way that doesn’t build resentment, tension or anger. Boundaries can be a tool that you use to honour your own wellbeing, by finding a way that you can continue to be in relationship with your parents that is not harming you. Boundaries are not a lack of gratitude for what your parents have done for you. Two things be true at once – you can both appreciate what your parents have done for you, and set boundaries that allow you to continue to be in relationship with them. 

If any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to continue this exploration, and to find someone you feel comfortable sharing with about what all of this means for you. 

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Resources for further exploration: 

-10% Happier Podcast episode with Lindsay C. Gibson “How to Deal With Emotionally Immature People (Including Maybe Your Own Parents)” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-deal-with-emotionally-immature-people-including/id1087147821?i=1000659277736) 

-Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson (book) 

-Nedra Glover Tawwab (Instagram @nedratawwab, Book – Set Boundaries, Find Peace & Drama Free) 

-Therapy in a Nutshell episode with Jessica Miller (from Mind Your Boundaries podcast) “How to Set Boundaries With Emotionally Immature People” (https://therapyinanutshell.com/how-to-set-boundaries-with-emotionally-immature-people/)