173This was good practice for resisting in the evil day (Eph.
5:16), when some of Jimmy’s friends turned on him and pres-
sured him to take drugs. How was Jimmy able to refuse?
Because by then, he’d had ten or eleven years of practice dis-
agreeing with people who were important to him without losing
their love. He didn’t fear abandonment in standing up against
his friends. He’d done it many times successfully with his fam-
ily with no loss of love.
Paul, on the other hand, came from a different family set-
ting. In his home, no had two different responses. His mom
would be hurt and withdraw and pout. She would send guilt
messages, such as “How can you say no to your mom who loves
you?” His dad would get angry, threaten him, and say things
like, “Don’t talk back to me, Mister.”
It didn’t take long for Paul to learn that to have his way, he had
to be externally compliant. He developed a strong yes on the out-
side, seeming to agree with his family’s values and control. What-
ever he thought about a subject—the dinner menu, TV
restrictions, church choices, clothes, or curfews—he stuffed inside.
Once, when he had tried to resist his mother’s hug, she had
immediately withdrawn from him, pushing him away with the
words, “Someday you’ll feel sorry for hurting your mother’s feelings
like that.” Day by day, Paul was being trained to not set limits.
As a result of his learned boundarylessness, Paul seemed to
be a content, respectful son. The teens, however, are a crucible
for kids. We find out what kind of character has actually been
built into our children during this difficult passage.
Paul folded. He gave in to his friends’ pressure. Is it any
wonder that the first people he said no to were his parents—at
twelve years old? Resentment and the years of not having
boundaries were beginning to erode the compliant, easy-to-live-
with false self he’d developed to survive.
Taking Responsibility for One’s Needs
The group therapy session I was leading was quiet. I’d just
asked Janice an unanswerable question. The question was,
Boundaries and Your Children