How Much Do You Accommodate Your Kids?

There’s a concept known as over-accommodating.

That is when the parent seeks to be supportive of a child expressing some sort of difficulty and does so in a way that is disproportionate to the need or in a way that lessens or dials back their expectation.

As such, the parent is seeking to be helpful, not at all realizing that their response to the child’s issue is actually enabling it.

This can occur with the child hurts themself minimally, expresses a fear (anxiety), or simply a dislike. In these instances, there is nothing truly tragic or unsafe or unreasonable, but the child carries on as if so and the parent is in a sense, overly nice about it.

The parent typically seeks for the child to be heard and validated.

What isn’t necessarily seen by the parent is that the child takes this as the go-ahead to continue with their objection or issue, seeking to avoid in order to receive some sort of benefit which could be avoidance of a task or expectation, or special attention and/or compensation.

As a means of managing boo-boos, or generalized or even specific anxieties, or even food preferences, over-accommodating can increase the very issue sought to address.

If the issue reaches a threshold where the parent seeks counseling for the child, very often the counseling of choice is CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy).

Ironically, CBT is somewhat the opposite of over-accommodating where the child learns to confront their issues such that the issues may be overcome.

If the over-accomodating of the parent isn’t recognized, CBT may be less effective, leading to a poor outcome as well as a poor view of the treatment approach.

Research out of Yale suggests that actually treating the parents for their over-accommodating is as affective as CBT for the child (assuming the parent’s over-accommodating doesn’t interfere).

As a preference, I lean to working with the parent over the child. In so doing the parent develops the insight and skills to address current and future issues should they arise, and the child gains a reasonable role model from them to learn.

Over-accommodating. It comes from good intentions. Good intentions can inadvertently backfire.

Managing over-accommodating means first recognizing it and then learning strategies to still be supportive while managing pushback.

Sometimes just stepping back and realizing what has been happening is enough to facilitate necessary change.

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I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

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Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.