The Enabling Child
How early caretaking roles shape adult relationships and emotional boundaries
The enabling child in a dysfunctional or narcissistic family system often takes on the role of an emotional caretaker, aligning with a passive or avoidant parent while attempting to manage or minimize the behavior of a more dominant, emotionally volatile, or demanding caregiver — what may be referred to as the ego-protective parent (or, when appropriate, the narcissistic parent) (Pressman & Pressman, 1994). This child learns early that their safety and sense of belonging may depend on keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, anticipating others' emotional needs, and prioritizing others' emotions or needs above their own. While they may be praised for being “mature,” “easy,” or “helpful,” this praise often reflects a premature sense of emotional responsibility that comes at the cost of the child's own psychological and emotional development — a dynamic commonly known as parentification (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973; Jurkovic, 1997).
In families where one parent consistently enables, contributes to, or excuses harmful behavior by the ego-protective parent — whether out of fear, emotional dependence, trauma history, or denial — the enabling child may become emotionally allied with the enabling parent. They often feel protective of either or both parents and take on responsibility for their emotional well-being likely by keeping the peace in the family in an effort to mitigate the ego-protective parent’s triggers or abuse, ultimately trying to maintain their own attachment with their parent or parents. This child may strive to keep siblings in line, too, for the same purpose. Even without being explicitly asked to do so, the enabling child often senses a powerful, unspoken expectation to remain loyal, avoid “making waves,” and to be emotionally available/responsive to both parents. In adulthood, these patterns may persist as chronic emotional self-suppression, hypervigilance toward others' emotional states, and a deep sense of guilt or fear when attempting to assert personal boundaries.
Many enabling children develop a form of anxious-preoccupied attachment, often rooted in the inconsistent or conditional emotional availability of one or both caregivers (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1988). Though outwardly competent and self-reliant, they may carry a persistent fear of abandonment or rejection in close relationships. This attachment style can manifest as people-pleasing, emotional over-functioning, and becoming hyper-attuned to others’ moods — sometimes even projecting their own unacknowledged emotions onto others and mistaking that projection for feeling empathy or being ‘an empath.’ In the process, their own feelings, needs, and boundaries often become inaccessible or suppressed. In moments of perceived emotional distance, rupture, or disconnection, there may be a tendency toward reactivity, clinging, protest withdrawal, or splitting (1) — responses that can confuse both the individual and their loved ones, and may actually facilitate the disconnection or rejection the individual is trying to avoid.
Although they may be highly functional in many areas of life, adult children who once served in the enabling role often struggle with emotional dysregulation — particularly when proximity, security, or emotional attunement feel threatened. These moments can trigger deeply rooted, unresolved fears from childhood and may lead to responses such as panic, anger, control, withdrawal, or blame that feel overwhelming and are disproportionate to the situation at hand. Importantly, these reactions are not evidence of pathological instability necessarily (though this can be the case), regardless, these reactions indicate old post-traumatic survival strategies encoded in the nervous system (van der Kolk, 2014). The internal space between trigger and reaction can feel/appear almost nonexistent, and individuals may find it difficult in those moments to accurately assess the situation or consider another person’s perspective.
Healing involves learning to differentiate — emotionally, psychologically, and even somatically — from the original family system (Bowen, 1978). This may include grieving the loss of the story of the enabling role, which once provided a sense of identity, safety, or purpose, and developing an identity and new story that is no longer contingent on managing others' emotions. It often requires learning how to create and maintain boundaries without guilt, and restoring a relationship with and responsibility for one’s own internal world: needs, values, feelings, and limits. A key component of this healing process is reckoning with the role of the enabling parent: Not only for their passivity or non-intervention in the face of harm, but also for the child’s enmeshment with that parent, who may have once represented the only form of “safe” attachment available. This realization can be painful, but also liberating.
Ultimately, recovery for the adult enabling child depends on fostering a new, more holistically integrated belief and story about differentiation — one that no longer associates it with betrayal or abandonment, but rather with self-respect, clarity, and the freedom to build relationships rooted in reciprocity, emotional safety, and authenticity.
Definitions:
Splitting is a defense mechanism often rooted in early developmental trauma or attachment injury, where a person struggles to integrate both positive and negative aspects of themselves or others into a cohesive whole and may be activated only when there is a perceived or real rupture in the relationship. A person with this mechanism may view people, situations, or themselves in all-or-nothing, black-or-white terms. There can be reconciliation though, the person may expect the “offender” to take full responsibility for the rupture in order to make amends (Kernberg, 1975, van der Kolk, 2014).
References
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. M. (1973). Invisible Loyalties: Reciprocity in Intergenerational Family Therapy. Harper & Row.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Basic Books.
Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson.
Jurkovic, G. J. (1997). Lost Childhoods: The Plight of the Parentified Child. Brunner/Mazel.
Kernberg, O. F. (1975). Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism. Jason Aronson.
Pressman, C., & Pressman, R. (1994). The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment. Jossey-Bass.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.