05/01/2026
Are You Adjusting Expectations—or Giving Up Your Parental Authority?
Boundaries create safety.
For children who come from instability, chaos often feels familiar—even comfortable. Many were left to fend for themselves while the adults in their lives were absent, whether emotionally, physically, or both. They learned to parent themselves, and in some cases, their siblings as well.
For these children, parents were not a safe base. They didn’t learn to seek comfort, soothing, or guidance from adults. After adoption, they may view parents as a means to an end—someone who provides food, shelter, and access to resources they once had to secure on their own (sometimes through survival behaviors like stealing, which may persist for a long time). They are not accustomed to going through parents to have their needs met, nor do they naturally understand the authority structure within a family.
This means our role goes beyond providing food, clothing, shelter, love, and nurture. We are also responsible for teaching reciprocity—how to treat others with respect, including us. We teach that every area of life has an authority structure, and within the home, parents hold that role.
In the effort to “adjust the bar,” it’s worth asking: have you lowered it so much that your child is now running the household?
That does not create felt safety.
Children need to know that the adults in charge can handle them—their big emotions, their testing, and their behaviors. They need parents who can both nurture deeply and draw clear, consistent lines around what is and is not acceptable in a family.
Adjusting expectations should never mean allowing a child to treat family members, including parents, as if they have no value.
Our children need both high structure and high nurture.
High structure is not authoritarian or punitive.
High nurture is not permissive or boundaryless.
Safety is found in the balance of both.
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