Pushing back

Sometimes in life you don't know your boundaries until someone pushes on them. Boundaries and borders don't come easily to me. And since I believe we're never too old to learn, it's in the middle-aged years of my life that I am finding how some of mine have been buried or non-existent.
   Enabling behavior is tough to see when it comes to our children. Our internal, invisible arms reach out to them constantly, and become even more insistent when they push back and want nothing to do with us. Inherently knowing that our kids have to push back does little to pull our arms back. Reflexively, we reach out further and further, wearing down our muscles and making us weary, lonely for acknowledgement.
   When they do reach back to us, our instincts are to grab them. But most of the time, this isn't the best thing. Especially when it reflects enabling behavior, which simply put is believing we are helping them when we are only making the situation worse and are actually doing the opposite of what we intended. The lines are very blurred when it comes to our children.
   No stranger to codependence, I have to work actively on my own enabling behavior. It is hard to see in myself, so I have installed an alarm system in my boundaries. When it goes off, I know I am in danger of enabling. While enabling might be reflexive, and feel right and even good, I know that behavior is wrong.
   Our children have to be able to grow up. And to do that, they have to realize there are consequences to each and every action. To not teach them this is a grave disservice. Especially when they are on the brink of adulthood. In a nutshell, it is a learned thing to let go.