Our main job as psychotherapists, in fact, was to “re-parent” our patients, to provide a “corrective emotional experience” in which they would unconsciously transfer their early feelings of injury onto us, so we could offer a different response, a more attuned and empathic one than they got in childhood.

At least, that was the theory. Then I started seeing patients.

Instead, these patients talked about how much they “adored” their parents. Many called their parents their “best friends in the whole world,” and they’d say things like “My parents are always there for me.” Sometimes these same parents would even be funding their psychotherapy (not to mention their rent and car insurance), which left my patients feeling both guilty and utterly confused. After all, their biggest complaint was that they had nothing to complain about!

Here I was, seeing the flesh-and-blood results of the kind of parenting that my peers and I were trying to practice with our own kids, precisely so that they wouldn’t end up on a therapist’s couch one day. We were running ourselves ragged in a herculean effort to do right by our kids—yet what seemed like grown-up versions of them were sitting in our offices, saying they felt empty, confused, and anxious. Back in graduate school, the clinical focus had always been on how the lack of parental attunement affects the child. It never occurred to any of us to ask, what if the parents are too attuned? What happens to those kids?

I’m not a parent, and my parents were definitely not the helicopter type. For example, I had to walk up to 4km to play junior football.  On the plus side, I was given a lot of independence and freedom to make my own mistakes.  So I guess I became a bit jealous of the kids of my relatives and peers who seem to have everything they want handed to them on a plate.  Perhaps I should pity them instead?  Parenting is a hard gig.

See also: Did Your Parents Love You Too Much?:

Kids need the depth of attention that comes from a parent not doing things, but being with them. Listening to their day, hearing about their mistakes and successes is essentially telling them that who they are becoming is perfect.