Family Constellations demonstrates repeatedly that although this is a brief therapeutic intervention for the client, it also often has an impact on the other people in the group or family and especially the children, because families are connected by more than mere genetics. According to Constellation philosophy we are born into our family energy network, and are often effected by existing tensions and stresses, such as, unresolved guilt, shame, anger, sadness, injustice or secrets and exclusions in the family.

Very often, simply revealing the dynamics and releasing unresolved emotions is a bit like releasing the tension in a wound-up spring, both for you as the client and also for the other people involved in real life and especially for children. From this case it is easy to see that children are highly sensitive to the energy in family dynamics and may feel the tension, but may not have the language to express it. From this case study and also the philosophy of Family Constellations and its innovator Bert Hellinger, love and health can flow freely through a family, once intense emotions have been resolved and each person is allowed to take full responsibility for themselves.

Healthy boundaries.

What are they? Generally speaking, this is each person taking up their role in the family according to their responsibility and the order of who came first or later. This means that the children in the family are not given the choice of making major family decisions, but may make some smaller choices within their own realm of interest or experience. Parents are responsible for providing the environment, home, education and protection and have the experience and knowledge to make the bigger decisions, because children do not have sufficient knowledge. Parents give and children take. Parents do a lot for their children, this is as it should be. This may sound a little old fashioned? Possibly, but imagine this situation.

A child is allowed to take part in all of the decisions in a family from a young age. This although possibly liberating from our perspective, especially if we were bought up in an over controlling environment ourselves, can be quite scary for a child at a deeper level. On one level in being treated as an equal to you they will like their feeling of importance in the family and may fight to retain this, but on another, the child knows that it doesn’t really have the experience and knowledge for this task. He or she is born helpless into the world and finding that they have nearly as much decision making power as their parents, even though they have little knowledge or experience, can result in the child feeling that they are in charge of a racing bull without the skills or knowledge to control it. They may come to view their parents are weak or not having the capacity or resources to provide a strong healthy environment for them. From this situation the child may feel that he or she is equal to the parents from a young age and bigger or stronger than their parents, quite soon after that. In a sense your children are equal, but in terms of experience and responsibility and who came first or later, they are not.

Of course children should be given some choices and freedom from a young age, but also be clear about what is not in their sphere of choices as well. This is a clear boundary that they may try to infiltrate and push aside from time to time, but your strength as a parent will be in being able to be clear, fair and compassionate as well as being firm. You have a much larger responsibility involving the organisation of the family as a whole, finance, work, domestic duties, planning for the present and future and providing a safe and nurturing environment for the family as a whole. Of course as they grow up, you may increase their areas of responsibility and choice and allow them to learn from their experiences and mistakes. This is vital, with you as a support in the background as they mature to adulthood.