Characteristics of Adult Children: A Few More to Consider...
Beyond Janet Woititz's original list of thirteen, there are other
characteristics shared by those with codependent behaviour; here are
some of those.
Before reading further, you may want to ponder Characteristic 4 ("adult children judge themselves without mercy"), for a few moments and remember that it's not how long a list you make of the things in your life that could stand some improvement- it's what you do with the items that are on the list. With that in mind, there are certainly other characteristics (beyond the ones listed by Janet Woititz), that come up in discussions of adult children. The ones listed below are taken from the Step 4 section of The 12 Steps for Adult Children. In that area of the program, we take a solemn and fearless moral inventory, identifying and facing up to those areas in out lives requiring change. The different areas of Step 4 work suggested in the book above are:
- Repressed Anger
- Approval Seeking
- Caretaking
- Control
- Fear of Abandonment
- Fear of Authority Figures
- Frozen Feelings
- Isolation
- Low Self-Esteem
- Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility
- Repressed Sexuality
While, for any one of us, not all of these may necessarily result from childhood issues, the program offers us a useful venue for idendifying the extent to which they influence our behaviour as adults and a process to understand them and hold them in check.
Please submit all questions and comments to teddysruleinfo@netscape.net