I’ve learned a great deal about the difference between support and enabling in my 40 years of coaching. And there are few places where this difference is more important than in our families.

Some parents face the unwelcome and daunting challenges of raising a special needs child. Loving, caring for, supporting a child who suffers from a physical disability, mental illness, substance abuse problems calls for parenting sacrifices most of us cannot even imagine. Dealing with learning disabilities, autism, antisocial behavior and other arduous conditions that impair a child’s ability to function is not something any of us are prepared for. As parents age, the demands of helping special needs children, now adults, achieve and maintain some degree of social, emotional and/or financial independence can be all-consuming.

There are moms and dads who rise to the occasion, devoting a good part of their own lives to the support, care and well-being of their special needs child. Making sacrifices that most of us cannot even imagine, they search for the resources to help their child find a place in the world. At the other end of the spectrum are parents who are overwhelmed by their son or daughter’s special needs and bail out, abdicating responsibility and distancing themselves. They may even deny that there is “a problem,” enroll another one of their children as a caregiver, ship their marginally-functioning child off to boarding school or engage in endless arguments with their spouse about who is to blame.

Some mothers and fathers deal with their special needs child quietly, and often undetectably, by enabling them. Rather than directly addressing their child’s needs, fostering confidence and independence, and instilling an ethic of self-reliance in their child as they get older, they perpetuate “the problem” by teaching them to act helpless, weak, and dependent. Granted, not all children are functionally capable of being independent. And not all parents have the resources necessary to support, train and educate their child to one day become independent.

Parents who enable, however, populate the world with socially and emotionally immature and functionally inept young adults who may or may not possess the ability to take some degree of responsibility for themselves. Intent on saving, rescuing and being a safety net for their special needs child, they may never find out. Kids who have never done a hard day’s work in their lives may never find out what they’re capable of because mom and/or dad was always there to do it for them. In a culture that prides itself on staunch self-reliance, special needs children may be looked down upon as “Spoiled brats” and “Trust babies” with silver spoons in their mouths. As they grow into adulthood, they may feel fragile, frightened and become reclusive. Or be arrogant, entitled masters of manipulation in their families and society.