How to Set Boundaries With Immigrant Parents

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If you're an adult child of immigrants, you may feel guilt and shame when putting your own needs ahead of your family's. That's because immigrant families face a unique challenge called acculturative stress. This occurs when immigrant children neither correspond to levels of parental acculturation nor conform to parental guidance, leading to role reversal and intensified parent-child conflict. It gets even worse when your country of origin's values are so collective and family-oriented—a contrast from America's individualist ideals.

Because of these polarizing ideologies, the concept of "family first" and "blood is thicker than water," immigrant children can feel guilty and shameful when setting boundaries and being emotionally vulnerable with their parents, especially if their needs contradict with the family's needs and values. Furthermore, immigrant children often feel guilty when thinking about their parents' sacrifices and how much they have suffered to provide for the family and give them opportunities that they themselves never got to have.

Due to these sacrifices, immigrant children tend to suppress their needs and desires, especially if their parents don't approve of them. According to Boutakidis et al.,"Parental respect among Asian families is conveyed through a facesaving style of intrafamilial communication, whereby children avoid causing embarrassment or shame in their parents." This makes it difficult for immigrant children to set boundaries with their parents and to go against their wishes.

Overcoming the Guilt, Shame, and Embarrassment of Expressing Your Needs

The first step to identifying your needs is to overcome the guilt and shame of having them in the first place. If you're feeling guilty, a question you might want to ask is, Did I do something bad here? Most likely, you haven't, which indicates that what you're feeling is shame—the belief that you are bad. But does having your own needs and values mean that you're a bad person?

Children tend to internalize that they are bad, rather than believe that their caregivers—the ones who are supposed to provide them with life's necessities—are bad. When primary caregivers exploit and abuse a child, the child learns that he or she is bad and the world is a terrible place. This is why children grow up feeling ashamed, even if they weren't necessarily in the wrong. Therefore, it's important to ask yourself, Am I bad for having needs? Then you'll want to ask yourself, Do I want to make decisions based on obligations or love?

Oftentimes, it's easier to show compassion to someone other than yourself. So, it might be helpful to explore, if you had a child yourself, how would you feel about them having needs? If your child expressed their needs and boundaries, how would you respond to them?

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Identifying and Setting Boundaries

Collective families tend to struggle with enmeshment, in which boundaries are nonexistent. Therefore, individuals in these families face an additional challenge of having to be the pioneer who draws the lines for the family. Oftentimes these parents struggle to see where they end and their children start. Thus, an important place to start would be to identify where you start by acknowledging your own needs and values.

Your family might have high hopes and expectations that you work in a certain field or follow their religion and ideologies, but this might not align with your own personal values. At the end of the day, living according to someone else's values often leads to feelings of resentment and unhappiness. This is why boundaries are important—they're there to protect you.

It might be hard for immigrant parents to understand because they likely did not grow up with boundaries as it is a Western concept. Moreover, boundaries in immigrant families might not look the same as those of more acculturated families. Immigrant parents will likely need to be taught how to accept these boundaries through repetition, modeling, and maybe even family therapy. Even though these concepts are new and might not work for every family, it can be hard to deal with the cognitive dissonance of living in a world where everyone else gets to have boundaries, but you don't. Therefore, it can be helpful to think of it as breaking a cycle of intergenerational trauma—we're all either breaking cycles or perpetuating them.

How to Communicate Your Boundaries

The hardest part about setting boundaries with immigrant parents is actually communicating them. People avoid communicating their boundaries because they assume their parents won't honor them, due to past trauma, and they don't give their parents a chance to prove them wrong.

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What these adult children of immigrants don't realize is that they are adults now. It's easy to revert back to a child when you're in front of your parents—that's called a trauma response. But, in reality, adults have agency and the power to make change happen if they can muster the courage to get through the discomfort of confrontation.

Try communicating your boundaries using "I" statements and nonviolent communication skills. There are four parts: observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Here are some examples:

When I hear comments about who I should or shouldn't date or marry, I feel frustrated because I need and value my independence and freedom. Would you be willing to refrain from offering unsolicited advice?

When I hear your voice get louder, I feel scared because I need and value feeling safe. Would you be willing to lower your voice?

Keep in mind, you are not responsible for their response, only for your delivery.

It might take some repetition and practice, and they might be resistant at first. But you'll also never know what they're capable of if you don't give them the opportunity to show you.