When a parent singles out a child for special privileges and attention, that child is often unaware that the relationship is unhealthyeven incestuous. As adults, these children struggle to feel validated, because while they have not been directly abused, they feel a sense of violation and crossed boundariesusually done in the name of 'love' and 'caring.' The parent's love feels more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, more intrusive than nurturing. Yet these children suffer from what psychologist Kenneth Adams calls The Silent Seductionbecause there is nothing loving or caring about a close parent-child relationship that services the needs of the parent rather than the child.
