The antinomy of closeness and distance is inherent in all pedagogical fields and particularly characterises everyday life in residential childcare facilities. In order to shed light on how young recipients of inpatient educational support perceive closeness and distance in different situations with professionals, group discussions were conducted with young people from inpatient educational support facilities and analysed using the documentary method.The analysis shows that the young people perceive different situations as characterised by closeness insofar as the role-specific asymmetrical character of the relationship with the caregivers becomes blurred and the roles diffuse. Taking the perspective of the addressees into account is part of the development of an adequate relation between closeness and distance and thus a prerequisite for dealing adequately with dilemmatic pedagogical situations.