Parenting Adult Children

Remember when your children were infants and needed to be fed, bathed, clothed, and nurtured? And with their inconsistent sleep schedules, you wondered if you would ever get enough rest and prayed God would provide you with the necessary energy to function.

As the children entered grade-school, their needs shifted to keeping them on a morning/bedtime schedule, morning routines (helping them find their school clothes, making school lunches and getting their backpacks ready), helping with homework and attending parent-teacher conferences, and driving them all over Timbuktu for soccer, dance, gymnastics, karate, and whatever else they were involved in.

Then come the dreaded teen years, where you wonder who your little darling has turned into. The period of time where you teach them about healthy sexuality, healthy relationships, critical thinking skills, and individual responsibility, and then attempt to guide them into a vocation or profession.

As children complete the stage of adolescence, they will eventually enter the world of young adulthood. And believe it or not, your adult children still need parental guidance. Although, if you attempt to use the same parenting strategies when they were young, you will be “barking up the wrong tree.”

Parenting Expert Jim Burns, in this book “Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut & The Welcome Mat Out,” offers the following principles and advice:

1) Your role as a parent must change - be encouraging but not intrusive, and be caring but do not enable dependency. Invest in your emotional, physical, and spiritual health, have serious fun, and leave an impactful legacy.

2) Unsolicited advice is usually taken as criticism – trust that experience is a better teacher than advice, and show respect since no adult wants to be told what to do. You are now a mentor and coach, and your words have the power to bless and curse.

3) You can’t ignore your adult child’s culture – they are shaped by technology, they expect everyone to get a blue ribbon, they don’t live to work- they work to live. They want a healthy marriage and family, they consider tolerance an essential trait of a loving person, they prioritize adventure seeking, many struggle with pornography usage, many cohabitate, and many struggle with trying to find their faith.

4) They will never know how far the town is if you carry them on your back – know the difference between enabling your children versus helping them, negotiate boundaries, express expectations clearly, implement effective/timely consequences when necessary, and develop action plans.

5) Your job is to help them transition from dependence to independence – so land the helicopter and quit hoovering, avoid strong criticism and judgmental statements, shift your role from parent-child to adult-adult, cheer on their progress towards adult responsibility, allow them to control the amount of time they spend with you, stop accommodating them, encourage hope, and view emerging adulthood as a rite of passage.

6) You can’t want it more than they do – even good parents have children that make poor choices. Offer adult children tough love, don’t bail them out, don’t be a one-topic parent, and don’t dump your anger and frustration on them. Find support for yourself, seek professional wisdom and counsel for difficult issues, relinquish your children to God’s care, maintain a climate of openness and grace, refuse to beat yourself up, and continue to influence them.

7) Financial independence and responsibility is the goal – develop a clear exit strategy and foster independence. Teach them healthy financial principles such as spend less than you make, debt is slavery, delayed gratification is the answer, giving, and saving. Don’t be afraid to talk about money, especially when it hasn’t been handled well, and consider talking about estate planning.

8) Wear beige and keep your mouth shut – don’t make your child choose between you and their new family, don’t stub your toe on old family issues, offer support, and negotiate holidays for a win-win.

9) Being a grandparent may be your greatest legacy – be present, fun, and generous, build life-long memories and traditions, offer grace constantly, celebrate everything, recognize your role as a mentor, and keep supporting your adult children in their role as parents.

Written by Chad Anderson, LPC

LifeSpring Behavioral Health

LifeSpring Behavioral Health

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