Ways to Improve Relationships Between Adult Children and Parents
- Ever wonder why parenting adult children can be tricky
- Do you feel it’s hard to keep a normal parent adult child relationship?
- Want to learn how to strengthen your relationship with parents in adulthood?
From time to time, we hear issues such as these. You may think about divorcing your parents as adults. As a parent, you long for a warm, close, emotionally safe relationship with your grown child, but reality made you ask “why my grown daughter is distant from me?” This article will explain why parents’ and children’s relationship changes, problems they may face, and ways to strengthen their bond.
Why Parenting Adult Children Gets Hard
As children grow up, our relationship with parents starts to change. Indeed, a transition occurs when a child grows and a parents gets older. That is, both parties are aging and changing in their lives. Kids who once told their mom everything might now go to their best friends to vent and seek advice. A parent who once did everything for their child now feels different since they moved out. Parenting adult children can become tricky and these relationships may need some work. Typical issues children and parents face usually include the following:
1. Encountering New Relationships
When you were a toddler and got hurt, you would run to your mom and tell her to comfort you and make it better. As a child, you are dependent on your parents for love and support. When you grow older and become more social in the world, you will start to meet more people.
Friendships will form, and relationships will develop. Adult children might now rely on their friends or partners more often than their parents. Sometimes, the communication between adult children and their parents can feel like it’s lacking because the family dynamic is shifting and relationships are changing.
2. Power Struggles
As children grow up, parents may struggle treating them as adults. Your dad may still see you as his “little girl” when you want to be taken seriously as an adult. You may get annoyed because you feel like your mom still babies you even though you try to appear more mature and capable of handling things. Parenting adult children can come with certain power struggles.
As kids get older, they yearn for more independence. Teens often become rebellious if they are under the watch of strict parents and will do crazy things to hang out with their friends and socialize. Kids will sneak out, lie to their parents, or make excuses to have the independence they desire. When you live at home with your parents, you may feel like you still have to sneak out or be secretive even as an adult.
On the other hand, your parents still view you as impressionable and young – in their eyes, you have so much to learn, and they just want to protect you from the world.
3. Dating and Relationship Disagreements
Every family has different rules when it comes to dating. Some dads swear that their daughters will never date until they are 100 years old! Other parents can’t wait to see their adult child get married and have a bunch of grandkids. When you become an adult and enter into more serious relationships, this can cause tension in your family. If your parents disapprove of your partner, problems will form. These type of situations can make parenting adult children difficult.
Some parents will think that the partner their child is dating isn’t good enough for them, gives off bad vibes, or just isn’t “the one.” In unfortunate cases, some parents won’t accept who their child is dating because of their skin color or sexual identity.
4. Realizing Your Parents Aren’t Perfect
A tough pill for adult children to swallow is that their parents are not the perfect people they may have once looked at. When you are a kid, your parents might seem like they know everything about anything. Your mom always knows where your lost items are, and your dad always knows random facts about history topics that you learned about in class. They are always sharing the wisdom they’ve gained from their own lives, and (even if you hate to hear them say “I told you so”) they were often right.
With age, you may realize that your parents were never perfect. Here’s a reminder that there’s no such thing as a perfect parent. You may embrace this idea more when and if you become a parent yourself. There’s no rule book or perfect guidelines that parents can follow, so they will be flawless when raising you. Parents are humans, too, and they make mistakes like anyone else
5. Aging Parents
Adult children will also have to deal with their parents’ health concerns as they get older. Unfortunately, many kids lose their parents at an early age due to tragedies or accidents. They wish they could have had their parents for longer and feel like the world took them way too soon. Even as an adult, and after all the years you spend with your parents, it still feels like it’s never enough. We wish our parents would forever, but sadly that isn’t the case.
Adult children start taking on responsibilities and helping their parents with more and more things. For example, driving a parent to a doctor’s appointment, picking up their groceries, etc.
6. Living Together or Apart
Children will eventually leave the nest move away on to their own. It can be challenging to move away from your family, especially if the distance is vast. Maintaining relationships with people you once lived with every day can be challenging as you get older. You once were able to go into the living room and watch your dad, but now you have to call them or come visit to see them. This planning can cause distance between children and parents, unfortunately.
On the flip side of this, you may be living at home as an adult child in your twenties – this comes with its own issues and concerns – this happens commonly after children move home after graduating college. There can be power struggles in the house because your parents still view you as a child under their roof while you see yourself as an adult who just so happens to be living with your parents. Your parents may want you to start paying rent and have more duties around the house, and you may be resisting these changes.
Ways to Improve Adult Children and Parent Relationships
Here are a few ways to help with developing and maintaining relationships between parents and adult children.
1. Good Communication Skills when Parenting Adult Children
Having good communication between children and parents is crucial to a healthy relationship. In fact, communication skills are essential in any relationship you have. Both parties just want to be respected, listened to, and how their feelings validated.
Reasons for Good Communication Skills
When parenting adult children, good communication skills promote:
- Honesty and trust
- The ability to talk about complex topics in a mature way
- Not being afraid to express your emotions
- The chance for everyone to have their needs met and discussed
Ways to Improve Communication
First, be a good listener
Sometimes we are so worried about saying the right thing or giving excellent advice that we forget just to lend our ear and listen. Allow someone to tell you how they feel and embrace what they’re saying. Whether you agree or not is up to you, but always try and put yourself in the other person’s shoes and empathize with their situation. Being a good listener means you are curious, ask questions, and want to learn something attentively. In other words, you are not judging or trying to fix anything. You also realize that your children may have expertise in certain aspects; hence you allow them to demonstrate it. In addition, being a good listener means you will try to listen to yourself with an outsider’s ear.
Second, Validate their Emotions
Focus on what you love about your child and his or her life. No one likes to be criticized. When you are sensitive to your children’s emotional needs, you invite exploration in communication. That is to say, you let your grown children know that you heard what they said and they feel safe to bring up their issues. When coming up with the response, think about what you will say. Sometimes we speak out of turn because we don’t think before opening our mouths. Also, speak in a way that is approachable and not hostile.
Third, Face Imperfection
There is no perfect parent in this world. Admitting your mistakes shows that it is OK to make mistakes; or apologizing for them is just ordinary. When you are being honest about your flaws, chances are your children are more willing to communicate with you. When you realize you are not perfect, you may be more ready to education yourself. That is, you will read and talk to people to learn as much as you can about the attitudes of your children’s generation.
Obviously, there will be times when situations are emotional, and things will be upsetting. Try your best to control your anger and if you need space, take that time to cool down and find your calm again. If you feel like you, both are getting too heated, suggest talking another time when you both are ready to handle the situation more calmly.
Fourth, Foster Trust.
If you don’t feel like you can trust someone or that they will not care what you’re going to say, you will not likely feel comfortable opening up to them. Keep what they say with you and honor it. For example, if your child wants to discuss something with you that might be embarrassing, respect their privacy and don’t share it with everyone else. A child’s privacy and respect are just as important as a parent’s. Each party needs to feel like they can trust the other person that they will hear them out and treat their concerns with care.
2. Set Healthy Boundaries
Boundary setting is essential while parenting adult children. As children get older and become adults, they will probably not share everything with their parents. For example, some adult children might want to keep their casual relationship more private until it becomes more serious. On the other hand, parents may not like to share every detail of their lives with their children either. Each person needs to identify their boundaries and what they are comfortable with within this relationship. Setting boundaries and sharing them with the other person is essential in improving your bond.
When parenting adult children, you need to respect other their boundaries, and they need to respect yours. For example, if you still live at home, you may want to set boundaries with your parents, and they might want to set some with for living in the house.
You might not want your parents to go through your room and your stuff because you feel like you are an adult and entitled to your privacy. On the other hand, your parents might not be comfortable with you bringing your date back for the night. These discussions need to happen, and you should all communicate your comfort levels in the house. If you disagree on something, try finding a compromise.
3. Take on New Perspectives
Parents need to accept that their adult children are adults; meanwhile, adult children need to accept that their parents are human. Parents may find it hard to look at the child they once babied and raised as a full-grown adult. Adult children may find it hard to look at their parents, who they viewed as superior their whole life, to now be adults. Each party needs to see each other for who they are and respect each other.
Parents need to treat their children as adults. Children also need to act like adults if they want to be treated like adults. For example, if you want your parents to start treating you more like an adult, you should begin doing laundry around the house or making your own doctor’s appointment. You also may be given new responsibilities that you never had before. Your parents may need you to help them out more because they are getting older and expect you to take on some responsibilities.
Ways to Treat Your Adult Children Like Adults
- Respect their privacy and boundaries
- Talk to them like an adult and less like a child
- Refrain from phrases like “because I said so” or “because I’m the parent”
- If your child still lives with you, you might consider asking them to help out with expenses like rent and utilities
- Support their decisions while still trying to help guide them
- Offer advice rather than just telling them what to do (this is especially important when your child becomes a parent and you give them advice)
- Respect and support how they want to live their lives, raise their kids, etc.
Ways for Adult Children to Act More Like Adults:
- Start pulling your weight around the house more if you still live at home
- Communicate clearly and confidently
- Respect your parents’ opinions but ultimately live your life the way you want to
4. Respect and Accept or Create Distance
Agree to Disagree
Sometimes we will just not see eye-to-eye with our parents. As frustrating and upsetting as some situations can get, you both just need to agree to respect each other and try to move past the situation.
Create Distance
Unfortunately, there are situations where you might not be able to pass your differences. For example, you may have grown up in an intolerant and traditional family. How you live your life may differ as you get older to your family’s ways.
In favorable situations, children and parents can meet common ground and respect each other. In more upsetting situations, children may feel like their parents will never accept them. This can be true for people in the LGBTQ+ community. In 2021, The Trevor Project reports that only 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth felt like they were supported and respected in their house. Since 58% of adults (18-24 yrs old) live at home with their parents, they might continue to struggle if their house is not affirming.
This person feels unsupported by their parents and that they just don’t accept them for who they are. This situation can be challenging because you don’t want to sever your relationship with your parents, but you also want to be happy and respected.
It is okay if you decide to leave a toxic situation or person even if they are related to them. Families are supposed to love and support you, and if you don’t feel like you are receiving these things, it is okay to put distance between yourself and these people. You deserve to love yourself/have pride and surround yourself with people who share in that love.
Chosen Families
Remember that chosen families exist for a reason. Sometimes, our families just aren’t meant to stay close and together. Chosen families allow you to pick the people you want in your close circle. These people will give you the love you may have always been searching for.
5. Have Fun Together and Keep Making Memories
Parenting adult children doesn’t always have to be stressful – it can be fun to get to experience new things with each other! Continue to have fun with your parents and do things together as adults! Sometimes, becoming adults make people closer to their parents than they were as kids. You can go out to dinner with your parents, cook with them and learn old family recipes, travel, etc. Continue to have fun with each other and to make more memories.
6. Consider Therapy between Parents and Adult Children
Parenting adult children has its ups and downs. Adult children and their parents have a unique relationship. Just because there are bumps in the road that made happen in this transitional period doesn’t mean that you can’t work it out. Hopefully, you and your parents can sustain a healthy relationship and become closer to one another. If you do chose to put distance between you and your parents, that is okay too. You should never have to be in a toxic situation just because you feel obligated to.
Therapy can help people improve themselves and their relationships. Therapy helps people improve so many things that have been mentioned in this article: improving communication skills, setting boundaries, reframing thoughts and expectations, handling anger, etc.
When you are able to improve yourself, you will be able to navigate relationships better and handle disagreements in a healthy way. Families will always face ups and downs, a therapist can help you navigate these waters and come out stronger on the other side.
At Mind Connections, we help families to handle conflicts between parents and adult children. Whether issues are caused by cultural differences, personality, value systems, or anything else, our therapists are here to assist you to repair your relationship, strengthen your bond, and have a healthy and happy family. Contact us or call us for a free 15-minute consultation, we will help you to match with the right therapist.
Content Creator, Victoria Gallo; Reviewed by Dr. June Cao
Setting boundaries with parents, that’s something I need to learn
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