Many of you presently have, have had, or are about to have, a child in college. Others are parents of an 18-25 year old. If you are, then you are probably familiar with the fact that it is an oxymoron to have an adult child. Are they an adult or are they a child? Legally, assuming they are 18 years old or older, they are completely, unequivocally an adult with all of the rights and privileges of adulthood. This of course, as many of you have already learned, includes precluding you, as the parent, from any and all information regarding academic, economic, medical, or legal situations your “child” may experience. The quandary is that despite their adult status, they are often still very adolescent in their judgment, work ethic, social decision-making and career decision-making. And, to exacerbate matters, they often don’t know what they don’t know. So, it is not just the disparity between their chronological age and their maturational age, they are also unaware of the gap between what they think they know, but don’t really know. As a parent, with little or no legal influence, this becomes very frustrating and the perfect storm.
If you are finding yourself in that “no man’s land” as the parent of your adult child, you already know that you must tread lightly in expressing your opinions and authority. Usurping the control and setting limits has diminished in your ability to influence or even control your adult child. It is almost as if there should be a “provisional adulthood” identical to the “provisional driver’s license.” That way, they can maintain some autonomy and independence, but there would still be legal limits to their autonomy and, as a parent, you still have a semblance of authority to keep them safe and on the right path to full licensure as an adult.
What To Do
If you can relate to this dilemma, or even if you are about to enter the phase of parenting when you have an adult child, the following suggestions can make the process easier and more effective.
- Get to know your child as an adult, think about him or her as an adult-not a child. That involves taking the time to understand and respect his or her social preferences, interests, and goals.
- Although effective communication is always important with any age child, it must be done even more carefully and with more understanding with your adult child
- Stay relevant without being overly controlling. You want to maintain a strong presence in your adult child’s life without being imposing or controlling.
- Shift your mindset and your parental role to be a facilitator, not a dictator. That means, you help them make decisions without telling them what to do. It means providing them with all the information and identifying all of the short-term and long-term consequences of their decisions and of how they are conducting their life.
- You must respect your differences, avoiding judgment.
- Instead of providing your opinion, ask questions to get them to consider factors they may not have considered.
- Make sure you are not enabling dysfunctional behavior. Most adult children in this age range still have financial dependence, to some degree, on their parents. Set reasonable financial limits that hold him or her responsible for their own life.
Walking that fragile tightrope of parenting an adult child can be both frustrating and worrisome. Changing your role from CEO to Consultant is the attitude adjustment you need to adopt. The goal is to find the right balance between imposing too much parental authority and too little. Communicating love and support will always go a long way.
Dr. Michael Osit is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in Warren, and author of The Train Keeps Leaving Without Me: A Guide to Happiness, Freedom, and Self Fulfillment (2016), and Generation Text: Raising Well Adjusted Kids In An Age Of Instant Everything (2008).