The Best Advice for Parents of Adult Children? Don’t interfere.

I’ve gotten to the stage where I now have my own adult children (24 and 29, to be exact). I listened with rapt attention as the elders told me their advice for getting along well with children – after they are grown .

And just about everyone had one piece of advice: When in doubt, don’t interfere with your adult children. When their gone, the elders say, let them go.

Grace, 74, told me:

How do have good relationships with adult children? Oh, I think give them their own life.  Don’t make demands on them. I think any adult, particularly adults with children right now, they have enough on their plate. Don’t make demands. Don’t ask much of them. Just be there for them when they need you.  Try to laugh with them.  And certainly don’t tell them what to do.  Because I think your guess is as good as theirs.

Charmayne, 80, also believes in the “non-interference” principle: ”Well it’s their life.  It’s not my life.  I lived my life the way I wanted to.  I don’t have a right unless they ask me for advice.  As I say, they all have their own way to do things and if they get in trouble and they want some help, they’ll come to me.  That’s all.” She acknowledges, however, that “holding your tongue” can be very difficult:

So one of my daughters, she’s not going to get married.  She said she’s too set in her ways, she likes her life the way it is.  She likes to have a nice clean house and apartment.  She just doesn’t want to have to think about cow-towing to a man or anything.  She likes her life the way it is. And all right, for a while I kept saying “You’ll meet somebody.  Honey, you’ll meet somebody and then you’ll change your mind.”  But then I thought: I know she’s fifty-something now and I don’t think she’s going to get anyone.  So I guess I better let her live her own life and realize that she knows herself then.  She’s thought about it enough, so that’s fine.  That’s her life.  It’s not my life.  I just happen to think the Lord put us on this earth and He said “Be fruitful and multiply.”  But if she doesn’t believe that and she doesn’t want to live by that, that’s up to her.

Conrad, 88, asserts that the time to have your influence is before they move out:

Don’t tell them how to live their lives.  Tell them when they’re home, before they leave.  I’m satisfied that that’s what works out, because the rest of it they’re gonna figure out anyways, you know.

I have taken this advice to heart. It’s hard for me not to give advice, but I’ve learned to wait until my kids ask!

Listen to Your Children

Despite her cheeful good humor, Ida’s memories of her early family life are painful, and for good reason. Her father died  when she was a toddler. Her mother remarried, but then died when Ida was four years old. Her stepfather then remarried, leaving Ida to be raised by him and a new stepmother. She told me: “I didn’t care for my childhood life, so I just don’t talk about it. And I try to teach my children lessons that I have learned.”

Ida, 81, emphasizes spending time with children, because it allows for communication to take place. Most important, she urges parents to listen to their children. Bringing back family dinners is one way to make this happen.

When we had our three children, we got involved with them. You’ve got to do things together, and in this day and age, people aren’t doing things together. I feel that children bring their parents together, except for the ones who haven’t got time. You’ve got to give up some of your pleasures, sometimes, in order to spend time with your kids. When the kids are gone from home, then you can do things on your own.

Yeah, what I feel, I have seen it right around here in my neighborhood. Parents aren’t taking time to listen to that child. You have to listen to them. What are their needs? What would they want? What would they like to do?  Some parents are always so quick to discipline, give them a time out.  No. What you have to do, I feel – is you have to have time for the child. Mom and Dad should sit down and say, “Okay, how did your day go?”

In fact, our dinner table was always that way.  “Well, how did your day go?” we’d ask each one separately. Then we would find out exactly how they went through the day, if they were having problems. We had three children and we were living on $30 a week. The kids ate good and we would have cereal for supper at night after they went to bed. But those were the days; Frank and I used to laugh about them. I try to tell my kids:  “That was hard times, but we made sure you kids always had a good meal in your tummy before you went to bed.”

We used to have dinner as a family, almost every night. I think it’s very important. You should have it now. Yes, I know people are busy now, so you go to McDonalds, Burger King. All those fast food. All right. But you know something? If that’s what you choose for your dinner, okay, but you sit down, you talk to the child.  Did you have anything interesting happen today? What were your stressing points today?” Get feedback from the kids.

A “Magic Bullet” for Fathering? Here’s a Tip from the Elders

Amid the gifts and Father’s Day festivities, an undercurrent of confusion can be detected. As a dad for over 30 years, I know that figuring out what constitutes “good fathering” can be something of a challenge. We live in a society of rapidly shifting roles and responsibilities, and many fathers (and mothers, of course) are looking for what makes parenting really “work.”

So what if, out of the enormous muddle of child-rearing advice, there was something close to a “magic bullet?” What if there was one course of action you could take to create life-long, loving relationships with your children, serve as an “early warning system” for problems your kids are having, and lead to positive relationships throughout life?

In our interviews with over 1,200 of the oldest Americans for the book on the Legacy Project, we asked them in detail for their advice about parenting. I think they qualify as experts, given that they have raised a total of nearly 4,000 children. In our hectic and driven society, parents look endlessly for programs, gimmicks and therapies to improve their relationships with children. But what do the elders say?

According to them, there is one key to successful parenting: Spend more time with your children. And if necessary, sacrifice to do it. The elders tell us that there is one great contribution to lifelong closeness for which there is no substitute: Your time.

In their opinion, your kids don’t want your money (or what your money buys) anywhere near as much as they want you. Specifically, they want you, with them. Parents who work double-shifts to keep the family afloat may have no choice. But if you and your spouse work 70-hour weeks to buy consumer goods and take lavish vacations, they say you are misusing your time. Even if it means doing with less, America’s elders tell you that what you will regret at their age is not spending time with your children. And it’s what your children will regret, too.

They also told me that the activity you and your kid engage in is not particularly important: It’s the shared time. In off moments during whatever the activity may be, there’s time to talk, to share confidences, to connect. And in those activities, the miracle of real communication sometimes occurs.

I remember an essay by former treasury secretary Robert Reich about his sons. He used the analogy of a clam to emphasize that to really know our children we need to be there at exactly the right moment. Our kids are often closed up tightly like clamshells, hard on the outside but with a soft and vulnerable interior. Suddenly and unexpectedly, however, they will decide to open up, and if you’re not there, Reich says, “you might as well be on the moon.”

This is why time spent together is so critically important. No scheduling of “quality time” (whatever that is) has you there at the precise moment when Matthew decides to tell you that what is really putting him in such a bad mood is the English teacher who just hates him, or when Allison will reveal that yes, there is this one boy in her Spanish class…

Clayton Greenough, 79, has very close relationships with his son and daughter, both of whom settled nearby as adults. When asked for his lessons for child-rearing, he reflected on the importance of going along with children’s interests, making them shared activities.

Maybe it’s maybe an old fashioned way of speaking, but I feel that it’s pretty important to stick with them. I know when my son was about 12 or so, he was fascinated by anything with an engine on it, even with lawn mowing. Generally I tried to go along with him. With lawn mowing, for instance, I finally said “okay, you can push it” but I stayed with him and worked with him for a while.When he was a sophomore in high school, I started putting up a shed in our back yard. And he had just gotten into a carpenter shop at high school at the time. I had him help me there, and before I knew it, I’d come home from work and he was sitting out there with a tool box waiting to go ahead with some work. And ultimately this led him down a road where he actually saw the need for measuring and things like that, and started to recognize that there is some value to arithmetic and mathematics.

And he eventually wound up being a mechanical designer. Now if I hadn’t been available to him at that time, I’m not sure what course he might have taken. So many of things that he’s doing now were initiated because we spent time together. I think the fact that there was somebody who was there and interested in what he was interested in.

Interestingly, the elders often highlighted time shared in mundane daily activities and interactions, rather than memorable “special occasions.” Their message is to involve your children routinely in your activities, and this requires your physical presence for large blocks of time.

Larry Handley, 84, described how important such experiences were for his children:

When they get old enough to kind of help you around, you know, let them help doing things or cleaning. Maybe you’re out digging in the garden or something, or whatever, to share in the chores around the house or the yard. Helping either the mother or the father, doing things that are not always that easy or pleasant, but you know, to get it done. So, these are things that you don’t realize but they do come along for their whole life, they can enjoy those things and you can too.

Time spent with children is critical for another reason: It serves as a key “early warning” system for emerging problems. Betsey Glynn, 78, has two children, a son and a daughter. She was able to head off problems in their lives because she was right there with them:

It’s so important, while your kids are growing up, to be with them and support them. Because otherwise you don’t really have a clue what their direction is, what they like and don’t like and what they want to give their time to and what they’re doing with it. This way we not only went to their games or concerts, but we met the other kids on the team or in the band or whatever it was. Otherwise they would have gone off and who knows who they would have associated with?Let me tell you, if your kids have a concert or a game, you should put aside whatever it is — if the house needs fixing up or the laundry needs doing, it’ll wait. It’s more important to devote your time to whatever they’re interested in. Otherwise you’re going to lose them. They’ll become strangers.

So to those of us getting ready to be acknowledged on Father’s Day, America’s elders bring home three key points. First, it’s your time that kids want and they will look back on the hours together with fondness and nostalgia. The elders remember this from their own families — indeed, it is the source of most of their pleasant memories about childhood. Second, what counts the most are shared activities — time spent in hobbies, sports, camping, hunting, and fishing (it’s extraordinary how many older men cherish hunting or fishing trips with their fathers), and in seeking out a new interest together. Third, the elders agree that we should be willing to sacrifice to have that kind of time. If you are going to have kids, they say, it’s worth it to live on less to be able to be with them.

Child-Rearing: More than Just Making Them Happy

We make child-rearing unbelievably complex. We read books, attend classes, go to counselors, make ourselves sick with worry. The elders I interviewed in the Legacy Project raised about 3,000 children, have watched their own offspring rear grandchildren, and were themselves raised by parents — and have had a good, long time to think about their own upbringing.

One thing they believe is that child-rearing is more than just making children happy. That’s important, but they also want children to be strong, purposeful, and moral.

Shirley, 90, is an award-winning teacher and mother of two. She told me:

We need to help the child to prepare for living. We need to show the child how to become a good citizen. To be honest, to be loyal, to stand up for what is right, and never to give in with social trends. Because each person is different but we all are together and we’re all a part of one another. A poet said, ‘No man is an island by themselves, everyone is a part of the whole.’ So in keeping with that situation, it’s necessary that every child learn to get along with others. To learn that they have a responsibility to use their God-given potential to the best of their ability. And we should guide them and direct them and really make them the kind of Americans that we need. And that’s just about it really.

With Children, It’s All About Time

Many of the elders believe that when it comes to child-rearing, there’s one thing your kids want more than anything else: your time. Paul, 80, when asked about the key to successful child-rearing fully endorsed the idea that time spent together is the most important thing. Ultimately, the lesson came from his daughter:

Pay attention to your kids and read to them and be with them and help them grow up and I don’t think you do that from afar. I always read to my daughter when she was growing up and my parents always read to me. It’s a marvelous way to interact with them because they really appreciate it and they’ll tell you years later. That’s one of the things you do.

 Tragically, Paul’s daughter became ill with cancer in her fifties, and after a long battle, died. She let him know how important the time spent together was:

 The other thing I remember, when my daughter was so ill, she said, “You know, the one thing I always appreciated from you and mom was that you attended my events, my high school games, my band performances, all those kinds of things.” You don’t get that when they’re in their teens. When they get to be about 30, they say that was good, that was good for me to have you there. She was in the marching band and we always went to those things. Well I’ll say this, following a marching band and a football team around – I think that’s what you do with your kids, you have to be with them. They’re a project you have to do. Hopefully you teach them some of the principles you believe in.

Lesson for Parenting Adult Children: Be Careful about Giving Advice

One thing we often forget is that parents and children spend the majority of their livesadult children together after the kids become adults! The elders in the Legacy Project had very useful advice for negotiating relationships between parents and their adult children. Two elders share their lessons for negotiating this very important, but sometimes touchy, relationship.

Marv, 83, successfully raised two children. He points out that all the stress of child-rearing doesn’t end when they become adults:

I think to a certain extent your offspring are always children. One always wants one’s children to be happy, and I suppose it’s the most disturbing thing for parents is when they can’t see happiness in their adult children’s lives or their children’s relationships or  in their marriages.You worry about aspects of their interactions with their partners and when you can see that the way they’re interacting is not productive. You worry about your children. When they’re adults, you worry about as much when they’re adults as when they were not adults.

Of course, one outgrowth of this worry is the desire to give advice. Charles recommends that it it possible to advise children, but that the approach must be subtle.

I think giving advice requires great subtlety. Well, your adult children sometimes ask you for advice, and sometimes it becomes clear that they are not looking for advice, they’re simply looking for understanding of their points of view. So I think it’s easy for children to misinterpret your real feelings about them, and feel more pressure than one thinks they should be feeling. It’s up to the parent to be subtle enough that you are able to refrain from expressing your attitudes, so that the child feels intruded upon, or that you are judging.

Renata, 79, focused on accepting adult children as they are:

With our kids now, there’s good feeling, good relationship. You keep your mouth shut. We made out mistakes, we let them make their mistakes. But I don’t give advice unless they really ask for it. . I feel I can say most anything I want, except I would not interfere with them, even though I see something that I think should be done differently, I wouldn’t express it.

I think some parents expect too much of their kids. I think you have to accept what your kids are willing to do for you and not complain because they don’t do more for you. I think you just have to sort of give them freedom to live their lives knowing that they’re there if you need them and they know you’re there if they need you. So I think you have to stand back.

Any advice for getting along with your adult children? What’s worked for you?

The Secrets of Communicating with Adult Children

communicating with adult childrenMany of the elders in the Legacy Project had one piece of advice about getting along with one’s adult children: Don’t interfere in their lives, and wait for them to come to you for advice. But what when they do ask your opinion, what are some good ways to communicate?

I have been conducting research on this issue, as part of a project to understand family estrangement and reconciliation. My new book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them provides additional guidance for overcoming problems with adult children.

Tom, 82, has warm and supportive relationships with his three middle-aged sons. He recognizes that sometimes one is called upon to give advice to adult children; indeed, they ask for it. A problem, of course, is that parents are naturally invested in their children, and it is difficult for them to step outside of their own needs to objectively evaluate the choices their child must make.

Tom’s advice: Take the “I” out of the conversation:

Yeah, the big advice is always be open minded. Forget the business of ‘I’ centered and put the focus on ‘you’ centered. The son that you’re talking to and who has issues that he wants to discuss and forget the ‘I’, or at least put the I in the background so that at least he understands that he’s getting the benefit of your wisdom. You, who can govern how much ‘I’ to project, can inject information or guidance when it’s appropriate, not to dominate the conversation but to augment what the son wants to say. I think it’s a delicate balance of diplomacy among family members. I’ve not always done well.

Grace, 75, found that her enjoyment of her children increased as they grew older and became adults; it was the “pay-off” for more difficult earlier years.

I think by the time my kids were a little bit older and they were able to accept their parents for who they were, as I was with my mother, then it was great. I have enjoyed my children as adults so much, so, so much, and it’s something no one ever said to me. They always would say when the kids were young, “Oh, these are the wonderful years, these are the best years.” They were lovely years, but there is something just as lovely or more lovely when they are adults and you could talk to them as another human being. To know your children as adults is great.

She shares her thoughts with her kids, but accepts that her advice may be turned aside.

Well, there again, I think – don’t be too critical. In fact, don’t be critical at all. Accept them, accept what they’re doing. But I for example just wrote my daughter giving her some financial advice, and said, “I’m giving this to you with love not with criticism,” because she just does such stupid things financially. So – and she will read it, and maybe she’ll do it and maybe she won’t, but I’m perfectly willing to accept it that way.

Home for the Holidays? Here’s Wisdom on How to Enjoy It

It’s the time of year when extended families – who may not see much of one another during the year – come together to celebrate the seasonal holidays. If popular culture is to be believed, many parents and their adult children (and in-laws) look forward to the holiday with a mix of pleasure and worry about how everyone will get along. My surveys of approximately 2000 elders translate to the experience of around 160,000 Christmases or Hanukkahs. Here’s their elder wisdom for how families can have a harmonious holiday together.

Eliminate Politics from the Dinner Table Discussion

When you are together at the holidays, the elders advise, make contentious political arguments out of bounds. The elders say that these conflicts are simply unnecessary. Often, the urge is to make your loved ones “really understand” what’s going on in society and to show them how irrational or wrong-headed they are politically. The elders’ advice: Get your family to make it a rule to take noisy and unnecessary political debates off the table. (Remember, we’re not talking here about a lively, enjoyable political discussion; they mean the kind that ends with slamming doors and a spouse crying in the car).

Gwen Miles, 94, after many angry family fights over Democrats versus Republicans put her foot down: “I made the rule that there would be no discussions of politics when we were all together. And I said to my husband: “If Dad starts in about politics, I’m going to walk out of the room and you come see what’s wrong with me because I don’t want to hear this anymore.” The elders recommend applying this same rule to other “hot-button” issues  When buttons are pushed on a repetitive and sensitive topic, “just saying no” to the debate is an excellent – and potentially relationship-saving – option.

Don’t Try to Fix Each Other’s Life at the Holidays

When it comes to parents relating to their adult children, the elders are unequivocal: Let them live their own lives. They sum up this principle as: Don’t interfere unless they ask for your help. As Harriet, age 79, told me: “Give your kids their own lives. Don’t make demands on them. Just be there for them when they need you. And certainly don’t tell them what to do.” Joyce, 90, agreed: “It’s their life. It’s not my life. They all have their own way to do things and if they get into trouble and want some help, they’ll come to me.” Christmas dinner is not the time to exhort your child to get out of a relationship or get into one, to get a new job or stay in the old one, or to get his or her life on track. And the same holds true in the other direction: This is not the time for adult offspring to push the folks to sell the house or to start exercising. Let the holiday also be a break, the elders say, from trying to change one another.

Don’t Take Everything Personally 

The elders recommend an important strategy when the family is all together: de-personalize negative interactions as much as you can. By considering, for example, how parents’ (or parents-in-law’s) background and upbringing influence their attitudes and behavior, it’s possible to take conflict less personally and achieve some emotional distance in the relationship. Annie, 81, lived near her parents-in-law for most of her married life and the relationship was not an easy one. But when they got together on holidays, she made this rule: “Rather than assume the worst, it’s more helpful to assume that they are saying things to you because they want to help their child and you. Try to realize that their intentions are good and sometimes people, especially as they get older, can’t change the way they deal with others in their life.” Parents can take the same approach toward their adult children.

Remind Yourself Why You Are Doing It

This final tip from the elders is one that many have used like a mantra in difficult family situations. Tell yourself this: the effort to accommodate your family is one of the greatest gifts you can offer – both to them, and to yourself. The closest thing to a “magic bullet” for motivating yourself to put the effort into a Christmas gathering, the elders tell us, is to remember that you are doing it because you love your family. Talking about in-laws, Gwen said: “You may not like your in-laws very much but you certainly can love them and stay close to them.” According to our elders, stepping back and taking this larger view can get you through the mince pie with a minimum of stress.

 

Love Your Kids – But Don’t Be a Pushover

One thing that surprised me in interviews with the Legacy Project elders was that, in general, they don’t approve of physical punishment of children. But that definitely does not mean they don’t believe in setting firm limits.  They believe in firmness, but they also acknowledge the need to strike a balance between respect and discipline. Here’s what some of them told me:

Yes, you need to set limits on them, don’t wait until they are teenagers and say you have to do this, you have to start when they are quite young. In fact, from the day they’re born; you start from the day they’re born and you set limits on your children. You have to love them but you also have to be stern enough to set limits. (Jeanette, 79)

 Well, you’ve got to be firm but not overbearing, you have to set a good example, and you don’t need a lot of rules, you just need to let them know what you expect and you get their respect. (Manuel, 83)

It’s a case of being consistent. When you’re raising a bunch of kids you’ve got to be consistent in your discipline and your handling of them, and yet at the same time understand them and help to see their point of view and help them along the way with what they want to do with their lives without being too pushy on the whole subject. (Guy, 72)

Well,  if you’re going to raise children, you’ve got to raise them right. You can’t turn them loose and let them go and do things that they want to do because they get into too much trouble. Discipline is important. I don’t like no squabbling in the house, if they’re going to do that, let them get in the yard and fight it out. (Queenie, 85)

Don’t Play Favorites with Your Children: It Can Last a Lifetime

There’s a theme that struck me in talking with elders about the families they grew up in. Of all the things that left an unhappy feeling about their childhoods, parental favortism was right up at the top. I had respondents in their seventies, eighties, and nineties tear up about memories of being the unfavored child.

Christine, 77, was the middle child, with one brother and one sister. When asked about lessons she learned from her childhood, she emphasized the dangers of favoritism.

I would say my family was dysfunctional, as most of them are, I suppose. I don’t look back a great deal on my childhood because it was what it was, and I accepted it, and I don’t have any excuses for my own life because of my childhood. I don’t really think that’s a great thing to do. Life progresses, and everybody has their own issues with growing up, and you have to get past that. But I think being a middle child, it was difficult.

My brother went in the service because he got in some trouble and that was the way out. You know what I mean? And my younger sister was always favored very much so in the whole family, especially by my dad. I think it bothered my mother tremendously.

The unequal treatment had lifelong repercussions for Christine:

I think the hardest think in life, for me, is relationships with people. I think because we’re all so very different and I think that’s one thing that I was not taught was that we are different and especially in my immediate family, with my sister. And I think we were never taught to believe that we were different people, and that we had to accept each other’s differences. And therefore it caused an awful lot of friction in our lives.

That experience taught me a great deal in accepting people the way they are. Not to say that I can always do that, because as I said, that’s the hardest thing in the world to do for me. But like I say, I got through that through the grace of God.

The message I took home from stories like this is: Be very aware about showing favoritism to children. If kids are treated very differently, it’s not something they easily forget – even after seventy or more years.