One thing we often forget is that parents and children spend the majority of their lives 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?