WALKING ON
EGGSHELLS
Negotiating the fragile
relationships with
our adult children

By ROSEMARY J. STAUBER

Many parents of adult children are treading softly, seemingly never knowing what sets off their offspring. They don’t understand why the children get so upset when the parents were only “trying to help.”

The job of the young adult is to mature, take on the responsibilities of school, then work and a family. For the most part, they want to do it their way. Yes, they will make mistakes, as did we. And they will learn from them.

Jane Isay wrote a book titled Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the delicate relationship between adult children and parents. In it, she described several families. A few were basically good, mutually supportive relationships. Most were strained at best. Some adult children move their families far from their parents to avoid interference. By wanting to stay involved with their children, these parents are driving the young families away.

Ms. Isay gives succinct advice about advice:

Don’t give it.
They don’t like it.
They don’t want it.
They resent it.

Several mothers have come to me depressed because their adult children don’t call, write or visit often enough. They reveal that when the children do call, the mothers spoil the moment by lamenting about how long it’s been, etc. My work with them involves helping them to find interests of their own. As their kids put it, to “get a life.”

One mother was so successful at this as she re-entered the work force in her late 60s that her kids were calling her and complaining because they didn’t hear from her enough.

Research points to the importance of loving, mutually supportive relationships for the maintenance of emotional and physical health, especially as we age. A strained relationship with family members is hard on all of us in many ways.

Here are some guidelines for working through the problems in these relationships:

• Be willing to take a hard look at yourself and your own mistakes and talk about them with your children.

• Communicate. I teach an 11-hour course on communication. Most of us have fallen into patterns that block communication.

Some tips: Stay away from words like should, must, ought to, need to, never, always and “why” questions. These tend to produce defensiveness in others. Use “I” messages. A complete message will contain the three elements “I think, I feel, I want.” (Instead of “You never bring the grandkids over anymore,” experiment with “I haven’t seen the grandkids in two months. I’m saddened by this and I want to see them more often.”) Then negotiate over who transports them.

When getting into touchy areas emotionally, stop. Don’t counter the statement. Instead, reflect what you’re hearing and the emotions you’re picking up on. Then check out if you’re correct, and negotiate for a resolution. This serves to let the listeners know you are hearing them, and it validates feelings and beliefs

• Show respect. Parents and adult children do not necessarily agree on values, and respect for the other’s view goes a long way toward ameliorating the differences.

• Let go! I submit that most of us who try to be over-involved with the other generation feel extremely responsible for them. When we are trying to do something for those who could do it for themselves, we are overstepping. It’s important to let go and allow them to make their own mistakes and learn from them. It takes a great deal of wisdom to know what others can and cannot do in taking care of themselves.

• Refrain from blaming others or claiming credit.

• Maintain your sense of humor, and refuse to take life too seriously.

• If you come to an impasse in either direction, seek professional help.

I have recently re-established contact with an old friend, Linda Gottlieb, who I know to be an astute observer of human nature. I asked her for her thoughts and experiences on the issue. She summed it up nicely with this:

Perhaps success in this area of life needs some tough introspection. Always a challenge and always difficult to do. But with that may come a degree of distancing from parenting altogether. If some interior work gets done, then one returns to the fact of parenting with fresh eyes.

Just supposing, here. But it does seem true that the better you know yourself, the better able you are to break old patterns and give your adult children much needed psychological and emotional space. In that new space, it's possible to see them as interesting human beings, people you would like to spend time with. Not parenting, just spending enjoyable time with.

I couldn’t say it better myself.

Rosemary J. Stauber, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in San Antonio and founding director of the Bexar County Women’s Center.