Parenting Adult Children as They Age

"When I was researching and writing my new book, I knew that the focus would be on identifying ways to parent adult children that results in more harmonious and less stressful contact. But the farther I got into it, interviewing people and reading the research, the more I realized that every decade has its unique challenges and that I needed to fine tune how we communicate with our adult offspring based on their current stage in life."

"While there is no formula for predicting what any individual adult child might need at 25 or 40, each decade has its own predictable demands and challenges. And while an eighteen-year-old boy in the 1940's was likely much more independent than today's late teen, neither had a fully developed prefrontal cortex to guide their behavior and judgment. That doesn't come about until at least age twenty-five."

"Each decade of your adult child's life has its own predictable demands and challenges. Understanding their current life stage, you can adapt your strategies for dealing with them effectively. Make sure that your relationship with your adult child isn't perceived as a demand. When your kids are grown, you still have many years to develop, negotiate and refine your relationships!"

Adult children face decade-specific demands and predictable challenges that shift across the twenties, thirties, forties, and beyond. Parents should adapt strategies to the child's current life stage to create more harmonious and less stressful contact. The twenties are especially unsettled, with competing pulls and developing judgment capacities; the prefrontal cortex typically matures around age twenty-five. Needs of a twenty-two-year-old differ substantially from those of a 45–50-year-old, requiring tailored communication, boundaries, and negotiation. Parents should avoid making relationships feel like demands and continue to develop, negotiate, and refine relationships throughout their children's adult years.

Read at Psychology Today