PARENTING--AN EVOLVING JOB

Being the parent of a child isn't the same thing as having an child who is an adult. The role shifts.
The professionals and researchers tell us that parents are too involved these days, even coining the phrase "helicopter parent" for parents who hover over their children. There are lots of people to tell you how you're parenting badly and many who claim to have better ways to raise kids. This is a massive concern for many people as parenting is one of the two biggest roles you'll undertake in your life.

In my profession, we've always seen parents of younger troubled children, trying to get a handle on how to best help their kids. Increasingly, however, another parent population is seeking help from therapists.

These are the parents not of troubled five year-olds, but of twenty-five year-olds. Some are struggling to find careers and jobs, many are dealing with other issues that are concerning to their parents, like bad relationships, anxiety disorders or drug problems. Some parents and kids just don't get along.

The reality is that parenting evolves over time. While the word parent can be a verb when children are young, as they enter adulthood it becomes a noun. You are a parent; you have offspring. Younger children require active parenting, but when our children grow into adults, we assume a largely supportive role.

This transition from dependence to independence is as difficult for parents as it is for the maturing child. When kids grow into teens and leave school to make lives of their own, parents aren't needed in the same ways. You don't patch scraped knees or dry nightmare tears. The role is still vitally important, it just assumes a different flavor of difficulty....

When your child was six, it was your job to make sure the homework and household chores were done. With a child of twenty-six, you don't get to intercede in the same ways. Still, the adult child's choices have a great impact on parents' hearts--you still love them the same--but you don't have any say-so over what your child does or doesn't do.
Many parents say they want to keep their kids from making the same mistakes they made. This isn't simple or even possible many times

For some individuals, "mother guilt" has been a long-term problem. Some adults don't even want to call their mothers (or fathers) because they dread the guilt-inducing questions and comments. Parents of adults sometimes assume they get to critique, judge and call the shots in their children's lives for as long as the parents' live. Some even feel this is due them because they brought the child into the world and raised them to maturity.

The problem with this approach is some parents continue to behave as if their kids never reach maturity. It's as if the "child" can never be trusted to live his own life. When an individual becomes an adult, parents need to remember that their role is different. You can no longer intervene for the child--at school or with the law. You no longer have legal responsibility for your child after twenty-one.

This can be very difficult because you love your children so intensely. It's incredibly hard to watch their mistakes and to accept their bad choices, but we must do this and we need to do it without conveying judgment. In reality, a carping, directing, harrassing parent is mostly a distraction from an adult child's learning process.

We all screw up. We make mistakes and learn from the consequences of these. When the mistakes are big and the consequences heart-breaking, it's brutal being a parent...but this can still be a necessary part of the learning curve.

The job of parenting is to prepare your children to be able to function without you. After all, you won't always be here. Like a good therapists, parents are always working themselves out of a job.