No Parent Of Fully Grown Children Should Be Expected To Do 11 Things For Their Kids
Jelena Red Riding Hood | Shutterstock When you hear about parents and adult children going no-contact or becoming estranged, it's usually because of the parent's behavior, not that of their grown kids. In reality, kids often expect too much from their parents once they're fully grown adults, and that can cause serious problems.
Parents sign on for launching kids into a healthy adulthood, weaning them off financial and emotional support until the relationship is balanced and not depleting. Unfortunately, some adult kids don't get the message, and set expectations that eventually warrant some level of estrangement.
11 things no adult child should expect their parents to do for them
1. Lend them money
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There's a thin line between helping kids and enabling them, especially when money is involved. Lending money is one of the major things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids, no matter how much their kids are struggling to make ends meet.
Psychologist and parent coach Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD notes that giving adult kids money doesn't mean they automatically get complete financial leeway, since "holding them accountable for their choices helps them become more financially responsible." He explains that "tying financial support to actions like job hunting or budgeting encourages your adult child to take responsibility for their situation."
Parents always have the option to decide that their financial support is conditional and to take it away or wean them off of it, should the time come when the support becomes enabling.
2. Be their babysitter
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As much as parents love that their adult kids have kids of their own, they should never feel pressured to be the default babysitter. Their kids might decide they're being selfish or withholding, but parents aren't required to step up and raise kids a second time around if they don't actually want to.
They can set limits around how much time and energy they expend on their grandkids, and they should in order to preserve the overall relationship. Becoming a grandparent is a gift, but that doesn't mean parents should be forced to take on the role of designated date night relief for their adult kids.
3. Tip-toe around their adult kids' emotions
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Parents who manage how their adult kids feel create a pattern in which their kids become completely reliant on them or used to being emotionally pampered. This is especially true when the parent tiptoes around to avoid upsetting them irrationally.
These parents enable emotional fragility, which psychologist Nick Wignall described as "the tendency to easily become overwhelmed by difficult emotions [and] the opposite of resilience."
While It's developmentally appropriate for parents to co-regulate their kids' emotions in childhood, continuing that pattern after their kids are grown does more harm than good. Parents should never feel forced to make their adult kids feel better just because they don't know how to do it for themselves.
"If you're in the habit of constantly seeking reassurance and outsourcing your painful feelings to other people, you're telling your brain that you're not capable of handling those difficult feelings yourself," Wignall explained. "Ultimately, your feelings are your responsibility and no one else's."
So, if you're an adult and are still expecting this from your parents, remember that it's bad for them and bad for you.
4. Fix their mistakes
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Sometimes, standing back and letting their adult kids fail is the best gift parents can give. But repeatedly fixing their mistakes is one of the things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids, because it enables their child's sense of learned helplessness. No matter how many times their adult kids need to be bailed out, parents should never feel forced to come to their rescue.
Parents who act like their adult kids' professional fixer hold them back from realizing how resilient they really are. According to Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician, there are 7 "Cs" of resilience: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control.
More than anything else, resilience is about helping kids feel empowered to make their own decisions, which involves letting them make bad decisions.
By making mistakes, kids learn how capable they are, even when the outcome they hoped for doesn't come true. This goes double for adult children, who should stop pressuring their parents to fix their problems.
Parents who carry their adult kids through every single hardship don't help them grow as people, but parents who commit to walking alongside them help them in more ways than they could ever imagine.
5. Take the blame for all their unhappiness
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Kids come into the world without the ability to regulate their emotional experience and need their parents to help them learn how to do this. But parents should never feel forced to accept the blame if their adult kids don't have happy lives.
Emotionally intelligent parents respond to their kids' emotions with empathy. They validate their kids' experience without minimizing their feelings. They offer comfort, so that their kids eventually learn to comfort themselves.
Once their kids grow up, parents need to accept that they did everything in their power to be present and provide emotional coaching, without feeling forced to keep going.
6. Pay for their entire wedding
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Despite all the meaning that wedding traditions carry, paying for a wedding is something parents should never feel forced to do by their adult kids.
This can be confusing, as rules around who pays for in a wedding what keep changing, especially since so many people wait to get married until they're older. Adult kids can hold onto the somewhat outdated expectation that their parents pay for their wedding, but parents should never feel forced to comply.
Setting financial boundaries can protect the relationship parents have with their adult children, especially around events as fraught as a wedding. As magical as it is for parents to walk their adult kids down the aisle and act as witnesses to the loving future they'll share with their spouse, parents aren't under any obligation to cross their own financial boundaries and grown kids should lay off this expectation.
7. Let them live at home indefinitely
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Opening up the family home isn't always the right solution for parents or their adult kids, even when times are tough. Yes, home should always be a safe place to land, but for most adult kids, it should not be a long-term solution.
To determine if the adult child is taking advantage of their parent's kindness, parents should figure out their boundaries and get ready for a conversation. These boundaries parents set should be based in love as well as the best interests of their children. This can help them figure out where to draw the lines.
Healthy boundaries allow parents and their adult children to have healthy, harmonious relationships. By setting boundaries, parents model self-respect to their kids, which is essential for being successful as an adult.
8. Put their own lives on hold
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Putting their lives on hold for their adult kids is something nobody should expect parents to do, at least when there's not a serious emergency or temporary crisis.
Parents who insist on taking care of their adult kids as though they're still kids hold them back from becoming independent, self-sufficient people. Their constant presence keeps their adult kids reliant on them, which means they don't develop the skills they need to separate on an emotional or practical level.
The sooner parents accept that loving their adult kids means letting them go, the more successful their kids can be. And that simply cannot happen when the parent puts their entire life on hold for an adult child.
9. Take responsibility for decisions made by their adult child
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Parents shouldn't be expected to feel responsible for the decisions their adult kids make. Although it's healthy for parents to take responsibility for some of their mistakes when their kids bring up past hurt, their kids should feel empowered to be responsible for their own choices, just like any other adult.
Adult kids have to hold themselves accountable for their actions, even when they mess up. Parents are influential forces in their kids' lives, but eventually the statute of limitations on making everything their fault is up, which means that adult kids have to be responsible for their own choices.
10. Tolerate disrespect
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Parents get used to their kids having tantrums as toddlers and meltdowns as teens. These are age-appropriate behaviors that parents are tasked with navigating and helping their kids outgrow.
In some families, parents of fully grown children are expected to continue tolerating bad behavior, including disrespect. This can have disastrous consequences for the grown kids and the parents, as the parents likely experience a high level of stress as a result and the kids develop unlikable and even narcissistic traits.
Parents don't owe their adult kids their presence if they're being treated in a disrespectful way. They can limit their exposure to their adult kids' toxic attitudes by setting boundaries around mutual respect
They can start making rules around what they're willing to talk about and what they'll do if their adult kid raises their voice. These boundaries will look different for every family, but the through-line stays the same: reinforcing the importance of listening respectfully and treating one another with basic kindness, even when feelings run high.
11. Sacrifice their peace
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Parents should never feel forced to sacrifice their sense of stability or inner peace for their adult kids. They can protect their time however they want, even if it means avoiding their adult kids' calls or ask for space when their kid is being aggressive or disrespectful.
As unpopular as this may be, parents can rescind invitations back home whenever their adult kids threaten to derail their lives. They can cut off financial support if the stress is disrupting their lives and set hard-and-fast rules around their adult kid's behavior.
Family life won't ever be perfect, but it doesn't have to be painful, either. No matter how much a grown child expects, their parents don't have to engage if it harms their well-being.
Sometimes both parent and child need a little space, and it's totally OK to request it when a grown child's expectations don't match the reality a parent can provide.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
