Parents and grown up children

When parents do not negotiate with their children but just give them what they need without getting their acknowledgement and confirmation that a deposit is made and, consequently, receive no reward from them, they begin to feel like their entire life “has gone down the drain”. They explain such state by their children’s alleged failure to accomplish anything significant. Thus all the efforts taken by parents are wasted as they try to find faults with their children and suffer because of their mistakes and failures.

Meantime children begin to feel empty and desperate. They start with ascribing their problems to unfavorable conditions and end up blaming their parents, claiming that parents did not give them what they needed, and whatever they gave them was useless and even harmful.

In this way, underestimating each other, children and parents create the sense of “black hole”, emptiness, incompleteness, vanity of life and even its absence. “This is not a life”, – they say.

What can we do about it? Is it possible to improve such relations?

The answer is yes. The clue is in acceptance, gratitude and respect for each other. Then both sides will find joy in their mutual relations.

It would be good if parents giving to their children all they can took notice of what their children find most desirable and useful. Then they would identify which skills their children have developed thanks to their efforts and what they do best of all. When parents appreciate their children’s achievements they accept their children as they are and at the same time get the “interest” for their efforts in the form of unique qualities displayed by their children.

When grownup children accept what their parents were able to give them with gratitude and respect, they use what they have received for further development. In this way they prepare to return the “interest” to their parents by showing appreciation and consideration to them. Admitting that their parents should be given credit for many of their achievements children reach harmony with their own personalities, which allows them to create something new, which is their own and is not dictated by their parents or any other circumstances.

In such case both parents and their grownup children are freed from mutual accusations, criticism and resentment against each other, which enables them to build the relationships where they will feel themselves as integral, independent and successful people.

Indeed, recognition of others makes us free.

It is never too late to start

I often hear from my colleagues, who have learnt psychology at a mature age, express their regret that they had not been taught that subject before. Indeed, now we find out that we did not use to know many things when we were younger and how we behaved was incorrect, if not harmful to our children. It seems that if we had known more we would have been able to avoid mistakes and consequently would have better relations with our children, who are now grownup people. Now you will hear from parents of grownup children words like those uttered by my colleague – a 50-year-old woman whose daughter is 28: “How many things we did not know about people, family, relations and were not able to do for our children! Now it’s too late. My daughter is already an adult”.

But we did what we could and gave them what we could give. We gave our children everything we had, sparing no efforts and we have a share in all the best qualities and achievements of our children. However, we usually don’t appreciate our children’s merits just as well as our own merits and efforts. Then our children too fail to appreciate all the good things we did for them and take us for granted. Instead they don’t forget to mention our mistakes, faults and inability or unwillingness to give them everything they wanted. It is like a saying: “When people don’t have anything to discuss they start discussing problems”.

By the way, we can still give our children what we were not able to give them before. We can do it now if we think they need it. It is true that they have already grown up, but we can do the same just treating them differently. Now it will be an adult-to-adult and not parent-to-child relationship, which will involve more dialogue and less teaching or passing on our knowledge. This is how we should treat our children and how they should treat us.

It is not late but it’s just the right time now! Parents and children are learning in the same way. Hence, when we parents learn something new, we can share it with our children who, like us, are open for new knowledge, except we are 50 and they are 28. The ability to learn new things is not lost but develops as we grow older.

By the way, 28 years ago many accomplishments that are now strengthened by a great number of studies and are available to the “general public” were not known. At that time psychology was practically in its first stages and the achievements in that field were only accessible to scholars, doctors and “the powers that be”. There were no popular book series like “Assist Yourself” or “Psychology for Everybody”. So how could we give our children something what we did not have ourselves?

Now we have got all those things and can share them with our children. They have become available to us now, when we are already 50, while our children got access to them at the age of 28, which should be taken into account. Some of us already have grandchildren and the current knowledge about a Human Being, which seems quite normal for them, is such a novelty for us. They were born in our time and they naturally take many things for granted, though they will be responsible for further development of what they received without efforts. As for us, while we are alive it’s never too late to try to understand our children. By sharing our knowledge and experience we enrich each other’s lives. The main thing is to be willing and to start doing that.

Considering as “adults”

Parents are the first to notice that their children are behaving like adults. Seeing this they either accept the fact or ignore it. They can encourage their children to become adults or can make fun of them and humiliate them. Parents sometimes demand from their children to behave like adults, but refuse to face the reality when their children announce that they are already grownups. Parents find it especially difficult to admit that their children are adults when those begin to confront them.

As for children, insisting that their adulthood should be recognized, they often refuse to behave like adults towards their parents and other adults. Influenced by the attitude of their parents and other older people they do not always appreciate their being adults. So they seem to try to remain the children of their parents forever.

Hence, we get a “triple paradox” (a unity and conflict of opposite desires). For their part children make the following demands:

– Parents have to accept the fact that I have grown up and I am ready to live separately from my family;

– I need to be sure that “parents will be always there” for me, to guide me and ensure my safety “as I am growing up”;

– I need to know that I keep my place in the family hierarchy: I remain the child of my parents.

The “children’s paradox” is backed up by the respective “parents’ paradox”:

– To support children as they grow up and develop, and play the role of a “mature parent” letting the children live separately from the family;

– Be responsible for all and any actions of the children as creators and organizers of the atmosphere, environment and facilities enjoyed by them;

– Show to the children that they want to preserve their own and their children’s positions within the system and get their approval too. Parents can obtain support on this from other family members and friends.

In order to maintain balance which, on the one hand, allows everybody to keep their structural places and functions within the system, and on the other hand, ensure continuous growth and development, mutual relations should change depending on the situation. For example, in case of a dialogue involving the exchange of opinions and achievements both parents and children need to recognize “adults” in each other, which will enable them to communicate on equal terms. These are horizontal relations. The relations where they retain their family statuses (of a parent and a child) will be vertical in any circumstances (within and outside the family). However, it seems more natural to both parents and children to have vertical relations most of the time, because that is more like the initial, natural order of their lives and the structure of their families.

Separation in relations

In the Russian dictionary compiled by S. I. Ozhegov we read: “Separatism – a tendency to separation, isolation[3 - Hereinafter cited according to the edition: Ожегов С.И. Словарь русского языка. М., 1988.]”.

According to our observations based on our practice of working with clients and our own experience separation in relations is more than just separation, it is:

1. Interdependency and not independence;

2. Communication (of adults) and not absence of communication;

3. “Having mutual relationships with others” instead of being isolated from them. It is not a separation or isolation from other people but having equal relationships;

4. Through recognition of the value of “Oneself” and other people, arrangement of communication between “integral selves”;

5. Implementation of one’s plans considering that s/he is not alone but is in a mutual relationship with other people. This is willingness and ability to take into account: (a) what effect the implementation of one’s plans will have on their relations with those who are important to them, that is the people with whom they have long-term relationships; (b) How they will maintain and if necessary reorganize their relations in the process of implementing their plans; (c) How, despite different plans and circumstances, they will manage to maintain relations and not allow them to end;

6. The ability to maintain different kinds of relations (at the same time) with different people and systems, the ability to be flexible in different roles in order to establish different types of relationships;

7. It is not a mere separation, but a “separation for some reason”. This is separation for the purpose of establishing relations and not ending them.

Children may come back after their parents let them go, or they may protest – not against the fact that they were allowed to go, but against the form in which their parent did it.

Children may want separation, while their parents cling to them trying to prove to themselves and their children that they will always stay together.

Parents admit that without children their life, or the life they have as parents, will become meaningless. However, they have to accept and create their own life (establish relations with other people including their children) where they will have different roles and will be engaged in other fields than their family. They may find it very difficult after many years of dedicating all of their efforts to fulfillment of their parental responsibilities. That is why parents are often reluctant to let their children go, fearing that they will be abandoned.

Taking pride in their children and knowing that they have a share in their children’s achievements can make it much easier for parents to overcome the difficult period of separation. It is also important for parents to see that their children have become what they are thanks to them and it is thanks to them that they are able to live on their own instead of just being a branch of a tree planted by their parents.

Children subconsciously know that their parents were always there and will always be there, just like branches of a tree feel, though may not admit, that below them there is a trunk and roots. They live and grow, stretch out towards the sun and seem to avoid obstacles independently. Then they begin to sprout up and bloom, and finally bear fruit, but the fruit belongs not only to the branches, but to the whole tree.

Children are not afraid to reject their parents knowing that they will be always there. In fact they have internalized (imbibed their image and values) their parents and bear a little bit of them all their lives. Even when they “fall off” their parental tree like fruit or seeds, or autumn leaves they inherit many things from it, which they do not realize and that is why are not afraid to leave the tree.

Children find it difficult to recognize their independence and responsibility for their own lives, actions and emotional experience, so they prefer to hold their parents responsible for everything: “They did not teach me…”, “They made me do that, so I don’t want to do that again” or quite the contrary “I am used to that”.

Unfortunately, grownup children make similar accusatory monologues against their fiancés (fiancées) as well, which prevents them from getting married or leads them to a family breakup. If people get married in order to separate from parents their marriage is condemned to failure or will be filled with mutual reproaches, power struggle and rivalry. Moreover, it is possible to fix any kind of relations – transform, change or in extreme case end them – with the people with whom you are in a relationship, but not with others, because those will be different relations with different people. One can create new roles based on the experience gained from the same structural organization. We already know that, among other things, the relations between a parent and a child are vertical, while the relations between spouses are horizontal, which means that the mentioned two kinds of relations are differently directed.