Are you a loving but hovering parent? Parents typically are raising fewer children today and have actively pursued an only-the-best policy from infancy on. So far, the twenty-something progeny of Helicopter parents have reaped the benefits from some of these advantages. Record numbers are attending college and the rate of teenage pregnancy is down.
So what’s the beef? The question is where the Sandwich Generation should draw the line: between support and intrusion, encouragement and control, cheering from the sidelines or meddling in the game? Here are some tips to start you thinking about this fine line in the relationship with your kidults.
1. Giving up old habits of micromanaging is hard. When you watch, worry and hang on, you’re giving your emerging adult children the message that you don’t trust that they can be on their own.
2. Today’s technology makes it almost too easy to stay connected. Establish a middle ground where you don’t enable your adult children, yet they know you’re there if they really need you.
3. Being too directive – about college applications, class registration, roommate disputes, job searches, dating partners – fosters dependency at a time when developing decision making skills is paramount to building self esteem.
4. While financial assistance for the necessities is a parent’s responsibility, it can have a pampering effect. Beginning in high school, encourage your children to get a part-time job and gain budgeting experience. Your goal is to prepare your kidults to live alone. If they’re unable to manage, boomeranging back home becomes the only option and the whole family pays the price.
5. Remember what it was like for you growing up? How did you use your personal strengths and become more self sufficient? Put some of these good ideas to work. Mentor your growing children but let them also learn for themselves.
Watching your children approach adulthood is a bittersweet experience, as you see your carefully crafted and longstanding identity slip away. As your family matures, you are faced with the challenges that come with letting go and beginning again in a new role.
After 20 years as a stay-at-home mom, Melanie was looking for work she could feel passionate about. “I know I am beginning to plant the seeds of change. I am delighting in my separate life and listening to my inner voice. Until now I’ve been a helpmate and mothering has been my job. Now I’m looking for a career.” Like Melanie, it may help to look at this transition in a different light, as you generate new opportunities for yourself.
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