LIFE WITH ADULT CHILDREN...

Keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out!

Hello there, lovely readers.

I hope this edition finds you well and ploughing on with 2025. Although the world isn’t in the best of places right now, we’ve lived through times like this before (remember the recession stricken 1980’s?) and we know that hopefully things will balance out and steady themselves eventually.

Well, that’s my hope, as naive as it may be, but I’m trying to look on the brighter side.

So, to distract us a little bit, I thought I’d look at an area that I’ve wanted to cover for a while. And it’s the relationship we have with our adult children.

It’s a far different landscape than it was when they were children, and I personally think it’s one of the most difficult. As small children we were everything to our little ones, and although cranky teenage years may have developed, when it came to a crisis, we were the ones they fled to.

But, in the years following university and entering the workplace, it is a whole different ball game. Even now, over 5 years since we’ve been totally empty nesters, I still wonder if I’m doing the right thing with my two daughters on a daily basis.

As I said at the start of this newsletter, right now the UK and the world is in a precarious state and work, the economy and the cost of living is the worst it’s been for some years. So, these young adults tread difficult paths and it’s all I can do to stop myself messaging either of them in a panic to check they’re okay, or if I hear something in the media that I know will affect them, I’m there with sympathy and a bit of advice.

So what’s the best way to handle relationships with strong, independent offspring. Striking the balance between letting them know that you’re thinking of them and there for them without being a “helicopter” parent

Here’s what the experts suggest…