When is your child not your “child?” Children test this question frequently at different stages of development. During the early stages of emancipation, for example, when they want an increase in allowance; or the privilege of staying up later.
How many parents have experienced the role of camouflaged escort? Such as taking your son to the mall and walking twenty feet behind him so nobody suspects the relationship. Or dropping your son or daughter at school in a remote location so none of their likewise “adult” friends witness the unthinkable: Being seen with a Mommy. Definitely not cool. It’s as if your child reasons that a successfully clandestine arrival illustrates his independence and therefore, maturity. He doesn’t need a parent– he just magically appears at school every day, emerging from behind the bushes!
As time passes, children hone their gestures of independence commensurate with their needs and maturity, as they and their parents approach the “parent-child paradox”: Although the children view acquiring adulthood privileges with enthusiasm, and their parents are equally eager to abdicate tedious child-raising responsibilities, both sides still want to maintain some form of parent-child relationship. How much giving and taking is enough– or too much– in order to maintain the desired stability between parent and child?
The complexities of the situation multiply as children experimenting with adulthood become bona fide adults. As children mature and begin to differentiate from their parents in terms of needs, insights, judgments and abilities, their manner of relating to one another must reflect those changes in order to maintain compatibility. A compromise or offering from both sides is useful. Parents do well to consider themselves in a new, post-parenting phase: Advisors rather than disciplinarians; a tonality that resonates democracy rather than dictatorship. Children are faced with acquiring new responsibilities previously shouldered by their parents.
The process of compromise is just that, a “process.” It doesn’t happen as a result of one good argument or discussion. Rather, most satisfying parent-adult child relationships emerge over time, as the family delicately negotiates the twists and turns of a developing road to independence. One of the most difficult concepts for a parent to master– and an essential element for maintaining a compatible parent-adult child relationship– is the acceptance of his (her) children as adults and friends.
Does this sound familiar? You are a young adult, a physician perhaps, maintaining a practice, a home and family. You have come a long way since the days of allowance and bedtime. Yet when you visit your parents–despite boasting to their contemporaries about “their son, the doctor”– they offer unsolicited advice from an authoritarian posture that once again renders you a child. In essence, “What do you know, you’re still my kid?” One of the most difficult tasks for a parent in order to effect a satisfying compromise, is abdicating the director’s chair. By letting go, many parents, consciously or otherwise, believe their children do not need them anymore. Sadly, they equate this with ageing, being “put out to pasture.” It is precisely in defense of feeling worthless and old that many parents are reluctant to quit directing their adult-children’s lives, giving rise to long-term parent-child problems.
However, what’s in a meaning? How do you know to assign an experience a pejorative, unpleasant one? It is possible to reorganize that experience so it’s meaning changes? Yes, through the process of reframing. That’s how Tom Sawyer got those children to enjoy white-washing a fence! In the role of director, a parent typically concentrates on areas of disagreement with a child. Comments are offered as corrective actions. However, if a parent were to concentrate on areas of agreement with a child, he can then evolve into playing a more supportive role. But how can you as a parent avoid offering direction to prevent your child from making mistakes? Take yourself out for a good lecture! Learn to trust your child. By allowing him the opportunity to make mistakes, you are indicating that you trust him to use his own resources to make the best choices available to him. In this way, you each can enjoy a mutually fulfilling relationship by compromising yourselves, rather than each other.