How Fathers Can Evolve Along With Their Young Adult Children

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The kind of father that you have been over the years will inevitably exert significant influence on your child’s ability to successfully leave childhood and adolescence behind and chart a course toward a life characterized by autonomy, intimacy, and self-respect.

But no matter what kind of father you have been, you can still make some final adjustments that provide helpful tailwinds to support your young adult’s departure—or at least that diminish the likelihood that you’ll inadvertently create stiff headwinds that make that departure more challenging than it needs to be.

The parent-child dynamic evolves—or at least should evolve—over time. Adaptation is necessary not only for surviving, but also for growth and thriving.

Here are some questions that dads might ask themselves as they contemplate their newly-developing role as father-to-young-adult:

1. What kind of closeness do I envision with my children as they gain increasing independence?
2. What kind of role shall I play when they fly into some turbulence and turn to me—or perhaps don’t turn to me—for advice or answers?
3. How shall I respond when they are poised to make decisions that I am convinced are not in their best interests?
4. What is the best way for me to be a role model for them at this stage in their/my life?
5. How can I distinguish between my child’s efforts to establish healthy separation and their increasing distance or remoteness?
6. What experiences of my own that I have not yet shared with my child deserve to be shared at this juncture in our relationship with each other?
7. What is the best way to manage the worries that I have about my child?
8. To what extent might my children be worried about me as they strive to move forward with their lives, and to what extent might those worries make them hesitant to move forward and leave me behind?

Let’s start with the first question. I remember treating Ephron, a high-school senior who had been a stellar lacrosse goalie since childhood, and who planned to continue playing when he started community college in the fall.

During our initial family session, his father, Walt, proudly told me that he had been to every one of his son’s lacrosse games, from childhood until now. “My father died suddenly from a heart attack when I was just a kid, so he was never around to see any of my baseball or football games growing up, which is why I made it a point to never miss a single one of Ephron’s games. Nothing got in the way.”

Walt’s devotion and attentiveness were both commendable and understandable. He was clearly trying to provide his son with the paternal involvement that he, himself, would have liked to have received.

But when I met with Ephron alone later in the session, he wasn’t entirely happy with this arrangement. “I liked having him on the sidelines when I was younger, helping out with the coaching, cheering me on. Once I got to high school, though, the problem with my father being at every single one of my games is that I never get to tell him my version of the game and how I played, since he was always there and already had his own version. And sometimes I would have liked to be on the field without knowing that he was there, too—it’s not just me on the field, it’s always me-and-him.”

What was meaningful and valuable between father-and-son up until adolescence was no longer quite as meaningful and valuable once Ephron’s natural need to separate from his same-sex parent began to emerge.

Ephron continued: “I know I’ll still be close by and living at home, but I sure hope he doesn’t plan on attending every one of my college games.” With a sigh, he added, “Knowing him, though, he probably will. And it sure doesn’t feel right to tell him not to, since my parents are paying for college and Dad’s always loved watching me play so much.”

A subsequent consultation with Walt focused on my helping him realize that being a caring dad at this upcoming stage of Ephron’s life—one that requires some space and distance between parent and child—might entail giving his son a chance to create and experience his own life without having a parent standing so closely by on the literal or figurative sideline.

This was of course difficult for Walt to contemplate. He had missed having a father when he was growing up, and it was natural for him to deal with the untimely death of his father by trying to be a very-much-present father to his own son. But, as we spoke, and as I helped translate some of Ephron’s mixed feelings about his father’s ubiquity at games, Walt began to understand that “less can sometimes be more.”

All fathers want to be good fathers, but what’s good at one stage of development isn’t necessarily good at every stage.

In subsequent posts in this series, we will take a look at some other ways for fathers to become more adaptive launchers.