Relationships
Adult Children and Parents: Time For a Relationship Upgrade?
Moving from parent to child to adult is often a challenging transition.
Posted January 31, 2025 Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Key points
- Parents and adult children often begin to struggle because of old wounds and old scripts.
- This is a new chapter in each's lives—how to move from old parenting to becoming more of a consultant.
- The key is not avoiding these issues, but having open and honest conversations about what you each need most.
Simone periodically calls her mother, Maggie, from her job when she has a chance, but the conversation never seems to go well: She always winds up feeling criticized or micromanaged somehow—You’ve always had this problem; why don’t you try__? No wonder she doesn’t call more often.
But if you were to ask Maggie about their relationship, she would likely say how she feels taken advantage of and pretty much neglected as Simone has gotten older: It seems like she only calls when she wants something—a ride to a doctor’s appointment, occasionally babysitting her son—but not much else.
Parent and adult-children relationships are often difficult for a variety of reasons. Here are the most common ones:
You have different memories.
While Maggie has fond memories of that wonderful trip (and the financial sacrifice she made) taking Simone to Disney World, Simone's strongest memory of the trip is how Maggie scolded her about dropping her ice cream cone.
We all leave our childhood years with a few dozen memories, but usually, the parent and the child's are very different: Maggie thought the Disney trip was both fantastic and a big sacrifice. For Simone, Disney was where she, yet again, did something wrong. Memories tend to collect around a theme that eventually becomes a set story about childhood or parenting, and the story becomes each's different reality.
You are at different developmental stages.
Our lives move through developmental chapters, each with its own focus and challenges. Simone may be at that normal developmental stage where now, as an adult, she's reviewing her past and realizing all the things she didn’t like and wishes were different, while Maggie is ready to step down and unburden herself from all that parenting responsibility; she's ready to put the past behind and have a more adult-to-adult relationship with Simone.
But it's easy to see how these stages can clash: Simone is sensitive about their past relationship and when she feels she is still being treated like a teenager, pulls back; Maggie, looking ahead, wants more, feels frustrated, and keeps reaching out. Both are feeling that they're not getting what they need; they are stuck in an approach-avoid loop.
How to break the impasse and move forward? Here are some suggestions:
Talk about the state of the relationship.
Every important relationship can benefit from a periodic state-of-the-union check-up. Simone and Maggie are no different, especially because they are struggling with different needs and perspectives. The keys are focusing on ongoing behavioral patterns, not isolated events, the present state of the relationship, and what needs to change rather than trolling through the past. Simone says that though Maggie’s intentions may be positive, their conversations only leave her feeling micromanaged and scolded. Maggie says that while she knows Simone is busy, she seems to only reach out when she needs something, leaving Maggie feeling dismissed and neglected. Speaking up is the essential first step; avoiding the problems and hoping they will somehow improve is magical thinking.
Be clear about what you'd like instead.
Solving relationship problems is not just about getting the other person to stop doing what you don't like, but telling them what you'd like them to do instead—and the doing needs to be concrete. Simone says to Maggie that if Maggie is worried about her she can say that she's worried and ask how she can help rather than going on autopilot and loading Simone down with advice. Maggie says that she would ideally like to have some type of weekly contact, whether it be Facetime, going out to lunch, or having playdates with her son. Each's goals are clear; now they can break the dysfunctional loop and together can work towards the relationship they each want.
Manage the conversation
And if Simone and Maggie do their best, but the conversation quickly goes awry? This is about first aid, lowering the emotional temperature by listening rather than becoming defensive, or taking a break so both can calm down.
But then they need to circle back and have an adult problem-solving conversation rather than sweeping the problem under the rug and continuing in their old ways. If having productive conversations remains a struggle, Maggie and Simone may want to consider seeing a family therapist for a few sessions to have a safe place to get things on the table, have someone ask the hard questions, and help move them toward win-win compromises.
Upgrading parent-child adult relationships, creating a new chapter and new normal, is often a several-year process that requires patience and clarity—taking things in stride and circling back when miscommunication and misunderstanding arise so they don’t accumulate and lead to blow-ups or worse. The key is to focus on yourself, try not to overreact, and do your best—let the other person understand your intentions, be sensitive to their needs, and manage conversations so they don’t go off course and cause further damage.
Time for an upgrade?
References
Taibbi, R. (2020). Doing family therapy, 4th ed. New York: Guilford.
