10 Rare Signs Your Parents Actually Respect You As An Adult
A healthy relationship starts with a general sense of understanding and respect.
fizkes | Shutterstock Finding the right balance of supportiveness and independence as an adult child in your family dynamic can be challenging, but great parents make space for you to figure it out. With healthy boundaries, open communication, and affection, they set the stage for you to flourish in adulthood, even if that means taking space away from them for a time or investing in other personal relationships.
While psychology experts like Peg Streep argue these relationships still need management with conscious awareness and investment from everyone involved, a foundation of understanding, trust, and respect can ensure everyone's needs are met. Fortunately, there are rare signs your parents actually respect you as an adult, which can give adult children the reassurance they need to continue investing in their familial relationships.
Here are 10 rare signs your parents actually respect you as an adult
1. They only offer their advice when you ask for it
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Many adult children's emotions feel inherently dismissed and invalidated when they're met with unsolicited solutions and unwarranted advice from their parents.
The key to healthier balance is simply for parents: let them live their life, offer advice when they ask for it, and be there to support them when they're ready to share their emotions with you.
Even if they're struggling, you can be a shoulder to cry on without offering advice. Even if you wouldn't have made the same mistakes or decisions as them, you can let them vent without reminding them.
Parents that respect their adult children, even when they make mistakes, don't yearn for the "I told you so" moments.
2. They respect your decisions and differing opinions
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Even when adult children have different perspectives and opinions than their families, a tendency that's inherently common with generational gaps and unique adulthood struggles, healthy parents make space to discuss without judgement or unnecessary criticism.
Like counselor Dr. Rachel Glik argues, shifting values and changes to the status quo often place a tension on parent-child relationships in adulthood, as children begin to form their own ideas, mindsets, and opinions outside of their childhood homes.
However, maintaining a space for understanding, even if it's compromise rather than similarities, is essential for parents and their adult kids.
3. They don't guilt-trip you into visiting them
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Psychologist Lynn Margolies argues that many insecure parents rely on guilt-tripping their adult children as a means to compensate for their lacking self-awareness or dysregulated emotional state.
Confused by the complex and chaotic emotions of disconnection, which is generally natural for adult children navigating their new lives, they take it out on their kids, rather than introspectively addressing their own discomfort.
Healthy parents who respect their adult children's lives and decisions don't rely on this toxic tendency, and instead value the time they do get to spend with their families without casting an aura of judgment in conversations and interactions.
4. They offer support and help when you're struggling
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Without the unnecessary criticism and judgment present in toxic parent-child relationships, the healthiest of parents make space to genuinely support their kids when they're struggling.
From navigating new jobs, to adult relationships, and personal development, adult children find security and comfort in conversations with their parents, especially when there's a foundation of respect.
Sometimes, parents need to open the door to vulnerability with their adult kids to help them feel comfortable and supported in expressing their emotions and struggles.
5. They speak highly of you when you're not around
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Family practitioner Melinda Ratini suggests that toxic parents often struggle with an innate sense of insecurity that impacts every aspect of their lives, urging them to seek control and judge harshly, even at the expense of their closest relationships.
However, parents that respect their kids don't feel that need for control over their image or superiority; rather, they open themselves up to vulnerability to support the people in their lives.
By speaking highly of their kids, even behind their backs, they ensure their kids feel supported and loved from a distance. Instead of sabotaging their independence and sparking anxiety in their interactions, healthy parents invest into their own personal well-being, so they can show up better for their adult kids.
6. They set and respect boundaries
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Boundaries are useful and necessary in all relationships, but especially as a foundation to building a healthy family dynamic between adult children and their parents.
It's impossible to prioritize a sense of respect and understanding without them, as they open up venues for honest and open communication with judgement.
When parents assert their own boundaries, especially early in their children's lives, they teach them the importance of respect in ways that benefit their relationships later on.
Adult children then feel empowered to do the same to advocate for themselves, in a cycle of generational support and well-being.
7. They celebrate your independence
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Many parents struggle with viewing their adult children in their independent identities, instead seeing them still as an extension of themselves or as a child incapable of making decisions, navigating their own lives, and tackling life's challenges.
However, one of the rare signs your parents actually respect you as an adult stems from this idea that great parents view their children as equally competent and capable.
Their relationship is founded on mutual respect, understanding, and trust. Like a study published in the Journal of Adolescence argues, trust is one of the most important aspects of a healthy relationship, especially between children and their parents.
When parents can acknowledge their children's unique identity in adulthood, while still leveraging open communication and curiosity, they're more comfortable celebrating their independence — trusting them to lead with their best interests in mind.
8. You don't feel belittled or uncomfortable around them
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Therapist Ana M. Aluisy argues that dealing with disrespectful parents as an adult child can be discouraging, emotionally taxing, and frustrating, urging us to revert back into our adolescent behaviors and childish tendencies.
Not only can this bring out our vulnerabilities and childhood struggles — from low self-esteem to emotional dysregulation — it can spark resentment in a family dynamic.
Some of the rare signs your parents actually respect you as an adult can be personal. How do you feel in their presence? Are you anxious before meeting them? Do you feel supported and comforted, or victimized and degraded?
Take note of how you feel when you're connecting with your parents — that will lead you in the right direction to set appropriate boundaries.
9. They make space for you in conversations
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Even something as subtle as an interruption during a conversation can spark resentful feelings in an adult child's relationship with their parents.
When we don't feel heard, we don't feel respected. When we're not being actively supported — generally in life or passingly in conversation — we don't feel loved.
Licensed social worker Judi Cinéas argues that it's not just interruptions that can cultivate a sense of dismissal in conversation, but also condescending remarks and body language.
If your parents are constantly over-explaining things to you, devaluing your opinion in conversation, or actively taking away space for you to express your thoughts and emotions, chances are they don't respect you enough to hear them.
10. They celebrate your accomplishments and success
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Parents who respect their children don't struggle with celebrating their wins in life, even if they're struggling or going through a rough patch of their own.
Insecure parents who are more concerned with their own image and ego might try to take away your success, but great supportive parents make active space for their adult children to reap the social benefits and joy associated with achievement.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.