11 Things Parents Should Never Feel Forced To Do For Their Adult Kids
There's a fine line between supporting your adult kids and enabling them.
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock For the most part, conversations about estranged families focus on the things parents do to push their adult kids away. But it's important to note that parents aren't always at fault. Some conflicts arise because adult kids have a sense of entitlement, along with unrealistic expectations.
Adult kids who think their parents "owe" them often take advantage of their parents. They make their parents responsible for meeting all their needs, long after they've left the house and started their own lives. Parents are allowed to say "no," even when it's painful. Because there are certain things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids, especially when those things hold their kids back from fully growing up.
Here are 11 things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids
1. Lend them money
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There's a thin line between helping kids and enabling them, especially when money is involved. Lending money is one of the major things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids, no matter how much their kids are struggling to make ends meet.
When their kids are young, parents can foster their financial literacy by helping them understand how money works. They can teach kids the difference between wants and needs and guide them through the budgeting process, but they can't control how their kids handle money once they've left home.
Psychologist and parent coach Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD pointed out that giving adult kids money doesn't mean they automatically get complete financial leeway, since "holding them accountable for their choices helps them become more financially responsible." He explained that "tying financial support to actions like job hunting or budgeting encourages your adult child to take responsibility for their situation."
Parents always have the option to decide that their financial support is conditional.
2. Be their babysitter
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As much as parents love that their adult kids have kids of their own, they should never feel forced to be the babysitter. Their adult kids might decide they're being selfish or withholding, but parents aren't required to step up and raise kids a second time around if they don't actually want to.
They can set limits around how much time and energy they expend on their grandkids. Becoming a grandparent is a gift, but that doesn't mean parents should feel forced to take on the role of designated date night relief for their adult kids.
3. Manage their emotions
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Parents who manage how their adult kids feel create a pattern in which their kids become completely reliant on them. They enable emotional fragility, which psychologist Nick Wignall described as "the tendency to easily become overwhelmed by difficult emotions [and] the opposite of resilience."
He explained that "emotionally strong people can ask for help and support as part of a larger strategy of working through emotional difficulties," but they don't make other people into their full-time emotional caretakers.
While It's developmentally appropriate for parents to co-regulate their kids' emotions in childhood, continuing that pattern after their kids are grown does more harm than good. Parents should never feel forced to make their adult kids feel better just because they don't know how to do it for themselves.
"If you're in the habit of constantly seeking reassurance and outsourcing your painful feelings to other people, you're telling your brain that you're not capable of handling those difficult feelings yourself," Wignall explained. "Ultimately, your feelings are your responsibility and no one else's."
4. Fix their mistakes
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Sometimes, standing back and letting their adult kids fail is the best gift parents can give. But repeatedly fixing their mistakes is one of the things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids, because it enables their child's sense of learned helplessness. No matter how many times their adult kids need to be bailed out, parents should never feel forced to come to their rescue.
Parents who act like their adult kids' professional fixer hold them back from realizing how resilient they really are. Pediatrician Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg revealed that "resilience isn't a simple, one-part entity," but rather, a series of traits and habits that parents can help their kids develop.
According to Dr. Ginsburg, there are 7 "Cs" of resilience: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. More than anything else, resilience is about helping kids feel empowered to make their own decisions, which involves letting them make bad decisions.
By making mistakes, kids learn how capable they are, even when the outcome they hoped for doesn't come true. Parents who carry their adult kids through every single hardship don't help them grow as people, but parents who commit to walking alongside them help them in more ways than they could ever imagine.
RELATED: 15 Characteristics Of Parents Who Raise Happy Kids Who Want To Hang Out With Them As Adults
5. Take the blame for their unhappiness
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Kids come into the world without the ability to regulate their emotional experience, but parents should never feel forced to accept the blame if their adult kids don't have happy lives. As much as parents need to provide undivided emotional support while their kids are young, they can't hold themselves responsible for every low moment their adult kids have.
According to the Gottman Institute, "good parenting involves emotion." He had a special title for parents who guide their kids across the stormy seas of their hardest feelings: emotional coaches.
These parents see emotionally intense moments as an opportunity to connect with their kids and listen to how they feel. They coach their kids to name their emotions, which helps them develop the skills to self-regulate. Their deep emotional intelligence is their touchstone for raising healthy, connected kids.
Emotionally intelligent parents respond to their kids' emotions with empathy. They validate their kids' experience without minimizing their feelings. They offer comfort, so that their kids eventually learn to comfort themselves.
Once their kids grow up, parents need to accept that they did everything in their power to be present and provide emotional coaching, without feeling forced to keep going.
6. Pay for their wedding
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Despite all the meaning that wedding traditions carry, paying for a wedding is something parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids. The rules around marriage keep changing, especially since so many people wait to get married until they're older. Adult kids can hold onto the somewhat outdated expectation that their parents pay for their wedding, but parents should never feel forced to comply.
Bernstein pointed out the value of boundaries, especially when it comes to mixing money and family. "Without boundaries, the risk of becoming your child's economic safety net is high, which can foster dependence instead of resilience," he explained.
Setting financial boundaries can protect the relationship parents have with their adult children, especially around events as fraught as a wedding. As magical as it is for parents to walk their adult kids down the aisle and act as witnesses to the loving future they'll share with their spouse, parents aren't under any obligation to cross their own financial boundaries.
7. Let them live at home
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Parents should never feel forced to let their adult kids move back home. Opening up the family home isn't always the right solution for parents or their adult kids, even when times are tough, which is why it's so important for parents to set boundaries they can actually enforce.
Bernstein explained the boundaries parents set for their adult children have to be based in love, compassion, and respect. In order for their boundaries to be successful, parents have to see boundary-setting as an "ongoing process that requires open communication, understanding, and flexibility from both parties."
Healthy boundaries allow parents and their adult children to have healthy, harmonious relationships. By setting boundaries, parents model self-respect to their kids, which is essential for being successful as an adult.
8. Put their own lives on hold
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Putting their lives on hold for their adult kids is something parents should never feel forced to do. Psychologist Samantha Rodman Whiten had a stern message for parents whose kids have left the nest: "Do not overinvest in your adult kids." She explained, "It is essential to keep a balanced view and see your children as separate people who are eventually going to grow up and have their own lives."
Parents who insist on taking care of their adult kids as though they're still kids hold them back from becoming independent, self-sufficient people. Their constant presence keeps their adult kids reliant on them, which means they don't develop the skills they need to separate on an emotional or practical level.
Dr. Whiten advised parents to "examine your own thought patterns about what parent and child relationships 'should' look like and how these beliefs may sabotage your ability to be loving toward your adult child." The sooner parents accept that loving their adult kids means letting them go, the more successful their kids can be.
9. Take responsibility for their decisions
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Parents shouldn't feel forced to feel responsible for the decisions their adult kids make. Although parents should practice radical acceptance, they don't have to accept the times that their adult kids pin their poor decision-making process onto them.
"The most important and challenging thing you could ever do for yourself is to take full responsibility for your life," life coach Jordan Gray revealed. "When you feel like you can't do anything about a given situation, you feel powerless, and when you feel powerless you quickly become despondent. And then you get nowhere. Taking responsibility is the act of taking ownership of your problems."
Adult kids have to hold themselves accountable for their actions, even when they mess up. Parents are influential forces in their kids' lives, but eventually the statute of limitations on making everything their fault is up, which means that adult kids have to be responsible for their own choices.
10. Tolerate disrespect
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No matter how upset an adult child gets, tolerating disrespectful behavior is one of the most essential things parents should never feel forced to do for their adult kids. Parents don't owe their adult kids their presence if they're being treated in a disrespectful way. They can limit their exposure to their adult kids' toxic attitudes by setting boundaries around mutual respect.
Parents can make rules around what they're willing to talk about and what they'll do if their adult kid raises their voice. These boundaries will look different for every family, but the through-line stays the same, reinforcing the importance of listening respectfully and withholding judgment.
11. Sacrifice their peace
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Parents should never feel forced to sacrifice their sense of stability or inner peace for their adult kids. They can protect their time however they want. They can avoid their adult kids' calls, they can wait a few hours to answer texts. They can rescind invitations back home whenever their adult kids threaten to derail their lives.
Family life won't ever be perfect, but it doesn't have to be painful, either. Parents don't have to engage with their adult kids if it harms their well-being.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.