PARENTING ADULT CHILD WHEN THEY RESENTS

 

PARENTING ADULT CHILD

 WHEN THEY RESENTS

                                          

what do you do when your adult child is resentful towards you for the way that you raise them and how do you handle that.

 it's difficult for parents when the child ends up being resentful for various reasons  so what do you do if this happens.

 if you have this is obviously given you have the opportunity to sit down and talk to your child about it and say this is how you found out that they're actually having an issue with how they were raised how you parented them could be a certain situation or it could be like a whole big topic in their life

 

1-         Listen Without Interjecting

 it is so important to do that and it's so important to stop when you want to say something because you're going to want to interrupt them and be like oh no that that's not how it happened oh wait a minute no you didn't understand let me tell you what really happened that's you can't do that you have to listen to them so if you listen to them and remember um you know their perception is their reality and so they saw it one way you see it another and you know maybe they were younger and you actually know like actually this is not how it happened if you give them an ear they will likely give you an ear but if you interrupt them you're never going to be able to share your side of the story.

2- Don’t Correct Your Kid's Story

 like I said their perception is I their reality and when you lead with correction over connection you miss an opportunity an opportunity to have your child feel truly heard and even though it may not be factual like I said um it's really important to listen first when you acknowledge their feelings first like I said you will have a better chance at being able to have a better discussion about what really happened

3- Being Compassionate

if your kid is reactive they're literally what they call channeling their inner child and what that means is we're talking about an adult child but if they're talking with you about things that happened as a child they're speaking to you from that age basically because that those are deep rooted possibly trauma possible wounds um these are painful issues if they weren't painful they wouldn't have stuffed them for so long right um so because you're dealing with a child you're dealing with emotionally reactive um personality at that moment because they don't know how to handle it because technically they're still acting as a child in that case so it's important for you to have empathy um that's important because then you'll be able to they'll again they'll be able to resonate with you a little bit more um and instead of saying why are you acting like a child you know get over it or you know that's like I said that's not how it went down that's not how it happened but um you know or you could say something or sometimes moms make the mistake of saying you know that that was when you were seven like get over it you can't do that there's things deep rooted in all of us um some are major some are super minor but there's but for some reason we're still hanging on to them.

4- Apologize to Them

 so once you able to hear everything that they have to say and if they're blaming you for something you need to apologize and I’m not saying take responsibility for something that you didn't do I’m just saying take responsibility for your child's feelings in that moment about you know what this is their perception and that's their reality just say I’m sorry that you feel that way I’m so sorry that you've been hurting all these years over xyz um just validation and sometimes that's all people need so um it says we get the desire to explain why we may have done something usually with good intent because we don't want people to hurt and therefore to explain why they shouldn't so we xyzzy aren't there to explain why you shouldn't hurt we need to accept their feelings okay .

5- Don't Condemn Yourself

even the best parents make mistakes so maybe you were a young parent when all this happened when whatever it has happened um but you need to take accountability for how your words or actions may have absorbed into them and it is crucial that you apologize and take responsibility but don't condemn yourself in the process like you I’m sure you did the very best you could with what you knew and what you had at the time and that I think as a parent especially as a mom we condemn ourselves like we blame ourselves for the reason why our child goes astray like if I wouldn't have been as strict or if I would have been stricter um it's always the opposite of what you were you think automatically that you should have been the other way which is not always true.

6- Let Go of Expectations of How They Should Respond

 you know excuse me perhaps your of grown child um will be immediately receptive of your apology and willing to improve communication with you which would be awesome but let go of expectations of how they should respond in your mind you may think okay well we got this conversation out of the way everything should just be golden now and our relationship is great. maybe they're not ready for that.

So sometimes you have to be okay with taking a step back and not being forceful in the relationship and just letting it flow a little bit sometimes on their terms because if they're the ones that were hurt even though as moms we hurt so much our hearts hurt  but we have to let go of how they should respond and just be okay with what they want to do for the moment right as far as coming back into our lives. if that's the case or coming to your home maybe they haven't been home for a long time and you have a conversation and everything went well and you think well of that's my son that's my daughter they should come back home and have dinner on Sunday nights or come for holidays or whatnot um it doesn't always work that way so

7- Don't Accept Abuse So That Kind of Thrown in There

 if your child is not being as pleasant as I’m trying to describe and wishful hopefully that they are going well but if let's say they're not you know what if they get too emotional and then they start being disruptive and abusive towards you highly reactive then you know what game over right now like we're going to take a pause um because you have to demand respect and still keep your boundaries for yourself um hopefully that won't happen but um many times it does and then we just start back at number one.

8- Forgiving Yourself

 you know so many moms think that like I’ve said you can't rework history and being compassionate to your child comes naturally but it can be challenging to show that same compassion to ourselves and we forget to do that sometimes and so I just encourage you as a mom to be able to that's why it's so important to be able to um put yourself first sometimes in regards to you know if you're not healthy how can you expect that relationship to be healthy and so that's what I do is I help moms regain their own life back by doing a myriad of things each case is different each mom's different each kid's different and I’m not here to fix your child I’m here to help you regain your own life back up and because we're talking about adult children here so at the end of the day we have no control over them but you do have control over what you do.

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