Talking With Your Adult Children

After my last blog post about how to talk to your aging parents, my friend’s dad (a faithful reader of my blog!) wrote to me and said “the flip side of this is for parents to learn how to handle the often inevitable conversation with their children. Y’know: How to have the conversation that you don’t want to have but know that you eventually have to have.” 

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It turns out that there is a whole lot of advice out there for adult children who need to have difficult conversations about aging, caregiving, and safety with their parents but very little advice for the reverse. How can aging parents be more open to having their adult child(ren) approach them about these topics? A Google search found one related article, What Aging Parents Want from Their Kids, which offers anecdotal observations and advice — with a theme being that aging parents often feel as if they’re constantly being assessed by their children. (An amusing, and close-to-home takeaway from this article is that apparently aging parents don’t like it when their children and grandchildren go through their refrigerator pointing out everything that is past the expiration date!)

The above article referenced a 2004 SUNY-Albany study where older parents were asked in focus group interviews about their relationships with their adult children. Here are the main findings:​

     “When discussing their adult children, participants reveal strong desires for both autonomy and connection, leading to
     ambivalence about receiving assistance from them. They define themselves as independent but hope that children’s
     help will be available if needed. They are annoyed by children’s over protectiveness but appreciate the concern it
     expresses. They use a variety of strategies to deal with their ambivalent feelings, such as minimizing the help they
     receive, ignoring or resisting children’s attempts to control, withholding information from children to maintain clear  
     boundaries, seeking others as confidants, and rationalizing children’s unavailability. They actively strive for a balance in
​     their relationships with children.”

What does that mean in plain language? Family relationships and feelings are messy!

So, if you’re an “aging parent” and your adult children are trying to talk to you about difficult issues, what can you do to help the conversation go well?

1. Realize that your children are raising these topics out of love and concern for you. Even if it makes you angry or upset. They’re probably pretty nervous about the conversation. Maybe go a little easy on them. Then again, you could decide it’s payback for the difficult conversations you had to have with them when they were kids (just kidding!).
2. If you feel caught off-guard by the conversation, suggest postponing it so you can be prepared as well. But be sure to commit to a mutually agreed upon date, time, and place for it. 
3. Be direct about your worries, your wants, and your needs. What is most important to you? What are you willing to “give in” about and what do you feel you have to stand firm on? But also recognize that your children may have valid safety and financial concerns. Be open to creative solutions that hopefully address everyone’s interests.
4. If the parent-child dynamics are just too difficult, suggest having another family member, friend, or hired professional help with the conversation. Or it may be better to have the conversation with one of those people instead of your adult child(ren). Sometimes taking the emotion out of a situation can be the most productive option.

Bottom Line: It’s all about communication. And - same bottom line as last month’s article - BOTH adult children and aging parents should take the time to plan for and start having these difficult conversations before there is a crisis. You’ll be glad you did.