Parenting Young Adults: Support, Don’t Judge

It may surprise parents of younger children, but after decades of parenting, I begin to see that it’s a process of nurturing and then letting go. It’s not about controlling, directing, forcing, or pressuring a child to make specific choices or head in a preferred direction. As I’ve written about before, I actually view parenting, particularly of tweens and teens, as analogous to shipbuilding.

When they’re very young, you give them ‘guardrails’ so that they can begin to explore the world, but within the safe container of your oversight. A 4yo can run around the park but lacks the savvy to safely cross a busy street. By 9, they can handle more, but still aren’t ready cognitively or emotionally for challenges like intimacy (however much our overall society might be pushing children to move into that realm earlier and earlier. Am I the only one who finds little ones talking about their “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” just a bit weird?).

In their younger years, you’re building the ‘ship’ of their identity, laying down moral and ethical frameworks to guide them through the challenges of adolescence. As they gain autonomy – overnights, unsupervised after school at a friend’s house, driving – you’re no longer at the helm. The ship is built and now it’s time to just hope that you helped them establish a solid foundation that will help them navigate through the turbulent tides of their teens.

But what happens when they’re off to college or move out to begin their own adulting life? Research shows that children are still developing their frontal cortex until they’re about 25, which means that it’s possible that the years 20-25 are the most challenging. Not for every kid, because some just glide through those years with a strong sense of identity and a good, safe circle of friends. Others? When you can earn money at a job, are living by yourself, and have complete autonomy, you can make some spectacularly poor decisions and have to face the consequences.

This leads to the question of how to parent young adults. What you want to do is tell them what to do, who to socialize with, who to shun, and what decisions they should make differently. Right? I mean, you’re the parent, you’re hip to the challenges and pitfalls of life. Too often that comes out as judgment, or at least as advice that’s perceived as criticism or judgment of their life choices. Result: They don’t want to talk with you or interact with you and they now, finally, have the ability to cut off communications.

A smarter approach to this dilemma is to practice offering advice. But offering advice when it’s asked for. Don’t volunteer your great insight, fellow parents of adults. If you can’t resist, at least lead with a gentle “want to hear my thoughts on your situation?” and if they assent, thank your lucky stars they still give a $#@$ about your opinion and then offer it using the Socratic approach.

What’s that? Old Socrates back in ancient Greek times figured out that the way to teach lessons is to ask students questions that force them to reflect and consider alternative perspectives and additional data. In a parenting dimension, this means that “You shouldn’t have taken that ride with the handsy guy from the party” is no bueno. But “Were there other options for transportation?” might be acceptable.

Then you can offer a solution for the future that doesn’t require them admitting that you’re right about the situation, like “Why don’t you sign in to my Uber account and if you’re ever in a pickle like that again, you can use it to get safely home?”. Again, notice it’s framed as a question. As a bonus, add “no questions asked”.

In fact, when my children – who are now 27, 25, and 20 – were teens I had an agreement with them that at any time of the day or night they could call me for an emergency ride home, no questions asked. They cashed in that voucher a few times and I didn’t harass them, ask questions, criticize their judgment, I just brought them home and made them a cup of tea.

For those of you who have young adult children – or even older adult children – how has your approach to parenting evolved to match their agency and autonomy?

All images for this article were generated interactively by Dall-E from OpenAI.