I’m Shari Jonas and in this episode of LAUNCH we’ll be exploring one of the most important aspects of parenting, and one that is particular challenging especially with young adults, and that is How to Build a Better Relationship with your Adult Child. I’ll be sharing powerful insights, personal experiences, and actionable steps to help you connect with them, build an unshakeable bond and create a long-lasting, meaningful relationship that your adult child will remember for the rest of their lives.
If are currently going through something with them, where you feel disconnected, out of touch, and you’re wondering how to bridge that gap, this episode is for you. I remember when both of my kids decided they were going to spend their college years away from home, I thought that during their last high school year, we’d spend some quality time together, knowing that the next 4 years we wouldn’t be living under the same roof. But they both did the exact opposite. They were emotionally and physically separating themselves from me on purpose and although at first I was taken aback, I remembered how important this stage is, and I didn’t say a word to them. That’s what they needed to do and instinctively, I knew it was best for me as well. You see, as adolescents mature, somewhere between the ages of 15 and 19 they intentionally push us away. Its normal, natural and a necessary part of their journey to becoming independent. As much as they love us, they need to distance themselves to discover who they are and develop their own individual beliefs, values, and goals.
According to psychologist Erik Erikson, this is a crucial step when young adults are searching for their own sense of self. And this separation from us, actually makes sense. They have to become more independent, so that they can survive without us. But I don’t believe that we ever have to lose our bond with them. Although many parents do find it hard to reconnect with their kids after this stage, this episode will help you to understand why it’s so important that you find your way back to them. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re thriving or struggling. Your relationship with them is vital to their overall well-being. When they feel a strong connection to you, it gives them emotional support during tough times, it reinforces their sense of belonging, it boosts their self-confidence, it helps them to face challenges, and it provides them with the security they need to become capable, resilient and independent adults.
So how do you it? How do you build a deeper connection with your adult child? I’ll give you some solid suggestions, but before I do I’d like you to imagine a crazy scenario with me. If you’re driving, you might want to wait before you do this exercise since I don’t want you to be too distracted. I’m giving you a heads up, this is going to sound somewhat unusual, but bare with me and you’ll see where I’m going with it. Okay, here we go. You and your adult child are stranded on a beautiful, deserted island. It’s already been a few days, and you’ve settled into a routine. You go about your day, doing your daily chores (you know, the how to survive while you are waiting to be rescued). But your grown-up kid is not doing much. They wait for you to find the food, cook the food, clean up after each meal, attend to the shelter, hand wash the laundry, keep working on ways to show signs of life for when a plane or boat goes by. The usual stuff when one is stranded on an island. When you’re done with your daily responsibilities, you find other things to do to occupy your time. Swimming, long walks, maybe beach yoga, exploring the landscape. If you’ve ever watch Gilligan’s Island, you know what I’m talking about. Each day that goes by you’re getting a teeny bit more annoyed with your adult child. At first you were in full blown parenting mode, making sure that you are both surviving, and all your needs are being met. But now you’ve settled in. You’ve managed to find ways to eat, and your shelter is relatively comfortable. It’s just a waiting game now. But your adult child, who is fine, isn’t doing anything to help you. And this is slowly beginning to drive you crazy. You’ve made subtle suggestions to them, hinting that they could help out, but they don’t seem to be interested in lifting even a finger. Oh, they’re perfectly capable but they lack any motivation and really, there’s no need. To them you seem to be managing fine. And you are. But it’s a lot of work and you hate to ask them because you feel guilty about the situation, you’re the parent after all, maybe you could have done something different, yet here you are, doing it all by yourself, while they just sit around and literally wait to be rescued. What do you do? Clearly you have to have a conversation. You don’t want to fight because you only have each other. A silent treatment from them would only add insult to injury. So, you decide, over your bonfire dinner one night, to communicate what you want, share your expectations and boldly give them some chores to do. They begrudgingly agree. Truth is, they are getting a bit bored. Still, you can’t help but wonder why they couldn’t have just taken the initiative.
But what’s important now is that they are willing. Right? Let’s stay with that thought. So, they start pulling their weight. And the more they do, the more useful they feel. Their mood is picking up. They aren’t as bored or complaining about everything. These new responsibilities are giving them a sense of purpose and they seem to embrace and value their newfound contributions. At first, you’re doing your chores apart. But, over time, you begin joining forces with one other, and you start doing activities together such as foraging for food. They even start getting creative with the cooking. Finding ways to make your food taste better. They’re actually getting quite good at this, and you jokingly suggest that once you get home, maybe they should take some culinary classes. One day, after all the chores are done, they ask if you want to play an island game with them, that they’ve made up. At first you decline. It’s hot, your tired. But then you think to yourself, I’m on a deserted island with my kid. If they want to do something that’s fun, why not try? How bad can it be? And what happens next, is you find yourself enjoying this idle time with them. As the days pass, you and your adult child start developing a bond, a deeper connection, a closeness to one another that you haven’t experienced at home with them for a while. One day, you see a plane flying over head. You both go into full blown, rescue mode and within hours, you’re heading back to civilization.
When you return home, you reflect upon your time together. You wonder, why don’t we ever do this before. (Not the stranded part). But give them household chores? Share your expectations of them. And just as importantly, why have you stopped doing things together? So, you bring this up to them. And it is then that you both decide that whatever happened on that deserted island, that renewed bond that you created, can and will continue at home. The shared responsibilities, the meaningful conversations, the enjoyable activities. You’ve discovered ways to connect with your adult child and all you needed to do, was find yourself alone with them on a deserted island. Or in another words, just spend time together, like two adults.
Okay, back to reality. We’re not on a deserted island. Your adult child is either in their room, acting like a border with no interest at all in hanging out with you or they’re living elsewhere, and barely take the time to reply to you with a simple text message on a cell phone that you’re still paying for. Just kidding. Why is that? Why is it so hard to connect with them as young adults? I’m guessing that you tried, but as we know now, it was normal for them to distance themselves from you. But for how long does that stage have to last. When can we start to reconnect with them, and how do we even start?
Well, according to Erikson, who made these stages his life’s work, young adults often begin to reconnect with their parents when they feel more secure in their own identity, which tends to happen as they settle into their adult roles—whether in relationships, careers, or through life experiences. This usually occurs in the mid-to-late 20s or even into their 30s, once they’ve gained a stronger sense of who they are. There’s just one little problem with that. What if your adult child is not launching into adulthood? What if they are struggling to figure out their own identity and roles? Should you just wait around, feeling deeply disconnected from them, knowing full well that it is not healthy for them to be so isolated, and distant? Especially if they are struggling.
If you recall, one of the signs of Failure to Launch is social withdrawal. And although it can be directly related to their current state of mind; having no money, being completely dependent on you, feeling lost, it is actually worse for them to be disconnected from people. One of the longest-running studies on human happiness and well-being is the Harvard Study of Adult Development led by Robert Waldinger. It began in 1938 and tracked the lives of 724 men and then it expanded to include their wives and their children. It is still going on after 86 years. The purpose was to determine what factors contribute to a health, happy and fulfilling life and what they have found is so impressive. More than wealth, fame, or success, the greatest predictor of happiness and longevity was or is, the quality of our relationships. Not how many you have; but how meaningful they are. The study continues to find that having supportive, meaningful, enjoyable connections with friends, family and community contributes more to our physical health, emotional well-being, and overall life satisfaction than any other factor.
Parents don’t let your adult children isolate themselves from you. It’s just not healthy. You have got to make every effort to rebuild that bond with them. Even if they try to push you away. Because deep down inside, the more you try to connect with them on their level, the more they will know you care. And the less alone they will feel in the world. If you don’t show an interest, the person that loves them the most, what impact do you think that has on them? I’m not trying to make you feel bad. If you’re still listening to this episode, it’s because you want to, you just don’t know how.
Is it easy to build a deep connection with a young adult who seems uninterested? No, but its your child. And they’re worth it. Is it hard for some parents to do because their parents didn’t do it? Yes, but they should still do it anyway. And here’s why: My mother had a very hard time emotionally and physically connecting with my brothers. I’ve mentioned in the past, but because of her terrible relationship with her father, it made her very uncomfortable around all males. She wasn’t aware of this of course, but the negative impact that her father had on her deeply affected her relationship with both of her sons.
When we were growing up, one of my brothers was a great basketball player. He excelled in the sport. He was very tall at a young age, he was agile, strategic, which are all essential when you play basketball. One of his greatest disappointments of his life was that his mom, our mom, never ever showed up to watch a single basketball game. And he played a lot. Would it have killed her to make the occasional appearance? No. Did she have any good excuses for not? No. She never worked, so she wasn’t that busy. She just never made the effort. He is not wrong for feeling like she simply didn’t care enough. Although she loved him, adored him really, she just couldn’t see how important this was to him. And that would have been an incredible way for her to connect with him. It was his passion, he excelled in it, and he never felt a closeness to her because she never showed an interest.
If you really want to build a life-long bond, meaningful friendship with your adult children, you have got to make the effort and do what it takes to deepen your connection with them.
As promised I will leave you with suggestions that could help you get the ball rolling. And since not all parents live in the same city as their adult kids, which I know a lot about, I’m dividing these into physical or in-person activities, and emotional or long-distance recommendations. There are dozens of ways to spend time your adult child. I would simply treat your adult child like a friend who you want to get to know on a deeper level, because that’s what they are after all; Someone who you want to spend time with and do things together. Start with:
- Looking for common hobbies that you both enjoy. It could be working out, cooking, gardening, biking, playing cards, going out to a movie or playing a sport.
- Schedule time together, an hour or so on a weekly basis. Grab lunch, go for a coffee, have them over for dinner.
- Start a DIY project together.
- Check your local listings and attend monthly events together, like festivals and markets.
- Celebrate with them, milestones, birthdays, holidays.
- If you have nothing in common yet, suggest that you both learn something new together. Maybe a cooking class, or martial arts.
And if they don’t live in the same city as you, then you have to build that bond through conversations. For me personally, long-distance relationships have always been easy, and very meaningful. And it’s because my father moved away when I was about 10 years old. From then on, we only saw each other for one month every summer, until I became an adolescent. And then it all changed. I reached out to him when I was in my teens, because I was curious, I wanted to get to know him. And he was thrilled. Over the years, our relationship blossomed. We spoke weekly, and our conversations were similar to 2 friends, catching up about what shows we were watching, how school was, how work was, who I was dating, what heirloom tomatoes he was planting, what my kids were up, politics, current events, there was always something to talk about.
But what impacted me the most, was that my dad would send these audio cassettes that he taped for me, where he’d share his love of music, pretending he was a DJ, introducing each song, and then dedicating them to me, even though I was the only one listening. I loved each and every one of those tape cassettes. Because it made me feel special. Pretty much until the day my father died, we spoke once a week. He and I had a very special connection and even though he lived 250 miles away, my father left me a very meaningful legacy, he was one of my closest friends. And I think about him often.
Now my son and I live in 2 different countries. So, you can be sure that I make the time to stay connected with him, every week. Texting isn’t his thing, but he’ll often send me photos of what healthy meals he’s prepared for himself, since he’s really into that right now. We face time, occasionally, but we both intentionally make a point of calling each other on the weekends, when the demands of work aren’t as bad. So here are my long-distance suggestions for you to build a deeper connection and nurture a relationship with your adult child. And no, they don’t include sending out regular taped audio cassettes, because for one thing, they don’t exist anymore.
First and foremost, make sure that your conversations are regular. Don’t let more than a week go by. Create a habit of doing this. And when you do engage, remember to do the following: Take a genuine interest in their life, and the things that matter most to them, whether it’s hobbies, their career, their relationships, and even their struggles. If you find it hard to get them to engage with you, it’s important that you ask open ended questions, yes/no. For example: Tell me what you did on the weekend, or what’s new at work? That will get them talking. Whereas asking simple yes/no questions, like did you have a good time yesterday. That will keep the conversation short, shallow and very one-sided.
Practice Active Listening. I’ve mentioned what this means in previous episodes. Essentially, you are very engaged, curious, interested, judgment-free and refrain from offering them unsolicited advice. Over time, they might ask your opinion, but until they do, you are just a loving sounding board, that is open to whatever they want to talk about. These conversations are not by text. You need to hear their voice or use face time and see them. Always validate their feelings, acknowledge what they’re going through and be compassionate. Statements such as, I can see why you’d feel that way, or it sounds like you really enjoyed that, are very reflective and supportive. And lastly, I want you to share your own experiences, interests, even your vulnerabilities with them. Not complaining. No. Your conversations with your adult child aren’t opportunities for you to unload your shit on them. What I am suggesting here is that you share your thoughts and feelings on lighter topics. This level of reciprocal openness makes them feel that you trust them, respect their opinion, and value their friendship.
Parents, whatever it takes, starting today, make the effort on a consistent basis, to rebuild your bond, strengthen that relationship, create new memories and connect with them as adults. You don’t need to be stuck on a deserted island to find a way to build a deeper, more meaningful connection with them. You just have to want to and then, don’t stop trying because they will remember these times, long after you are gone.
