\n<\/p>\n
Few things are harder than watching your adult child struggle. Parents share with me their involvement in their adult children’s challenges with finances, employment, mental health challenges, academic difficulties, or simply a failure to launch. The feeling of wanting to help comes with the territory of being a parent. From the moment our children are born, we are innately wired to protect, guide, support, and sometimes rescue them. <\/p>\n
Many of the parents I work with are not dealing with estrangement. They remain actively involved in their children’s lives. They hear “fire alarms” in the form of phone calls and crisis-laden text messages. They provide financial assistance, help navigate those crises, offer emotional support, and step in wherever they can. Yet, despite these efforts, these parents feel busted up by exhaustion, confusion, and at times, resentment. <\/p>\n
The reason is not that they care too much. It is that they have problematically learned that caring is carrying. I frequently see the pattern emerge in which the parent assumes responsibility for problems the adult child ultimately needs to learn to manage independently. <\/p>\n
Rescuing often provides immediate relief. A parent pays overdue rent, makes a difficult phone call, soothes out a conflict, or repeatedly steps in to solve a problem. The crisis may temporarily subside, and both the parent and child feel better in the moment. The challenge is that repeated actions like this can send the message: “I don’t believe you can handle this without me.” <\/p>\n
Then the adult child falls more into overthinking versus taking action. In my book, Freeing Your Child From Overthinking<\/em>, I discuss how taking action helps people of all ages break free from overthinking (analysis paralysis). What I see play out when I gather history from parents is that rescuing the child feeds the cycle of increased dependence of adult children on parental intervention. Of course, the parents become increasingly burned out<\/a> from being burdened by “fire alarms” and all the responsibilities that come with putting out those fires. <\/p>\n This does not mean parents should become cold, detached, or uncaring. I work with parents to see how healthy support remains important, but the goal is to shift from being a rescuer to being a mentor. Instead of solving every problem. Parents can voice emotional support and express confidence<\/a> in their adult child’s ability to find solutions. <\/p>\n So, keep in mind that helping is not the same as rescuing. In many situations, the most loving thing a parent can do is support their adult child while allowing them to face the challenges of adulthood. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Few things are harder than watching your adult child struggle. Parents share with me their involvement in their adult children’s challenges with finances, employment, mental…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Healthier Alternative<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
Read Full Article At Source <\/a>
\n