What happens when your child no longer needs you—but still needs you?

For years, you’ve guided, protected, corrected, and directed. You’ve worked hard to practice to intentionally parent your infant, toddler, teenager. But when your child becomes an adult, everything changes.

And here’s the mistake many busy parents make:
 We don’t adjust.

We keep controlling instead of influencing.
 We keep fixing instead of coaching.
 We hold on to being needed instead of embracing being chosen.

If we don’t make this shift, we risk damaging the very relationship we worked so hard to build.

In this episode of Parents Making Time, Anthony and Jennifer share a real-life story about their daughter navigating a major financial decision, and the difficult but necessary step they made of letting go. They unpack what intentional parenting looks like when your child is 18, 19, or beyond.

Because parenting adult children isn’t about letting go of love.
 It’s about changing how love looks.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• The 3 essential parenting shifts that help busy parents stay connected to adult children
• How to move from control to influence without losing your voice
• Why being chosen by your adult child is more powerful than being needed

If you want to build lasting family relationships without creating resentment, this episode will help you become the kind of parent your adult children still want to call, just because.

Easily improve your intentional parenting efforts at mealtime with our FREE resource, Dinner Conversation Starters.

Download our FREE resource, 30-Second Micro Moments of Intention with Your Kids, created for busy parents like you who need easy, actionable ways to have daily meaningful connections with their kids in less than a minute!

Parenting Questions? Email us at [email protected] (Please note, your question may be featured on the show).

For parenting inspiration, time management ideas, and encouragement for families, follow the hosts' individual accounts:

Anthony Craiker: Instagram | LinkedIn

Jennifer Craiker: Instagram

Interested in joining our free online parenting community? Send us a DM to receive an invite!

Enjoy the show? Leave a rating & review: Apple | Spotify

Transcript

Parents Making Time Ep. 23

Anthony: ​[00:00:00] Hey everyone. Before we get started today, I wanted to make you aware of a free resource that we have called 30 Second Micro Moments of Intention with Your Kids. This is a list of quick and easy things that you can do to have meaningful connection with your kids in 30 seconds or less. You can get that by going to our website at parentsmakingtime.com/freeresource.

Go there today so that you can start building lasting memories. One micro moment at a time. 

Jennifer: When our kids are little, we spend so much time trying to figure out how to be good parents. We read the books. We ask for advice, we adjust, we readjust as they move from infants to toddlers, to children, to teenagers, and just when we feel like we're finally getting the hang of it. Everything changes again, because the biggest shift of all comes when our kids step into adulthood.

Suddenly the rules are different [00:01:00] and influence looks different. The role we spent years perfecting as mom and dad has to evolve in ways that we were never taught and we were certainly never prepared for today on parents making time, we are talking about what it looks like to parent adult children, how to stay connected.

Be supportive and be present in a time when love looks a little less like direction, and a lot more like trust.

Anthony: This is parents making time. The show that helps busy parents put family first without burning out. We are Anthony and Jennifer Craiker. We don't just give parenting tips. We help you become the parent you want to be.

So recently our oldest daughter was involved in a car accident at college. Thankfully, she was okay. Nobody was injured in the accident, but unfortunately the car was totaled and we had worked out a generous deal for her to buy this car from us.

It [00:02:00] was our car. And so she was working on the arrangements that we had made to purchase the car over a period of time. But unfortunately, with the car being totaled, that was no longer an option for her to buy the car from us. Now admittedly, the car was a convenience, not a necessity. It's a nice convenience but not entirely necessary while she's at college.

So the question arose. Does she buy a new car right away or does she save up some money to buy a car a little bit down the road and rely on public transportation and friends to get around for the time being Now as her parents, we encouraged her to consider saving up this semester as much as she could so that she could buy a car maybe this summer without having to go into debt or at least much debt.

She did not want to do that. She [00:03:00] liked having a car. She had gotten used to it over her time at college and decided that she wanted to buy a car sooner rather than later, and that was a decision we had to let her make. It was her decision to make, and ultimately she decided, past Friday actually to purchase a car.

And she financed it and did the whole thing herself. And that may be a good decision. It may end up being a not so wise decision, we don't know yet, but it was her decision to make and it was our position as parents to give our input and then step back and let her make the ultimate decision. 

Jennifer: Yeah. So it's not really.

An easy place to be. But as our kids step in adulthood, we often make the mistake of not adjusting ourselves to this new phase of life. You know, as our kids age and we age, hopefully we'll all be healthy and live long lives. And so this will be the longest phase that we spend with [00:04:00] our children. Hopefully we'll be spending more time with our children as adults than we did when they were children.

And so if we don't start seeing our kids as adults, we can really cause some issues between us and them. We need to remember what it's like to be in their shoes. What it's like to be 18, 19 years old and wanting to, have that independence, wanting to step away and out into the world on our own, and feeling maybe pulled between ourselves and our parents.

And so we need to remember that as we go forward. 

Anthony: It's easy to not step. Back as parents when your kids are adults, because we want to protect them. We don't want any harm to come their way. And as sweet as that is, it's really in the challenges of life that they ultimately grow, just like we did when we were young adults and going through the challenges of life and we grew and learned and became better humans as a result of the challenges that we faced.

We also do it, [00:05:00] I think, because we still want to be the most important people in their lives, and that can be really difficult. But the reality is that we're not supposed to be the most important people in their lives anymore. They are out on their own. They're adults and hope. They will find their partner and have kids and their own families, and those people then become the most important people in their lives.

It's not that you're not important in their lives, but you're not the most important. But we have that longing and we kinda resist that change or that shift. 

Jennifer: Yeah, but how exciting will that be when they do those things and we get to have more members of our families to love and to watch Blossom.

But if we're not careful with our children and we don't make this change, we can stunt that personal and emotional growth like Anthony was talking about. We can keep them from maturing in the way that they can only do through life experience and even worse, eventually. If we're that type of parent that's not able to step [00:06:00] away, they're going to resent us for it.

If we can't allow them to make their own choices, eventually they're just gonna distance themselves from us, and that's gonna be even worse for everyone involved. 

Anthony: So there are three shifts that we need to make as our children become adults. Three parenting shifts. The first shift is to go from one of control to one of influence.

When they were little, we controlled most of their lives. We controlled the outcomes, we controlled the decisions that they made. And then as they got older, we relinquished some of that control periodically over time as they became mature enough to start making more of their own decisions. Then they become adults, and that's where you have to step back and let go of the control you don't control them anymore, and you really should shift to a mindset of influence on them instead of exerting control over the [00:07:00] decisions that they make.

Jennifer: Yeah, and like you said, it's not this magical. They turned 18 and that shift happens. That shift happens gradually, right? From, starting age 15, 16, as age appropriate. You start giving 'em that space to try out their independence, to try out their decision making skills and work on that.

We obviously gave the example of our daughter with the car. We can't, we couldn't force her to save for a car. We couldn't force her to. Take our wisdom and use it. We told her things like, public transportation is free for students and you are within walking distance of everything but.

She had already experienced or tasted that independence of having a car and she really didn't wanna go without it. And I understand that. So, we did Then, as she said, I, nope, I'm going to purchase a car. We did then guide her and share some expertise about. Or some knowledge that we had about purchasing and looking for a car, but we had said things prior to that.

So also same child as she was 18, senior in high school, she turned 18 [00:08:00] the first semester of her senior year, so she's already 18 as she's applying for colleges, which has a really big first decision that kids are starting to make really on their own. And so she'd already applied to three or four schools, but she had a dream school and this dream school had been her dream school since.

Way. I mean, years before she had told us she wanted to go to NYU New York University. She had this fascination with New York from the time she was two years old, and her dad went on a trip there and brought her back a T-shirt that said, I love New York. And she'd watch Sharpe's fabulous adventure. She just loved New York and she wanted to go there.

And she came to us one night and said, I've applied to three or four schools, but I really think I wanna apply to NYU. The problem being is we had long had a discussion with her about the cost associated with going to NYU and how, she didn't have the means to cover that cost and we had already let her know what we were able to cover and it didn't cover NYU, and so we had [00:09:00] said, if you were to go to NYU, you're gonna incur a lot of debt. And that really just isn't something that. You should do, and she, I think, agreed, but she wanted to know if she could get in. She said it wasn't about going, it was just about submitting the application to see if she could, and the application fee was $80.

And so we said, look. You get to make this choice. You're 18 years old. This is your choice, but we are not covering, while we had covered the other fees for applying to college, we're not covering this $80 because it's more than double the other fees that we covered. We've already done four and this is your choice.

We, we don't want you to apply there. Ultimately, she didn't. I think she wasn't quite ready to stand on her own and make an independent choice there. 'cause she didn't, because we didn't want her to. But it was a big shift for us in our parenting to allow her to make that choice. And so one thing to keep in mind is we can share wisdom and then step back because if we force it, we're going to lose the relationship.[00:10:00]

But if we influence it, we get to keep the connection. 

Anthony: The second shift that we need to make as parents is from fixing things to coaching, and that can involve. Instead of, giving answers to questions that they have, it could involve asking some questions and helping them think through the situations that they're in, instead of just trying to solve the problem for them.

It can also involve letting them feel the consequences instead of s. Swooping in and saving the day. That's part of the growth that they go through as young adults, and that can be difficult as parents, but it's a shift that's necessary in order for your kid to be able to grow into adulthood. 

Jennifer: I think this is one that I definitely have struggled with our kids of I just wanna keep 'em happy.

I just wanna share my knowledge and just give answers. But instead of jumping in and saying, here's what you should do, I need to take a break or a breath and say. [00:11:00] Well, what do you think your options are? Because when I do that, it opens us up to a conversation. We can talk through the problem. I can lead them through thinking through the decision.

And if I just say, do this, well, they haven't learned that process. 

Anthony: And the last shift that you need to make is a parent of adult children is to shift from being needed to being chosen. 

Jennifer: Yeah, this one is really big and it's actually really beautiful when you think about it. So when they're little, they need you.

Like, there's no doubt about it. They're, they cannot survive without you. And as they grow and when they become grown, they get the opportunity to choose you. And what I mean by that is some examples could be, when they call you just because they're not calling you because, oh, I need to call mom because I need money.

Or, oh, I need to call dad because. The car broke down and whatever it is, they ch they're choosing to call and have a relationship with you. I love it when our girls call [00:12:00] home just to say hi, just to see how I'm doing, just to share with me how they're doing. That's, it's a really great thing and sometimes when they call.

They're gonna call and they're gonna ask for your opinion. And, that for us has looked like, situations with roommates at school. There was one time where our second daughter she's very much a rule follower, but she skipped class one day for some reason. She made that choice.

I. And when after she did, she found out that there was something big that she'd overlooked that could only happen during class, and she had now missed it, and she wasn't sure what to do. So she called home to see what our opinions were, of what her options might be. And so we were able to then talk her through what she should think about, what she could do, what she couldn't do, and really also to reminder, well, you made a choice and so now you're gonna have to live with what consequences come, but you know.

It feels different from the difference of being needed and being chosen. That feels different, but I think being chosen is really beautiful. Really great. 

Anthony: [00:13:00] Yeah. Being chosen is the fruit of our labors as parents. 

Jennifer: Yeah. So this topic is really real for Anthony and I because it's exactly where we are at in parenting.

We have two daughters who have left home, and then we have a son who's just about there. He's in his final semester of senior year. He's applied to colleges. We're waiting on responses. He's in that decision making process, and so we're in that, that first shift really. Really heavily of from control to influence.

And the goal for us with any of our kids and what we're dealing with him right now is it's not to hold on tighter. It's really to become the kind of parent that they still wanna call when they don't have to. And if we can do that, I feel like we really will have succeeded. 

Anthony: So if you like this episode today, please leave a rating or review on Apple or Spotify.

And if you know someone who could benefit from what you heard today, please share the episode with them. 

Jennifer: And next week we're gonna talk about problem solving as parents and how when we get frustrated, [00:14:00] stepping away might actually be the smartest move that you can make. We'll share the science and some simple ways to use this in everyday family life.

Until next time, make time to become the parent you want to be.