How to Have a Good Relationship With Adult Children

I was certain that when my son turned 20 we'd become good friends and move beyond the father son relationship... Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that simple. If you'd like to have a good relationship with your adult children, find out how I did it!

Things You'll Need

  • Patience
  • Plenty of time
  • Readiness to try a new approach
  • Good listening skills

Instructions

    • 1

      When my son turned 20, I was shocked he and I weren't friends and I mentioned it to my wife. She turned to me and said, "Well, were you and your father friends when you were 20?!" That was the day I realized that developing a friendship with my son wouldn't just happen simply because he was an adult. It was something to foster. Your first step needs to be this same realization--choosing to develop a friendship with your adult children is going to be a process.

    • 2

      Schedule time to see one another regularly, one-on-one. My daughter and I had been having weekly breakfasts since she was 17. It had been a great way for the two of us to catch up and I really looked forward to that time. My son was older, though, and it hadn't yet struck me that I could schedule time with him like that when he was 17. So, after deciding I wanted to foster a friendship with my adult son, that was the first thing I did--set up time to see him once a week. It took me going out of my way so that we could have lunch near his office, but it's been well worth it.

    • 3

      Realize that being the parent of an adult is different from parenting a teen. During our first few lunches, we were both frustrated when my son would tell me about his challenges and I would parent him through them instead of offering adult suggestions. (For instance, when he complained that his boss was assigning him too much work with too short of deadlines, I saw him as the 15-year-old who left all his homework until the night before and assumed he was procrastinating instead of offering suggestions for re-negotiating the situation with his boss.) You'll need to make sure you're seeing your adult child as an adult, too, so that your communications can be adult-to-adult. If you've ever mentored someone at your workplace, use those skills, not the skills you learned raising a toddler!

    • 4

      Give the relationship time. At first, my son was skeptical. He expected our relationship to always be a little frustrating with me offering too much advice and always seeing him as a child. It took a lot of patience on my part to reassure him that I genuinely wanted to relate to him as a friend (while still being his father) instead of that I was just being a dad.

    • 5

      Believe it can be done! Now my son and I have a great friendship. In fact, I consider him to be my best friend. It is very rewarding to develop a friendship with your adult children and it lets me show my kids just how proud I am of the adults they've become. Your belief that you can have a good relationship with your adult children will go a long way towards making it happen.

    • 6

      Try not to argue about the relationship. If your kids think you were absent during their childhoods, or not as reliable as they wanted, don't argue with them about it. Sure, when you missed the soccer game it was because you were working to support them (and you probably attended far more than you missed), but arguing about their perspective will only make them more entrenched in their viewpoint. Instead, know that as your kids get a little older, they'll gain more perspective on this and just let them know that you want to have a great relationship with them now.

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