From Parent to Friend – Small Changes That Bring More Peace With Adult Children

Are you trying to navigate your relationship with your adult child, trying to figure out how to let go but at the same time support them as they create their own adult lives? Should you stop being a parent and try to be more of a friend and what does that mean and how do you do it?  In this episode, we explore parenting adult children, learning how to let go while still supporting them, and how to shift from being a parent to becoming a trusted friend.

Transcript

So today we’ll talk about changing the parent/child relationship as your child becomes an adult, why it’s important and healthy for this shift to happen and how you can transition so let’s look at removing the parent hat and replacing it with the friendship hat. Not their peer in the sense of pretending you’re the same age or have the same responsibilities. But someone who listens more than lectures, who trusts and does not require control. Someone they can come to without bracing themselves for correction, disappointment, subtle judgment or as my kids would look for, my eyebrows to go up that meant I didn’t like what they’re doing or saying.

This transition from parent to friend can feel weird because for decades, our job was the opposite. When our children were young, we had to set the rules, hold the boundaries, create structure, and keep them safe, often from themselves. We were shaping nervous systems, teaching right from wrong, modeling behavior, and creating predictability so they could grow and that role mattered. And it still matters, you still matter even though you are both adults, but roles are meant to evolve. And when we don’t evolve with our children, tension and frustration can build on both sides. And of course this evolution needs to happen on both sides, for you to not only stop parenting but for them to stop relying on mom and dad rescuing.

So today, let’s talk about why continuing to parent our adult children the same way we parented them when they were younger just doesn’t work anymore, and how shifting into a relationship built on respect, trust, and friendship can actually bring more peace on both sides than control ever could. And we’ll even talk about what if you don’t like your kids and don’t really want to be friends. We’ll talk about that as well.

Let’s start with the science, because it helps reframe the blame we often place, on them and on ourselves when their lives and things aren’t going the way we both might want them to go. First we have to recognize that while we can jokingly explain behavior as “well their brains aren’t fully formed yet,” there is actually neuroscience that backs this up in a very real way. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, emotional regulation, long-term planning, and decision-making, continues developing well into the mid-twenties and most research suggests this process isn’t complete until around age twenty-five. 

This matters because before that point, young adults may intellectually understand consequences but still struggle to fully integrate them emotionally and really understand what their actions cause. They’re learning how to manage stress, assess risk, and regulate reactions in real time. And often we feel like they just don’t get it while they’re going thru this young adult stage but let’s not forget our own lives in our late teens, early 20s, we also didn’t get it then either.

So during those young adult years, your guidance with them still matters, you support still matters, and even more so, yours and their boundaries still matter. But once our children move beyond that stage, once they are fully grown adults, the relationship must change in order to remain healthy for both you and them. Because it makes sense that you cannot treat someone like a child and expect them to behave like an adult. You also cant expect them to be held accountable to their own lives while you’re simultaneously controlling their choices. And you can’t demand respect from them while withholding your own respect from them. 

This is where so much friction lives between parents and adult children. Parents say, “I just want them to be responsible.” Adult children say, “I just want to be treated like an adult.” Both can feel unheard, and both can feel frustrated, and most times, both are right. Many parents get stuck in a painful in-between. They want their adult children to succeed, but they also want to protect them from pain and not have to go thru what they went thru. They want them to have independence, but not if that independence leads to failure and let’s be honest, this failure may not be a failure for the adult child but may be seen as failure by the parent based on their own personal need to be seen a certain way. And they want honesty, but sometimes as parents we push back on that honesty when it’s not what we want to hear.

And adult children can sometimes feel these contradictions. They sense when advice is really control in disguise. They feel when help comes with expectations attached or conditions set to their acceptance. They hear the unspoken message beneath the words that basically says “I don’t trust you to run your own life.” Even when that’s not what we mean.

So consider this example. An adult child takes a job you don’t think is right for them. You see risks and you want to warn them, steer them, protect them from disappointment. So you comment, again and again. You ask questions that you feel are supportive but they feel are interrogating. You offer advice when they never asked for it. From your perspective, you say you’re helping. From theirs, they feel small, disrespected and constantly questioned, like they were supposed to ask for your permission to take the job instead of an adult making a choice. And if it doesn’t work out? They might hesitate to tell you, not because they don’t trust you, but because they don’t want to hear you say once again, “I told you so.” Or worse you don’t say it but your face and body language says it all. Imagine if your friends felt that way about you, that they wouldn’t share things with you because you might say I told you so. That’s not the kind of friendship you want to build right?

This is where the shift matters. Once our adult children are fully formed adults, our role is no longer to manage their lives. It’s to respect them as capable humans who are allowed to make choices, even choices we wouldn’t make ourselves. Think about how you treat your friends. You may not agree with their decisions. You might see the red flags before they do and you might think they should be doing something different. But unless they ask, you don’t necessarily offer unsolicited advice and you certainly don’t lecture. You don’t micromanage your friends. You don’t make their choices about you, or worry that their choices are a reflection of you. And if they fall? You don’t shame them, you show up for them, you support them. You listen, you offer empathy, and you trust that their life is ultimately theirs to navigate. And while it may be hard for you to recognize, that same approach is exactly what adult children need from us. 

And I know, one of the hardest things you can do for your kids is to allow them to hurt. As parents, our instinct is protection, to soften the blow and make sure they have a soft place to land. To step in ready to fix before things fall apart. And when our kids were young, that instinct was necessary to keep them physically safe and help them learn emotional maturity. We stopped them from touching hot stoves and we guided them away from danger. We intervened because their safety and how they would learn and grow depended on it. But adulthood is different. As we get older, pain becomes a teacher and failure becomes feedback. Struggle becomes the place where confidence is built. When we rescue our adult children from every uncomfortable consequence, we rob them of the experiences that help them grow. I mean think of things you learned as an adult, those places where it was painful when you hurt someone or someone hurt you and how you grew from those experiences. As much as we hate that we had to go thru them, I think we would acknowledge that if we’re open to growth, we learned from them. 

And of course it’s painful to watch someone you love struggle, especially when you can see the outcome coming down the road. But learning to tolerate that discomfort without rushing in is one of the most loving acts we can offer. I mean we do that with our friends so why not with our adult kids? We might want to save them both but we also know our friends have to learn like we did, so do our adult kids. Confidence isn’t built by saving them every single time, it’s built by surviving, by tearing down and building back up.

Another key shift is understanding that advice is only helpful when it’s invited. Unsolicited advice, even wise, well-intended advice that we’ve got from all of our live experience often can sound like criticism. It comes across as “I know better than you,” instead of, “I trust you to figure this out.” If you want your adult children to come to you for guidance, you have to become someone they feel safe opening up to, someone they trust with their inner thoughts, dreams and secrets. Again you don’t always have to agree with them but you have to be open to them. That safety doesn’t come from being right all the time, it comes from being respectful.

So how do you go about letting your adult kids know that you’re open to listening and to helping without fixing? Some simple phrases can be:

“Do you want me to just listen or do you want my thoughts?”

“How can I support you to move forward?”

“I know this is hard for you but I trust that you can do this.”

These words build bridges instead of walls. 

Now for many parents, especially those who poured years of energy, identity, and purpose into raising children which many of us have, letting go of the parenting role can feel like losing a part of themselves, they have solidified their whole existence and validation in this parent/child role. And you ask who am I if I’m not needed in the same way, what’s my purpose now? And it may feel like a form of rejection that your adult child doesn’t need you in the same way or if feels like they don’t care about what you’re saying anymore and you don’t know how to be that friend. But becoming a friend to your adult child doesn’t mean you matter less. It actually means all those years in that parent/child role worked, you raised someone capable, independent. You raised someone strong enough to make their own choices and that’s awesome.

And that doesn’t mean this is the end of your importance, it actually means it’s the beginning of a different kind of relationship. One built on mutual respect instead of authority. This doesn’t mean you stop caring. It doesn’t mean you stop having opinions. And it doesn’t mean you disappear when things fall apart. It simply means you stop trying to control outcomes that are not yours to control. That’s where boundaries really matter here, for everyone. You are allowed to say, “I don’t agree with this, but I respect that it’s your decision” just like you would a friend. You are allowed to step back when helping turns into enabling and you are allowed to protect your own emotional well-being by not taking responsibility for choices that aren’t yours, by no longer carrying what they now need to carry in their own lives.

Likewise, adult children are learning about you more too. They are learning how to relate to you in new ways. Learning that you’re human, that you make mistakes, that you hurt, that you don’t have all the answers. They too are learning a new role in their own independence alongside a new connection to you. This transition can be messy and that’s ok. Old patterns don’t disappear overnight. There will be missteps, awkward conversations and moments where you fall back into old roles on both sides. Growth and building relationships doesn’t require perfection, just like building a friendship, it requires awareness and commitment to each other. 

Now you may be thinking but what if they just aren’t making good decisions, what if they aren’t moving forward? And bigger than that, What if they fail and come back home? What if they continue to need to rely on me? What if I don’t step in and they never succeed? Many of us aren’t trying to run our adult child’s life, and while we love our kids, we’re trying to protect our own future, our energy, our finances, and our own sense of peace. They’re wondering, If I let go, will I end up carrying everything again?  Remember this is where you can reframe and realize that letting go does not mean don’t love them and don’t support them from a distance, but rather than save them, you may need to let them save themselves. You can step back and hold boundaries at the same time. You can be concerned and care without responsibility or ownership of their actions. You are allowed to care deeply without being accountable for outcomes that no longer belong to you. At some point you have to let them put their big boy pants on.

But what if they keep coming back? Coming home after a setback is not automatically a failure. Life happens. Jobs fall through. Relationships end. Health changes. But you get to determine if returning home becomes a growth moment or a dependency trap by creating structure and guidelines...like “I can help you out in this way” or “I can help you for this amount of time” or “Within these guidelines.” Unhealthy enabling is rescue with no limits, so place those healthy limits for you and for them. Boundaries are not abandonment, they are what protect both the relationship and your well-being. You are allowed to say that while you love them, the support is temporary and ask them for their plan. You can state that you are there to support them but also require them to be responsible for their next steps.

But here’s something you might be thinking and don’t want to say out loud...what if I don’t like my adult kid enough to be a friend and that could happen or maybe they don’t like you so much? I mean you can both love each other but not like each other enough to want to even spend time together. Well, the beauty in them being adults is that you don’t have to be with them 24/7 anymore. And maybe by looking at them as adults, treating them with just common courtesy and respect might actually change the dynamic so you might begin to actually be more open, speak in a different way, allow things to not bother each other so much because you’re no longer trying to control and they’re no longer feeling they need to justify their lives. And maybe, just maybe, you slowly start liking each other more or at least appreciate each other more from a distance. It’s like people at work, I don’t have to like them to be able to be around them and work with them.

So as you go about your week, if you want start moving that relationship with your adult children, maybe this week, pause before giving advice. Ask before helping. Listen without fixing. Let them own their choices, even the hard ones, especially the hard ones. And remind yourself their decisions or their mistakes are not a reflection of your failure as a parent. Build this path thru trust and not control, and if this was helpful and you know someone who needs to loosen their grip and step into a new relationship with their adult kids, please share this with them. 

As we close today remember that your adult children don’t need you to run their lives. They need you to believe they can run it themselves. And when they stumble, and they will, they don’t need a lecture, what they need is a soft place to land, a safe space to learn and grow knowing that you are leading with love and respect. That’s how relationships deepen, that’s how friendships emerge and grow, and how you find a path to more peace as you yourself shift into your next version of your own life. And guess what you deserve that, you deserve to be allowed to now focus on the life you want to build for your own self, to find new peace and purpose, little by little and peace by peace.