Stop Enabling. Start Living.: Help for Parents of Highly Dependent Adult Children

When your child is an adult, there is no more parenting work left to do. The time to raise, teach, imbue, educate, and [fill in the blank] is over. It was over long ago. The problem is no longer about "parenting"—it is about how you view your role as a parent.

Parents of highly dependent adult children really are good people. I learned this working as a clinician. These clients were caring individuals. They were also exhausted and confused, despite being intelligent and quite wise in other realms of their life. Despite loving their kids, and liking them, too.

But the kid they love wouldn't "adult." Nothing seemed to help. The parents stepped in over and over. They had stopped expecting that their child could figure things out—albeit imperfectly—for themselves. This perpetuated the problem for everyone.

All these parents have one thing in common: They had stopped expecting that their child, an adult, could figure things out—albeit imperfectly—for themselves.

Parents, if you are reading this, know that you didn't cause your child's failure to launch. But it is worthwhile to consider that you likely contributed to it, probably without knowing. And still are.

As with my other ebooks (which focus on navigating the rocky road of life with a narcissist), Stop Enabling. Start Living. can be read out of order. Even the shortest sentences can serve as powerful tools, perfect for meditation and reflection. As time passes and your outlook changes, entries will take on different meanings that speak to you in new ways. Your only job is to take your new perspective and apply it to better care for yourself. There is no requirement to "not think" about what is troubling you. As you read, let those worries exist without acting on them. Let them co-exist with what you learn.

Help and hope is available. Stop Enabling. Start Living. offers distilled insights gleaned during my decades of clinical work with families, adult children of aging parents, and the parents themselves. This short read is packed with information you'll return to over and over, help that will guide you toward a better relationship with yourself and, by extension, a more realistic, mutual relationship with your child.
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