May 2, 2025 Parents - Hands off Your Grown Kids
“ The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.” ⁃ Frank A. Clark
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Attempting to run the lives of grown children can lead to ruining their lives. If you are the type of parent that has micromanaged your child's life in a vain attempt to prevent them making any mistakes or suffering any harm, there comes a time when you must let go of the reins. Attempting to steer your grown child’s life away from things that you encountered in your youth or in adulthood, would be like trying to fit the proverbial square peg in the round hole. The world is no longer as it was when you were growing up. People are no longer like they were. Trying to steer clear of situations from times past, thinking that the outcomes then would be the same now, under similar circumstances, is probably a mistake. Unfortunately, I have personally witnessed numerous occasions where some friends of mine have mettled in the lives of their grown children forcing or coercing them into making decisions that have, with the passage of time, shown themselves to be truly bad. Living life is about taking chances, relying on ones experience or inexperience to make trivial and critical decisions. That is all part of life. Each one of us must learn how to make decisions and benefit from those decisions or take our knocks for having made bad decisions. That is the only way we can hope to mature into wise decision-making adults. Wisdom comes from screwing up and not screwing up again. If we don't allow our children to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, they will acquire no wisdom to pass along to their children. Micromanaging parents, please leave your adult children alone. If you did your parenting job, at least adequately, your children will have some capacity for reasonable decision-making. You owe it to them to take your hands off as they strive, as you once did, to figure out this wonderful thing we call life. You had your chance, now it's their time to have a chance. One of the most difficult things we as parents have to do, is to know when it's time to let our little birds fly. Please, let's not deprive them, of the joy and pain of learning how to soar on their own. You won’t always be here to make decisions for them. That’s just the way life works. We learned by doing. Let’s allow them the same privilege
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