Navigating Adult Child and Parent Relationships: But what about me

Last night, my husband and I had a date on the beach.

This was no small feat, as we have four small children with one of them requiring a significant amount of care and support. But since we had some family members with us on vacation willing to help, my husband and I could rest easy knowing that they were loved and cared for while we were out together.

I realize, however, that not everyone has this kind of support, especially if a family has a child with high needs. Many families live far away from their extended families and must rely on other sources of support. Sometimes a family can even live near other family members, but rarely see or hear from them.

A sad reality for many family units is that conflict with their extended families greatly interferes with their access to needed support. There are many reasons for this which would be too numerous to list here, but I want to switch gears and focus for a while on adult child relationships with their parents.

If you just read that last sentence and it felt like your heart dropped to your stomach, stick with me for just a bit. If you’re a parent of an adult child and conflict keeps you from communicating with your child, I see you and know that this is very painful for you. If you’re an adult child and conflict with your parents seems impossible to resolve, I see you, too.

Often, adult children and parents want to have a close, healthy relationship and are willing to learn how to manage conflict to achieve it. And while no formula or list will apply to all families or circumstances, there are helpful ways to engage with family members that can begin the repair process.

The most important, most foundational step to repairing with your loved one is to accept accountability. A relationship involves more than one person, and each person influences the other in either positive or negative ways. The one thing you can do right at this moment is to accept that you play some role in the conflict and that it is necessary for you to do work towards resolving it.

A healthy parent-child relationship does not involve an absence of failure. No parent or child gets it right all the time because all of us are human beings. We get tired, frustrated, or distracted. A healthy relationship is built on the willingness of the child and the parent to own their mistakes and take steps to rectify them.

If accepting and taking accountability is the first step, then the second one is to accept that you only have control over yourself and that you don’t have control over how your loved one responds to your attempts at repairing the relationship. What we will focus on in the future is what you can do to begin the repair process and improve the relationship with your parent or adult child.

Brittney Avaritt, MS, LAC, LAMFT, is a licensed associate counselor and licensed associate marriage and family therapist in the state of Arkansas. She can be reached at brittney.avaritt@gmail.com.