Status Updates From How to Raise an Emotionally...

When you treat anyone as though they’re in a world matters, you’ve already taken care of your relationship with them in the future.

As you contribute to your child emotional maturity – no matter what age they are – I hope you will remember to pour sometimes and feel good about giving another emotionally mature person to a world that desperately needs them. By doing so, your efforts have reached far beyond the boundaries of your own family.

How do you treat your child now Is laying the foundation for the type of relationship you will be able to have in the future.

It’s the most beautiful thing in the world that a parent can step up to take complete responsibility for raising a helpless child, invest boundless love and resources into their development, and then release them to their own adulthood with no claims on what was given. It truly is altruism in its highest form. Your generosity in accepting your child’s adult status marks your own emotional maturation as well.

When you are willing to enjoy your grown-up child as a fellow adult, they know they can be with you comfortably and still be themselves.

Your adult child has the right to discover life in their own way, and might even figure out something that works better for them. Keep an open mind and be willing to learn from them, rather than convincing yourself that you have all the answers.

Some young adults easily maintain close family ties and continue smoothly forward. For others, some aspects of the old relationship may have to be adjusted or released in order to create a more adult bond. If you’re young adult grows in a different direction from your family, you will have to adapt if you want to keep your connection.

If you continue to honour your adult child’s right to their own viewpoints and choices, they will feel free to become who they feel. They were meant to be instead of feeling pressured to stay in childhood roles.

The idea is not always to put your child forward a great expense to your own well-being. You have to take care of yourself as well… Be nice to your children in a way that benefits you.

It’s nice to be understood, but the most important ingredient in relationship relationships is having the feeling that the other person is trying to understand you, even if they’re a little off base.

It’s important to make sure that your empathy for them is accurate, by confirming with them you’ve intuited their feelings correctly.

As long as you were taking your child’s feeling seriously and trying to keep a respectful mindset towards them, your small efforts are probably going to make things better.

If you creatively imagine their feelings and put yourself in their shoes, you will take the next right action – toward reconciliation instead of further tension. You’ll know when you find the next right thing when you feel good about what you’ve done and you sense it there’s renewed clarity on both sides.

Figuring out the next step will always be a creative act that we make up out of the situation at hand

What you do next can change the past a little bit because your response changes the context of the original mistake.

The mistake has happened; you can’t erase it. The really important thing in the moment isn’t what you do now in the context of having made the mistake.

All solutions have to start somewhere. If you look for the next tiny movement in the right direction that will get you back on track, you were actually taking a huge step.

The overly critical part of your mind will make you feel like anything less than an immediate full solution is a failure. Instead of listening to it, try to engage your sensible, reasonable thinking, ignoring that false perfectionism and seeking what’s possible under the circumstances. This is adaptability, the ability to respond objectively moment to moment of changing realities.

It’s not up to you to solve the whole thing with one action, because that’s usually impossible. You have to work it out in steps. But by engaging in a series of small right actions, you eventually can reach the best possible solution, given everything that has happened.

In complex situations, we usually can’t discern the whole solution right away because too many things are going on all at once. So often, we are stuck with remedies after the fact. At that point, our only realistic option is to find the next right thing we can do under the circumstances. With a moment reflection, you can usually identify at least one thing you can do to make the situation a little better right away

You’re kind and loving behaviour makes your child feel close to you and want to please you. When we choose to be considerate and work with our child respectfully, we can have a good relationship with them all our live lives. That is totally within your control.

When you become self accepting about not having control over everything, you will be a calmer, wiser, and more resilient parent. There is much in parenting that’s not up to us. Your child is not a machine but a living individual with their own path. You can’t control the outcome that you want for them, but you can teach them things and you can influence the quality of your relationship with them.

Do what you can, make your best plans with the limited information you have, and respect your limits as a fallible human being. When you exemplify that attitude, you help your child develop a realistic philosophy about what we can and can’t control in life, so they can deal with life surprises and disappointments without excessive self blame or self criticism.

We often grasp for a new idea long before we are able to implement it. The process of maturation guarantees that we will always know better before we can do better.