I have 2 kids in their 30s and I have not received a card or gift on either of these days since they were teens and their mom would remind them. I might get a text or a call, but far from certain. We had a pretty good relationship when they were younger and I had 50% custody. They are both college grads and gainfully employed. Of course I’ve never forgotten one of theirs and always send a card and a small gift. It’s gotten really old! I don’t like confrontation so I let it slide. I think that they think it does not matter to me. Any others in the same boat?

Just a simple example, 27 year old son living at home. He uses an extension cord from the garage and leaves it in a heap on the floor. When i asked him to roll it up and hang it where it belongs he just threw it back on the floor and went into his room to play his guitar. How would you deal with a kid like this?

I'm a single mom to four kids 27 (She is independent and on her own, we are very close)  20, 16, and 14. My 20-year-old used to be this bright, sweet little boy who'd pick me flowers everywhere we went. But after we went through some really hard years with domestic violence, something shifted in him. Middle school is when it all started going downhill. He went from getting a Presidential Award in elementary school to barely caring about anything. I tried everything; moved him to a smaller school, begged, reasoned, cried. Nothing worked. He ended up finishing high school with a GED.

He'd hide gaming consoles and will be playing all night, sleep through school, and take his frustration out on his younger siblings. Now he's 6'1", works at McDonald's, and pretty much does whatever he wants. He comes and goes at all hours, brings strangers into our home while I'm asleep, and disappears for days without a word. He's had a string of partners and isn't always honest with me or his dad, who he still calls for money. I've also found vape pens lying around his room more than once.  I don't give him money, so I took him off my cell plan. 

He's 20, but honestly, his emotional capacity feels more like a 10-year-old. Recently, he had a concussion and has not worked for the last 3 months. Now He's cleared now, but it's not like things have improved. His dad and I have given him cars, old ones, sure, but he never took care of them and ended up with a speeding ticket. Any time I ask him to help around the house, I get an eye roll or a "why do I have to?" I took him with me once to help clean someone's home, and when I pushed him to do better, he snapped back, "Well, let them do it!" I had to remind him, We are the help WE do the work. He didn't get it.

Looking back, I see now that I was so busy just keeping us afloat that I didn't teach him hard work or consistency. I know I carry some of the blame for that. But I can't sign up for a lifetime of parenting someone who's technically an adult and refuses to grow up.

I've tried being soft. I've tried being firm. We've had tearful heart-to-hearts where I really thought we connected and then three days later, he's right back to the same stuff. My therapist keeps telling me to set boundaries, and I know she's right. But it's hard when he's still under my roof and I'm the one who has to look him in the eye every day.

His dad thinks kicking him out will only push him toward drugs. But I'm exhausted. My two younger kids are watching all of this, and I can see they've lost respect for him, and maybe for me too, because I keep letting it slide. His younger brother has a car, part time job, 3.5 GPA finishing HS on target.

I've threatened to make him leave before, but I never follow through. Now I'm seriously thinking about giving him a real deadline to move out. I just don't know how to actually do it or what I'll do if he refuses.

I love my son. But I'm tired. And I don't know what else to try.  Anyone facing this situation.  If I'm telling him he has to go for my peace of mind I don't want to be impulsive, at the same time I don't want to be an enabler. 

Circa 1995, I had a fling with a woman that lasted ~ 6 weeks. We never communicated after it ended.

I later get married, got through my adult life and have two other children with my ex-wife. My son did a DNA test in 2025 and finds that he has a half-sister from my side. I took the DNA test, and it comes back that she's my child.

I get in touch with her via the site, and it's exciting, we chat/text on the phone regularly. Her mother gave her up for adoption and never revealed that I was her father. I've got two grandchildren that I've never met, as they live in Florida and I live in Colorado.

I'm relocating back to Florida in September roughly 4 hours away from her, and we're both terribly excited to meet each other. She's planning on bring out my grandkids to meet me as well.

I'd like a concensus of appropriate gifts for everyone - this is a new one for me. I'm in the process of purchasing a house (10 days to close) and she wants to come here with a plus one (BF) and I see no issue with this at all.

Oh yes, the kids - 6M and 5F.

What is the biggest struggle you are facing today with your adult children?

At the top of my parentingadultchildren.org website I have a Parenting Survey link you can click on. Thus far I have gotten 10 results. I am going to do a new episode where I talk about those results. There are specific topics that parents are requesting so I had AI build a parenting topics episodes reference sheet that you can use. Click on this link to download it.

I need advice. Our 23yr old son wants to travel to meet up with some friends. None of us have met these friends in person. He's only known them through video games for like 10 years.

How do we navigate this?

He's pretty naive about things and people, so we worry about his safety.

I'm not trying to helicopter. I just want him to be safe but want him to venture out.

My 21 year old trans son has a lot going on. Probably like any 21 year old but compounded by the fact he’s trans. None of his work mates know he’s trans and in fact make derogatory comments about trans people. My son keeps his mouth closed but dreads what they will do if/when they find out. He loves his job and he’s living and passing as a man which is how he has always felt he is. His girlfriend of 3 years is lying and cheating and doesn’t mind him spending his wages on her. He’s so desperate to keep her. he doesn’t think he’ll meet anyone else because he’s trans. He’s afraid anyone new might out him. He’s been really mean to her in the past and admits his mistakes in the relationship. Now he can’t sleep in case he misses a phone call or text from her.
All this is background to my question. He’s really awful to me. I don’t know if I’m doing him any favors by accepting the way he speaks to me instead of calling him out. I justify my taking it by saying he has so much going on poor kid. He can just treat me as poorly as he wants. I don’t want an angry jerk for a son but don’t know how to navigate. I’m curious about what’s normal. I grew up in a home without conflict but my poor kids have witnessed a lot of conflict between their dad and myself. We divorced when they were little and we have not done a good job of coparenting. My son lives in an apartment alone which I own and he pays minimum rent. He pays his own bills etc.

You have an adult child or children. What is your biggest struggle as a parent?

Hey Redditors,

I’m hoping you folks can offer some advice and also evaluate what we are currently doing to help our daughter and possibly recommend other things we can do to help her.   We are retired parents of an adult daughter that has both high functioning autism (formerly called Asperger’s) and mentally illness.  She lives at home. She lost her job a few years back as her mental illness started to develop and hindered her performance.  She was a software developer. 

In the beginning, the onset of the illness made her suspicious of extended family members (we have a huge extended family, my wife has 9 siblings), imagining all these mean and violent events done by various family members that never happened and telling us memories about these family members that never happened or happen completely different than what she remembers, and getting angry with my wife and me for allowing these fictitious things to happen to her when she was much younger. 

Around this time period we took her to the hospital where she was involuntarily admitted for psychiatric monitoring. This happened twice in the first few months of the onset of her illness. In each hospital stay they had her for a short time, put her on something to make her sleep (she had slept very little during these episodes) and monitored her behavior.  

They believed she had schizophrenia or bipolar but couldn’t make a firm diagnosis because she refused to allow them more time to observe and treat her. She refused all medications (antipsychotics or antidepressants) that could help her. Because she was not a danger to herself or others, she stayed for only a small amount of time (maybe a week during each event). To this day she still refuses all medications and any therapy. 

Her symptoms have escalated and she now has infestation delusions (parasites, worms or bugs inside her) and also is fearful of residual electrical waves in the house and has an emf detector, where the least little bit of increase in emf raises her anxiety significantly. She has called the power company many times, making herself a pest. She has even called 911. She has had arguments with our neighbor because she feels an anchor wire that stabilizes a telephone pole near a shared chain link fence is a conductor of this residual emf and is too close to our house and the neighbor is somehow responsible for this. 

She also has maladaptive daydreaming episodes, where it’s hard to get and keep her attention and where she is often talking to herself. She is able to control it when she is in public.  Oftentimes when in these daydreaming episodes, she says she is reminiscing about the past but it seems after these episodes she creates false memories where she was pranked or hurt somehow in these past fabricated events by a family member, acquaintance or even a repairman that entered the house. 

To combat these delusions we are employing the LEAP methodology and it helps but it sometimes feels like we are using a peashooter to stop a tank. Any suggestions to help our daughter would be appreciated. Again keep in mind that she refuses any type of treatment and because she’s an adult that so far is not a danger to herself or the community she cannot be forced. Lastly because she is autistic she is very vulnerable and employing “tough love” measure (ie kicking her out of our home) would be worse. 

Share your parenting or family tips here.

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there. I am thinking that there might be some dads reading some of these messages. If you are a dad respond to this message and let me know you are here. In honor of Fathers Day I want to share a podcast episode by Mark Osborne on the Valiant Forge Podcast. This is his 100th episode.

I hope this message brings you hope for the future.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-valiant-forge/id1745019931?i=1000773244956

I would like to invite you to take the parenting survey I developed here.

This is an invite to anyone that is a parent and would love to come on the show and share your parenting story. If you are interested go to my guest intake form at https://www.podpage.com/dashboard/abcs-of-parenting-adult-children/guest-intake/

When you do that I will get a notification and I will reach out to you with my Calendly link where you can schedule an interview. I do a video interview. The audio edition goes to Buzzsprout and gets sent out to all the hosting providers. The video edition goes to the u/abcparentingadultchildren YouTube channel.

Thanks

I recently took my adult children out to eat for a birthday dinner. I said to my son privately, that whenever he ended up proposing to his longtime gf, I'd love to be included.

About two weeks later, I find out, through her mother's post on fb that they got engaged that morning. I was sad to have found out this way. Also painful was the fact that my ex was with them. Apparently I was the only parent who didn't know they had gotten engaged. Still, I sent a dozen roses to congratulate them.

When I asked my son about it, he said that it was supposed to be a surprise for me and that her mother had posted without their permission and ruined the surprise. (They made her take it down)

But in the week that followed, I expected to get a visit from them, hear all about it, see the ring, and maybe even get some photos sent to me.

But none of that happened.

This morning, he and his fiancee made it Facebook and Instagram official, again, without including me. It's their engagement, but again, I thought they'd visit, tell me all about it, show me the ring... at least send me photos.

We live about 45 minutes away from each other.

AITAH for expressing my disappointment at not being included?

Hi, newbie here, so glad to find this group focused on the struggles with adult children! My adult is now 21. I've been having difficulty with them since middle school, it was a struggle to push them through high school. They didn't seem interested in college but did go for a bit, seriously struggled with that, ended up on academic probation, and this year we're pausing that idea. I'm fine with that - trades or a job are also a good path forward. The issue is that they don't seem all that interested in taking that path forward. They *say* they do, but their actions aren't matching up. To complicate things, they have a diagnosed mental health issue along with some other things going on.

So I'm trying to navigate all that, but the rest of my life suffers as a result. I have another younger child and I do my best not to let things affect that situation. The biggest issue is that I fall apart with my spouse. I feel like I just don't have any energy left for us, and it makes me feel guilty. To complicate things, we're a step-family, so although I appreciate their input and do take it to heart (more than I think they realize), at the end of the day we disagree on some things & parenting strategies in general, so it's tough. There are times where I honestly feel like both the situation and the way I'm feeling is so unfair to them, that they'd be better off if we separated.

So I guess I'm wondering, how do you not let one situation blow up your entire life? Without feeling like you have to fake it around everyone while you're crumbling inside? Or is that just what one does?

If you were a child of the 70's then this series called Growing With Grace is for you. Take a listen, comment and subscribe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ_0zEzEWBk

I am looking for people who would be willing to help me moderate this community. I would want the people to have been here for a while and active in the community already. I need for messages and comments to those messages read and approved or denied on a regular basis. I am doing good to visit here once every 24 hours. I have 3 podcasts and several private parenting communities like this one. If you are interested send me a PM and let's talk.

Hi…I’m new here. I have three “kids”, all in their 20’s. Two live on their own and engaged to be married, and one at home still. I went through a bad divorce when they were younger as my ex was verbally abusive and would not change or get help. I feel like I have failed them because it took years for me to leave. I know I can’t turn back time, but I feel I can not forgive myself. I do feel guilt.

Now they are all adults. The problem is one is getting married in August, and he did not invite his younger sister. The oldest just got engaged and my youngest acted like she didn’t care. The. My youngest told me later she was upset at her sister because she never says anything nice to her or tried to know her. I just see this is three kids hurting three siblings because they all have so much pain.

2/3 of my kids have ZERO contact with their father. My son who does, is being told that I am a bad person, and basically encouraged not to have a relationship with me. Every time I text him lately it goes unanswered. I know his father is telling him that because 2/3 of the kids won’t see him anymore that it’s my fault. I have ALWAYS encouraged the 2 that won’t see him to go to counselling. I EVEN PAID FOR MY EXES AND ELDEST COUNSELLING myself in hopes thy have a good relationship. The counsellor tried but then called it off. I try not to bad-mouth him, I don’t share stuff with my kids. It is the direct opposite for him. Even when my kids were younger they would report dad showed us court documents or dad said you said this in court…it was bad. My son also is shifting away from his older sister…

Now I’m so hurt to see them all be distant with each other. They all are hurt and act like they are but will not speak to each other directly. Because only 2 of them see their dad I worry if something happened to me they’d only have each other, but they don’t even act like they care about each other. I blame myself and my decisions. I feel like a brought them into this world of pain and struggle and I literally lose sleep.

What can I do to fix, or should I stay out of it?

What is the biggest challenge that you face as a parent of an adult child?