When an emerging adult moves back home, most families don't expect conflict. Parents are usually happy to help while their son or daughter finishes school, saves money, or figures out their next step. Everyone assumes things will simply work themselves out.

Unfortunately, that's often where the pro...

There’s a phrase parents say all the time:

“A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.”

I understand why parents relate to it.

When your adult child is struggling, hurting, anxious, overwhelmed, or going through something difficult, it affects you deeply. Of course it does. You love them....

When an emerging adult is struggling with serious mental health challenges, parents are often placed in impossible situations.

Situations no one prepares you for.

Moments where every instinct in you wants to calm things down, make the problem disappear, or protect your emerging adult from conseque...

One of the hardest shifts parents face when their child becomes an adult is this:

You are no longer responsible for regulating their emotions.

And I know that can feel uncomfortable to hear.

Because for years, you were responsible.

You soothed them when they were upset.
You helped calm them down....

If the emerging adult in your life gets upset every time you set a boundary, I want you to hear this clearly:

Their reaction does not automatically mean your boundary is wrong.

It simply means they don’t like it.

And those are two very different things.

Where Parents Get Pulled Off Course

This ...

Someone needs to hear this, so I’m going to say it clearly:

You cannot expect your kids to respect you if you haven’t shown them respect.

That can be hard to hear because many parents I talk to feel deeply disrespected by their emerging adult.

They’re being talked back to, ignored, dismissed, and...