Answer: Read this article for some ideas:
My children are now adults–aged 23, 25 and 27. How can I be a good parent to them? What things should I do–and not do?
I don’t want my children to “get away from me” now they’re not living at home anymore. But I don’t want to be an intrusive, bossy parent either. I want us to be good friends. I want them to know that I care for them and am interested in them and enjoy being with them. I want them to spend time with me because they want to, not because they feel they have to.
1. KEEPING UP TO DATE WITH THE IMPORTANT THINGS HAPPENING IN THEIR LIVES
I must stay current. What is each child struggling with right now? What dreams are they pursuing? What is making them sad? What things are they enjoying doing? What successes are they having?
These are the important things happening in their lives – and I need to know these things so I can connect with them on that level.
”How is your sore hip? Does it still stop you from running?”
”How is your boss behaving these days. Is he still a pain?”
2. KEEPING THEM UP TO DATE WITH THINGS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE
I too have struggles, disappointments, wins, losses, dreams, and projects I’m working on. These things are important to me – and I must share with them this important part of my life.
How much nitty-gritty detail do my kids want? Perhaps the best way is to tell them everything and see how they react. See what they are interested in and be guided by their response. See what questions they follow up with.
3. GETTING TOGETHER
Staying close means spending time together. How often should we get together? This is tricky. They have busy lives; so do I. The challenge is to spend enough time together so we enjoy that time together, but not to spend so much time together than we crowd each other.
Maybe initially I’ll take more of the initiative in arranging get-togethers. I’ll need to think carefully about how to make the get-togethers enjoyable for everyone, for example, preparing their favorite meals.
4. STAYING IN TOUCH BY PHONE AND EMAIL
How often should we talk on the phone? What kind of emails would they like to receive? Phoning or emailing every day would be excessive. I need to experiment and see what works.
The bigger problem isn’t excessive contact but rather too little contact. It’s easy for the days to slip by without us getting into contact at all. I need to get into the habit of phoning and emailing more often. Just forwarding a funny email is a good way of saying “I’m thinking of you.”
5. GETTING THE BEST OUT OF SPECIAL OCCASIONS
Special occasions offer good excuses to get together.. There are many special occasions–birthdays and partner birthdays, Easter, Christmas, moving house, getting a new job, graduations, getting a promotion, etc. These are all good excuses for me to phone,email and meet up.
6. DOING A DAILY, TWO-MINUTE FOCUS SESSION
Keeping my children in my daily thoughts won’t happen by itself. I need to do something to make it happen.. Every day I will spend two minutes focusing on them–thinking about what they’re up and what I’d like to do for them or tell them.
For instance, a recent daily two-minute focus helped me remember to ask my younger daughter to send her brother her latest job application to show him how to write one. It also jogged my memory that I should phone my elder daughter to tell her what I heard about how to claim for her hail damage insurance.
7. BEING CAREFUL NOT TO OVER-STEP BOUNDARIES
I must be careful with advice-giving. I love to give advice! I must learn to give advice gently and effectively–and to tell my children to feel free to ignore my advice if they don’t like it!
8. RESPONDING WELL TO REQUESTS FOR HELP
I want my children to know I’m always available if they need my help (within reason!). Therefore, when they ask for help, I must remember to respond well. For example, they might ask for help writing a job application, moving house, deciding which job to accept, etc. How well I handle each request for help will influence whether they will ask for my help again in the future.
