When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives

How do today€s parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our twenty- and even thirty-somethings who can€t seem to grow up? How can we help our depressed, dependent, or addicted adult children, the ones who can€t get their lives started, who are just marking time or even doing it? What€s the right strategy when our smart, capable €œadultolescents€ won€t leave home or come boomeranging back? Who can we turn to when the kids aren€t all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed?

In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who€s been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns, including our silence and self-imposed sense of isolation, when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a generation that €œdid everything right€ and expected its children to grow into happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven€t, at least, not yet€"and meanwhile, we€re letting their problems threaten our health, marriages, security, freedom, careers or retirement, and other family relationships.

With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to €œfix€ their adult children€"Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own. As we navigate this critical passage in our second adulthood and their first, the bestselling author of I€m Still Your Mother reminds us that the pleasures and possibilities of postparenthood should not depend on how our kids turn out, but on how we do!