12/23/2025
There's a moment that catches every parent off guard. Your child turns eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five, and you realize the rulebook you've been following just ran out of pages. They're adults now, technically, but they still need you. Just differently. And nobody prepared you for how to navigate this new territory where you're supposed to be supportive but not controlling, involved but not intrusive, helpful but not enabling. Where one wrong word can create distance that lasts for months, but silence can feel like abandonment. Where you're watching them make choices you wouldn't make and biting your tongue so hard it bleeds because you know that unsolicited advice is the fastest way to lose the relationship you spent decades building.
The instinct to parent doesn't retire just because they do. You still see the pitfalls they're walking toward. You still want to protect them from pain. You still have opinions about their career choices, their relationships, their parenting, their finances, their everything. But now, expressing those opinions comes with consequences. Now, the power dynamic has shifted and you're learning the hard way that adult children don't need your guidance the way they once did. They need your respect. And figuring out how to offer one without withdrawing the other is one of the most delicate dances you'll ever learn.
Jim Burns' "Doing Life with Your Adult Children" is a guide for this dance. The title gives away his entire philosophy: keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out. It sounds simple. It's brutally hard. Because it requires you to surrender control while maintaining connection, to watch them stumble without rushing in to catch them, to build a new kind of relationship based not on authority but on mutual respect and genuine friendship:
1. Your opinion, unless asked for, is interference.
Burns is direct about this: unsolicited advice, no matter how well-intentioned, reads as criticism to your adult child. It tells them you don't trust their judgment, don't respect their autonomy, don't believe they're capable of figuring things out. The instinct to share wisdom is strong, but learning to wait until they ask is how you preserve the relationship. Sometimes keeping your mouth shut is the most loving thing you can do.
2. The welcome mat matters more than being right.
You can be right about their choices and still lose the relationship if they don't feel safe coming to you. Burns emphasizes creating a home and a relationship where your adult children feel welcomed without judgment, where they can share their lives without fear of lecture. Being the safe place they want to return to is more valuable than being the voice that told them so.
3. Boundaries work both ways.
Just as your adult children need space to live their own lives, you need boundaries too. You're allowed to say no to babysitting requests that overwhelm you, to unreasonable financial asks, to being treated as on-call support for every crisis. Healthy relationships require mutual respect, and that includes respecting your own limits while you respect their autonomy.
4. Their mistakes are their teachers now, not your failures.
When your adult child struggles, your job isn't to fix it or feel guilty about it. It's to be a supportive presence while they work through it themselves. Burns helps parents release the crushing belief that their child's struggles reflect poorly on them and embrace the harder truth: growth comes from facing consequences, and preventing those consequences prevents growth.
5. The goal is friendship, not control.
The parent-child relationship can evolve into something beautiful in adulthood: a genuine friendship built on mutual respect, shared history, and chosen connection rather than obligation. But this only happens when you release your authority role and embrace a new one. They don't need you to parent them anymore. They need you to know them, enjoy them, and cheer for them as the adults they're becoming.
This book is the handbook for every parent trying to figure out this next phase where you're no longer in charge but still deeply invested. It;s for parents who want to stay close to their adult children without controlling them, who want to be a source of support rather than stress, who are learning that the greatest gift you can give them now isn't your advice but your unconditional presence. Keep your mouth shut. Keep the welcome mat out. It's harder than it sounds, and it might be the most important parenting work you'll ever do.
BOOK: https://amzn.to/49n0VEu
