Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Parenting Grown Children: "The Way We Were" isn't necessarily the way they want to be.

There's a lot of griping about us out there. Grown children writing in to the Carolyn Hax's, Ask Amy's and Social Q's of this world, whining about the way we behave or the unkind or ungracious things we say. Sometimes, we may mean one thing, but it gets taken another way. The world is full of mis-cues.

 I was struck by this one, described by a grown son complaining about the way his mother talks to his wife. The issue: The Mother keeps making critical remarks about the son's wife, who is a pediatrician and the mother of small children. The Mother is critical about such things as the Halloween costumes (They're store bought!), help being hired to clean the house ("It is a real shame that people can't take the time to clean their own home anymore.") and dinners not made from scratch ("It isn't a homemade dinner if the chicken came precooked from a store.")

Who would like to have those kinds of comments rain down on your head when you're working full time and raising children? Or even if you're not working outside the home. Carolyn Hax suggests the son have a conversation with his Mother that lets her know that when she makes these comments she denigrates his life choices and that when she compares his family life to the one she created as a young mother, she's "entering cats in a dog show." Hax also points out that the Mom might be defensive about the way she lived her life--that she may feel like an anachronism--and may need reassurance.

All true and all helpful. I see an additional point. Many of us may take to the snark attack when we feel left out--unconsulted, tuned out, useless. There are better ways to work out those feelings. I'm not sure what they are--but giving in to attacks isn't helpful. Nonetheless, the Mother has some of my sympathy. We're there but we're not; we understand the pressure of their family-raising lives but good luck getting that understanding across. We're not as out-of-it as they may think. But when we impose our own Good Housekeeping Rules--well, see notes to self [in the column to the left]: Our ideas about how to do things "the right way"are better left unspoken. Who really cares who made the Halloween costume, anyway? My kids had to pull together their own looks. As for the store-rotisseried chicken--we'd starve at my house if those were eliminated. My mother, however, would be aghast. And she would probably let me know it. Cue up another mis-cue.

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Parenting Grown Children: Praise, criticism and the relationship with our relations

There it is as one of my Notes to Self, running down the left hand column of this blog: "Be enthusiastic. It beats being critical."

Easier said than done, of course. But it raises the question of praise versus criticism and the role the tension between the two play in our relationship with our independent and grown children.

                                         

 If we're always saying something is wonderful, that someone is terrific, that this is the best of all possible worlds, then how can we be taken seriously? But if we're critical scolds, who wants to hear from us no less be around us--no matter how right we may be? (See Note to Self: "It's better to be liked than right.")

So there should be a balance somewhere between the two. A recent post on the Harvard Business School blog has not only found the ratio but put some numbers on it: 5:1. That is, to bring out the best in a business work team, the most effective balance is five instances of praise or positive feedback to one negative comment. Here it is in chart form (a favorite means of HBS communication):

       

The blog's authors also addresses research on what the praise-criticism ratio looks like in successful marriages versus unsuccessful [separation and divorce] ones.The balance is about the same: roughly 5:1. So, if that ratio works in the work place and in marriage, why not in our relationships with our grown children.

Here's some of the thinking the praise-to-criticism blogger offers in the post: 

 --"Negative feedback is important when we're heading over a cliff to warn us that we'd really better stop doing something horrible or start doing something we're not doing right away. But even the most well-intentioned criticism can rupture relationships and undermine self-confidence and initiative. It can change behavior, certainly, but it doesn't cause people to put forth their best efforts.

--"[In] John Gottman's analysis of wedded couples' likelihood of getting divorced or remaining married ...once again, the single biggest determinant is the ratio of positive to negative comments the partners make to one another." For those who ended up divorced, the ratio went upside down to something like three positive comments for every four negative ones.

--The key in negative feedback is to "keep the opposing viewpoint rational, objective, and calm — and above all not to engage in any personal attack (under the disingenuous guise of being "constructive").

I read that last line and remember my mother always using a variation on the "I want to be constructive" theme before prefacing a critique, be it of my housekeeping or my children. I am so sensitive to it--just seeing the printed word makes the hair on my neck stand at mock attention--that I can only assume (hope) I don't visit that particular approach to negative commentary on those I care about--or work with. I'm just putting it out there as another Note to Self--beware the tides of constructive commentary when we go negative, as sometimes we must. That's what the ratio says!

 

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Understanding Social Media: Questions of etiquette

Gotta face the truth: We will never understand--or accept--all the subtleties of social media. There is a generation gap. Not that we don't have Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. StumbleUpon, anyone?

 

The gap comes in the way we use those sites and the way our adult children--and their children--do. I'm not talking about the teen-like behavior of letting it all hang out there on the ether--the stupid pranks played on friends, the rowdy behavior at beer parties, the unfortunate experiments with illegal substances, all the stuff we know shouldn't be up there for future employers (or even us) to read. Stuff we may even warn our emerging adults or grandchildren about.

What I'm talking about are subtle offenses as we stay in touch via the Internet. To judge by the advice columns, a lot of us get really upset over our adult children or their children sending us an email thank you note instead of penning one on paper. Personally, I think we just have to get over it and be glad we got any acknowledgement at all. What's the big difference between pen/paper and a txt message or an email--or even a Facebook acknowledgement? A thanks is a thanks.

But breaches of etiquette can be trickier than a thank you note. A recent writer to Philip Galanes  Social qs in the New York Times wrote about a young man in his early 20s who posted his father's death on his Facebook page and announced it via Twitter to his friends and followers. The young man's mother--who was the father's ex wife--was appalled. So, how serious a breach of etiquette was it?

Galanes agreed that Facebook and Twitter are "too chilly for sharing tragedies with our nearest and dearest. Not to mention that these posts would be sandwiched between gags by Jimmy Fallon and clips of Honey Boo Boo." Social media, he suggests, is better suited to spreading the word to workaday pals.

That said, Galanes faces reality. "It’s only natural that he would turn to his comfort zone in a time of grief. For you and me and others north of 32, that would almost certainly involve a telephone. But for your son, who probably picks up the phone to speak rarely, if ever, his impulse would be to text and tweet and post his sad news on Facebook. There is little use in bemoaning our changing times. I just hope we all find what we need in our dark hours."

Just to put the "changing times" in perspective. A recent Pew survey on the use of social media in political life, found 60 percent of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter; 66 percent of those social media users--or 39 percent of all American adults--have used social media to post their thoughts about civic and political issues, react to others' postings, press friends to act on issues and vote, follow candidates, ‘like' and link to others' content, and belong to groups formed on social networking sites.

That being the case, is it any wonder that young adults who grew up on Twitter and Facebook would use it not just for civic statements but to express other near-to-their-heart sentiments and a thanks to their parents or gramps.

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Grandparenting: Helpful hints on how to talk to a teenager

When they were babies and toddlers, conversation with Grands was babytalk. Easy to manage. As they hit their stride as youngsters, we began to have more challenging but interesting conversations with them-- chats about ideas, family history, life, school, friends. They didn't sit on our laps anymore, but we could have heart-to-hearts.

But oh those teen years. Their parents--our grown children--are having their own difficulties communicating. One friend whose Grands are in high school said she has a better relationship with them now than when they were younger: she is now the place they come to complain about the parents and, since this woman doesn't get along with her daughter in law, find a "us against them" camaraderie.

Most of us, though, just want to keep the lines of normal communication open, without getting in between our grown children and their children. Some of us find the car a perfect place to chat--with eye contact only through the rear view mirror. Seems to free them up to chat more freely. Or for us to eavesdrop on conversations they have with their friends.

But that doesn't address the real issue: How to have a meaninful conversation with our Grands and to reassure them that we are there for them. A site called babysitting.net recently posted ten tips on how to talk to your teen age child. Most of the tips are for the parents, but a few are helpful for those of us floundering around and trying to figure out how to talk to our verge-of-adulthood, hormone-driven Grands.

Here are a few of the tips, which I've amended for grandparents:

Ask open-ended questions. Stay away from asking questions like, “How was your day?”  The answer will most likely be a one word answer.  Instead, say something like, “Tell me about your day.”

Talk about topics your Grand likes. Sports, if he or she is into athletics. (Brief yourself on whatever sport they're into.) Or movies. Or, if you're really brave, music.

Listen more than you speak. You don't have to fill every idle moment with chitchat. Leave some silence to give them a chance to fill it with conversation.

Don't try to fix them. Don't jump in and offer advice until it's asked for. The only thing you should do while your Grand is talking is nod and say the occasional "hmmm" or "I see" to indicate you are actively listening.

Only offer an opinion if your Grand asks for it. Telling your Grands what you would do isn’t going to help. If your Grand asks for advice, start by asking what they've considered so far.  This will give you an idea of where their head is and you can act accordingly.  Lectures? Don't go there.

Parenting Adult Children: The checklist for how pleased we are with our kids

Thanks to Susan Adcox and her blog on grandparenting, I've come across a transcript of a 1996 This American Life show with the theme of "Adult Children."

Part I is a conversation between Ira Glass, host of This American Life, and his mother, a family therapist who, at the time of the conversation, has been asked to lead a discussion of a women's group on the subject of adult children. She called her children to help her key in on advice they would give to the group about communicating with your children and about having a good relationship with your adult children.

in the transcript of the conversation between Ira Glass and his mother, Shirley, there's this little gem:

Ira Glass: ..if you had to characterize in a phrase people's relationships with their children, would you describe them as being very good, somewhat OK, generally kind of yucky? I mean, how would you describe it?

Shirley Glass: I would say that there were a lot of people whose dreams haven't been realized, whose expectations haven't been met. And so there's a sense of disappointment, although there were some people there who were pleased with all aspects.

 As the conversation progressed, Ira's mother shared a checklist she had come up with for gauging how satisfied parents were with their adult children. Her findings:

• Is married.
• Lives near the parents
• Has children (grandchildren for the grandparents)
• Is successful
• Is married to someone the parents approve of
• Appreciates the parents.

Susan wondered, as do I, if anyone has come up with a similar checklist our grown children might have in their heads to gauge their satisfaction with us. Would it include such items as

    *Listens well

    *Likes my spouse/significant other

    *Is independent

    *Has stopped pressing my hot buttons

    *Will babysit anytime, anywhere and play by my parenting rules

    Got any more generic gauges to add? Write on......

 

Hold that Thought: Why we temper the opinions and advice we give our grown children.

You may think you're tiptoeing around--"Walking on Eggshells," as Jane Isay, the author of a book by that name, puts it--but that may not be how we come across. My friend Pat, who describes herself as a person who says what she thinks upfront, says that after a day of babysitting--and reporting on events to her daughter--her daughter told her she shouldn't be so frank about what she's thinking. "What she doesn't know," Pat says, "is how I'm holding my tongue, not saying what I might otherwise say. I have to be very careful what I say around my grown children."

Don't we all. The great fear, I suggest to Pat, is that if we aren't careful with what we say, our grown children--children who now have adult lives and are heads of families of their own--will get so ticked off they won't speak to us again, or there will be a coldness to our relationship and that will break our hearts. She nods in agreement but she also asks, how much of a mute can you be?

In the introduction to her book, Isay recalls swapping notes with a friend about touchy incidents that they had both had with their grown children--how vulnerable they felt and how hard it was to communicate with them. Isay lays the problem to our being pioneering parents. "We're the first generation to have raised our children so permissively." Now, after cultivating the "creative" and encouraging them to express themselves, we're  stuck with the adult version of it. "Often their decisions [as adults] are not what we would have chosen--for ourselves or for them. We're at a loss to communicate our reservations, worries, and concerns, not because we can't put those feelings into words, but because the response we get often isn't pretty....the independence we worked to hard to instill in our children now feels to us like disinterest, and strong-minded youngsters sometimes grow into thoughtless adults."

Cold comfort, but all-in-the-same-boat comfort nonetheless.

 

Parenting grown children: Keep helpful housekeeping hints to yourself.

One of my "notes to self" [see list to the left] is about housekeeping--a euphemism for putting our imprint on our grown child's home or for acting on "advice" by assuming it's wanted and warranted. This goes for dads as well as moms: No fixing things, no rearranging messy closets; no relining kitchen shelves--unless asked.

As Deborah Tannen points out in her book, "You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation," some of our housekeeping suggestions stem from concerns for their health and safety." Tannen describes a daughter's discomfort--a feeling that her mother was criticizing her husband--when the mother would come to visit and remind her daughter and son-in-law that "he should cut down the dying elm tree in the yard lest it fall and hurt somebody (it did eventually fall though no one was hurt), and replace the rotting step lest someone trip (it never was and no one ever did). Anyone would find these constant reminders annoying."But Tannen doesn't take the nagging parents to task. She addresses the grown children in saying, "Imagine the worry [the mother] endured each time she saw these threats to her loved ones' safety--and her frustration that they didn't undertake the simple repairs to eliminate the danger."

Point well taken. But, as Tannen points out, not all our observations, helpful hints and concerned commentary are so obviously linked to an urgent safety or health issue. Tannen describes a daughter who "cringed when her mother peered at the stove in her kitchen, lifting the protective pan under the grill to check to see whether the crumbs had been cleaned from beneath the pain--which, of course, they hadn't."

I may be overly sensitive on this point--I had such a mother; the grill pan was the least of it--but Tannen has given me a slightly different perspective on my reaction [grrrrr!) to my mother's good housekeeping exchanges. Rearranging my kitchen cabinets, re-doing my closets is not necessarily the criticism I took it to be. It's a problem of indirect communication. It can make an innocent remark or action come across as criticism. And indirectness. Tannen warns that the areas for setting off our grown child with an "innocent" comment are "the Big Three of appearance: hair, clothes, weight."

Made me feel fortunate that my mother stuck to the housekeeping.

 

Grandparenting: How to talk to an 8 year old.

It's the issue that rises every time we pick up the phone or Skype to talk to our grown kids and their kids--our Grands: How do you start a conversation with a child old enough to sort-of hold a conversation? Asking, "How is school?" leads to a monosyllabic answer, as does the equally deadening, "How do you like school?"

A few days ago, I posed this question on a grandparenting blog.Susan Adcox, who runs the site, answered that question with some solid advice. (You can link to it here). For starters, she refers to a source who's done a lot of thinking about the issue: Selma Wasserman in her book,Grandparenting by Long Distance. Wassermann suggests that you keep questions specific ("What toy are you playing with?" is better than "What are you doing?"), assume the burden of keeping the conversation going (small children don't yet have the hang of small talk) and, for small children, come up with questions or statements that you use over and over.

Susan, a grandmother with several years of practice, says she's had success talking to her grandkids about things she did with them, asking about movies or TV shows they both may have seen and about any major events coming up--holidays, birthdays, competitions. She also recommends asking about friends:  "If you can remember some details about your grandchildren's friends and ask about them, your stock will go up considerably. Friends are so important to older children."

A reader on the grandparenting blog brought up another point: understanding the words the young children are saying.Wildncrazygrandmas says she gets particularly frustrated when she cannot understand them over the phone or Skype. "I have to ask them to repeat what they just said, and I lose them!"

Been there, experienced that.

Checked in with my son-in-law who's a pre-school teacher. He suggested asking kids fun questions that they can answer on their level: Would you rather play in sand or snow? Would you rather be Batman/girl or Luke Skywalker/Princeses Leia? Would you rather be able to be invisible or to fly?

Anyone have any other ideas? Click the comment button and write on.

 

Skype that Connection: Keeping up with family and friends far away

I thought I heard myself talking this morning. House guests (a woman my age) and her daughter-in-law (my daughter's college roommate) were in town for the Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert Sanity/Fear rally. First thing in the morning--before coffee and before making sandwiches and signs for the big day on the Mall--she [the mother] Skyped her daughter who lives in London. It was a rare chance to have the California daughter-in-law chat with the London daughter. The conversation was like a page from my own book: She was encouraging her daughter's children--her grandchildren--to say hi to Auntie Megan, to show off their Halloween costumes, to tell Auntie Megan this and tell her that. I could hear the kids--reluctant to show off on Skype--horsing around in the background. And there was BaBa [the grandma's name of choice] trying to work her will and get the grandkids to connect with the an aunt who lives far away.

The next day I Skyped my daughter so she and her roommate could chat and, too, so our grandchild could show just how adorable she is. The two roommates had a wonderful visit but, of course, my Grand was, like the children in London, less than cooperative about performing for the Webcam. And I tried to work my will but, like my house guest, had to let it go.

We are what we are. We make Herculean efforts to keep up family and close-friend connections. And it's making the connection possible--not showing off the progeny--that counts.

In Praise of Praise: There is power in positive encouragement--and vice versa.

I am a captive audience, tilted way back in the big chair at the dentist's office. While he works away, my dentist starts talking about his search to find the right incentive to get his youngest son off his duff. And that reminds him, he says, that he's the youngest of three boys and that his mom always pointed to the accomplishments of his older brothers whenever he did something--good or bad. Even today, he tells me, when she comes by to visit and sits in his waiting room, if a patient tells her, "Your son Steve is an artist of a dentist," she'll say, "You should see my son Norm." (Norm is also a dentist.) And, my dentist Steve continues, she does the same thing to Norm.

There's a breather in the dental work. I get to ask a quick question. "So how did that make you feel?"

"Oh we're used to my mom," Steve answers. "Our family was always indirect. We never told each other anything. We'd tell one brother to tell the other something. That's just how things worked in my family."

So he seems at peace with his mom's continuing "critical" approach to parenting him as an adult son. And yet, when the dental work is done and I am hauling myself out of the dental chair, Steve brings the subject up again. He starts telling me "Mom" jokes--jokes in which a Mom is the butt of the humor. The jokes are unkind at best. He winds up with this one: "My mom, she put the "fun" in "dysfunction."

Whew. That isn't what I'd want my kids saying about me. And it makes me wonder whether Steve wouldn't be thrilled by a direct compliment from his mom. A grown child is never too old for a positive word of encouragement. When it comes from a parent, it's mighty powerful. I, too, had a mother who withheld praise. I still have a little note she wrote when she was well into her 80s that told me how proud she was of my writing career. It was the first and only time she shared that sentiment with me. The note still makes me choke up.