Jane Adams

When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us (eBook, ePUB)

Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway,

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

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 "adultolescents" 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 "did 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 "fix" 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!

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon + Schuster LLC
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 27. Mai 2003
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781439106822
• Artikelnr.: 37884407

Autorenporträt

Jane Adams has spent over two decades researching and reporting on how Americans live, work, and love, and especially how they respond to social change. A frequent media commentator, she has appeared on every major radio and television program. The author of eight nonfiction books and three novels, she is a talented communicator, and an expert in managing personal, professional and family boundaries, dealing with grown children, coping with change, and balancing life and work. A graduate of Smith College, Jane Adams holds a Ph.D. in social psychology and has studied at Seattle Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Washington, D.C. Psychoanalytic Foundation. She has been an award-winning journalist, a founding editor of the Seattle Weekly, and an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. She is the recipient of the Family Advocate of the Year award from “Changes,” an organization devoted to improving relationships between parents and adolescent children.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents
Introduction
May I Talk to You Privately? Whose Story Is This? When Bad Things
Happen to Good Parents Our Dirty Little Secret The Elephant in the
Parlor
Chapter One
The Kids Are All Right and Other Lies Parents Tell About Their Grown
Children
The Most Privileged Generation in History -- Except Theirs Great
Expectations: Ours or Theirs Who's in Trouble Here? Making Them Happy
Is Not Up to Us But Can We Be Happy If They're Not?
Chapter Two
We're Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting
When We Were Their Age Prolonging the Search for Identity -- Or Just
Avoiding It? Excuse Us, But We're Having an Identity Crisis, Too Our
Other Unfinished Task Two Kinds of Parents, Same Kind of Kids In Whose
Good Time? Addicted, Depressed, and Dependent: A Detour or a Final
Destination?
Chapter Three
Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?
The Two Myths of Parenthood "I'll Never Make the Mistakes My Parents
Made" Wrestling Guilt to the Ground The Echo of Our Childhoods Regret
Is Guilt Without the Neurosis Why Wasn't I Listening? When the
Writing's on the Wall Good Enough Is the Best We Can Do
Chapter Four
They're Ba-a-a-ck!
The Never-Empty Nest Out of Time and Out of Patience Sparing the Help
vs. Spoiling the Child Lives Without Guideposts Leaving No Forwarding
Address
Chapter Five
The Challenge of Independence
Strangled by Our Purse Strings "Why Should They Wait Till We're Dead?"
Codependent on Dr. Spock Parents Who Give Too Much
Chapter Six
Maybe We Shouldn't Have Inhaled
The Perils of Nostalgia It's Not the Age of Aquarius Any Longer Is It a
Symptom or a Disease? Family Day at Rehab Staying Out of Their Program
Doing the Wrong Thing
Chapter Seven
The Limits of Love
Paying a Different Kind of Attention Denying the Undeniable The Real
Truth About Gay Pride Following the Pied Piper An Alternative to What?
Who Are the Victims Here? Forgiving the Unforgivable
Chapter Eight
Separating from Their Problems Without Separating from Them
The Key to Our Survival Thank You for Sharing Marriages Under Fire
Blurred Boundaries, Loving Limits But What About the Grandchildren?
Phantom Guilt and Other Crimes of the Heart
Chapter Nine
Reinventing Our Lives:
The Challenge of Postparenthood
Reinvigorating the Postparenthood Marriage New Wine in Old Bottles
Different Times, Different Agendas Shuffling the Deck for a New Deal
Notes
Bibliography
Index