As adults, your children can make unconventional choices and that can cause you discomfort and end up flouting a few home rules. With minds of their own & newfound financial independence, this diversity could cause untold friction, if not handled sensitively.

When your child has a problem or you have a problem with your child, help and advice are always at hand - that is, as long as the children are infants, toddlers, kids and even adolescents. Once they grow up, you are pretty much on your own. No, your problems don't end. They just assume a new avatar. You now have to deal with adult children living in your house, with money in their pockets, which they have earned themselves, opinions to match, minds of their own, newfound autonomy and loads of attitude. They do not 'obey' you any more; they flout every home rule and cock a snook at your traditions. Sometimes, it gets a bit too much. You love them but don't like them. Your lives seem to be in complete opposition to theirs. Their values are diverse, the atypical lifestyle choices adopted by them so very different from yours. Parents often feel like they are on stage without a script and desperately seek counseling to know how to handle the rebellion and the defiance, the rejection of household norms and the adoption of potentially dangerous lifestyle choices, without endangering the relationship with their children.


Family dynamics are undergoing a sea change with marriages being delayed by young men and women as they seek higher education and focus on career building and live in the parental home for a longer period of time. The incidence of divorce is increasing by the day which often means that the adult child returns to the parental home for support. When two-income families live under one roof, it means that the young couple works and often relies on the elderly parents for babysitting the grandchildren. It leads to greater parental involvement with the life of the grown-up child. Obviously, there is ample scope for disagreements, debates and even serious conflicts while trying to co-exist in the changing social times. The ultimate aim should be to co-exist in harmony, in a relationship of mutual respect without dependence or domination by either one on the other, healthily accepting the differences between us and our children, and with enough space for respectful negotiation to reach a win-win scenario.


Parents need to strike the right balance between being too protective, sheltering, directive and controlling, and being too permissive, unassertive, negligent and lazy. Appropriate parenting of a grown-up child requires the acknowledgement that the child is now a separate adult with a life of his own. Children require to be helped to establish themselves in an autonomous existence, and reach psychological maturity by themselves. They must learn to exercise the freedom of choice and assume responsibility for the consequences of such a choice. This is an ongoing process and begins when children challenge views, opinions and choices of their parents, and decide to think and act in ways which are different from theirs. The process ends with both parent and child attitudinally and behaviorally respecting who each one is, and respecting the right and space to be oneself and allowing the same right and space to the other. However, it is the process, from the beginning to the end of the changing dynamics of parent and child, which goes through a lot of ups and downs, and requires guidance to smoothen out part of the bumpy ride.


Single mother Stella D’souza 23-year-old son would allow his drunken friends to shack up for the night in 'his room' after a late night party, even though he did not drink. He wanted to be a good friend by not allowing them to drive home drunk. Stella found it unacceptable not only because they would vomit and leave a mess but also because she was revolted with the thought of having to deal with the consequences of others' choices. She told her son that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, and that if his adult friends chose to drink they needed to assume responsibility to get themselves back home safely. She emphasized that he as a friend or she as his mother should not have to assume responsibility for the same. Moreover, his choice of friends and his choice of living at home came with the responsibility of sticking to the norms of the home being an alcohol-free zone as well as no men staying overnight in a single woman household. Stella’s son had to be an adult and assume the responsibility for his choice of living at home.


Sometimes such a negotiation is not possible as it not only flouts rules of the house, but is also a more serious problem that the parent is dealing with. Julius Francis diamond ring went missing one day and she soon realized that her 21-year-old son Johnny had stolen it. He was not only using but also peddling drugs, and had run up a huge debt with the main drug dealer who was threatening him with dire consequences if he did not pay up soon. Julius wisely realized that no negotiation would work with addiction. She sought professional help and organized an intervention by all the family members who expressed their concern and insisted on a detoxification and rehabilitation program immediately. Johnny also had to commit that he would repay the amount equivalent to the diamond ring over a period of time in the form of installments when he was out of rehab and working. If, on the other hand, he did not agree to these terms, the family would file a police complaint against him for theft, mental harassment and disruption of peace, and he would have to leave the home, manage on his own, and have no ties with the family. The message was loud and clear, and Johnny took the first choice and got himself admitted into a rehabilitation centre, and assumed responsibility for his actions. Here, there was no negotiation, but 'tough love' was exercised with ultimatums given to the child.


Sometimes, it is a diverse value system that could create disharmony between parent and child, and be perceived as rebellion by the parents. Parents need to ask themselves whether the diversity is truly inconveniencing them physically, mentally or financially or if it is merely causing them some social awkwardness. Neil and Caroline Fernandez were taken aback when their young daughter decided to date a much older and divorced man. They felt their status in the community would be jeopardized and they single-mindedly went about trying to ensure that it would not happen, even if it meant disrespecting their daughter's individuality. They threatened to disown her, emotionally blackmailed her, and even physically restrained her, but in vain. She ultimately moved in with him, subsequently married him and had kids, but broke ties with her parents because of the crude ways they had adopted to share their concerns, without caring to listen and without trying to understand what their daughter wanted and what would really make her happy. If they had instead challenged their own social comfort zones, they would have today had a mutually respectful relationship with their only daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.


On the other hand, Thomas and Nicky Francis’s 24-year-old son came out openly about his homosexuality, and even had a steady male partner who he was seen with in the social group in which he and his parents mingled. Nicky threw a fit, was in denial and then angry for a long time, blaming her son for ruining her social life and giving her pain in the last years of her life. Thomas was less anguished and more mature in handling the news. Instead of making his son feel guilty, he assured him of his love as a father and discussed his concerns about HIV and other STDs as he viewed homosexuality as high risk behavior. His son alleviated his father's concerns and reassured him that he was taking care to ensure such a thing would not happen. Thomas also asked his son to seek professional counseling to be sure of his sexual orientation, and to know whether it was a phase arising out of sexual experimentation, or here to stay. Thomas attitudinally and behaviorally respected his son as his own person, shared his real concerns honestly, and dealt with his own social awkwardness himself without burdening the child with it.

And that's precisely the kind of stand that parents who have adult children living with them should take - sensible, sensitive and balanced.


All rebellion is not bad. In fact, it is existential and healthy, as it is an exercise in 'thinking for oneself through the mechanism of 'reason' to ensure survival in the 'here and now'. It does not go by borrowed and maybe outdated convictions, values, and beliefs which might hinder survival. It is good and healthy that the child questions parental values and forms his own moral convictions based on reason. Of course, some of his convictions might be similar to the parents' convictions after inner discernment. These convictions, though similar, would be born through reason and would result in healthy autonomy.

- Be There for Them

As parents, we should provide the comfort to our grown-up children that we are there when needed, to help if asked, to step in if necessary, and to support by standing by while at the same time, allowing them to struggle through and surmount problems on their own. There comes a point in every parent's life when one has to learn to 'let go' and realize that an adult child has to go through the growing-up experience alone. One has to give children enough space and strength, and place enough faith in their potential to work out their problems on their own, so that they, as adults, are established in their own power to solve problems.

- Watch Them Grow

When you know that if you are not around, your children can make it on their own; that they are mature individuals able to stand alone and take responsibility for their own life; you have done your role as a parent in helping your adult children truly grow up.


- Evaluate the situation realistically. Is it a matter of flouting norms of the home, diverse values, or a potentially hazardous situation for the child and/or the parent?

- Is the child truly rebelling or just placing you in a socially awkward situation while ensuring his true and lasting happiness, and which you do not know how to handle?

- Ask yourself how, when, and if you should be involved. Does it require immediate crisis intervention, or a peaceful discussion and negotiation to arrive at a win-win scenario? Do you need to use 'tough love' or 'gentle love'?

- Avoid seeing yourself as a victim, and blaming the child for victimizing you; instead jointly engage in a solution-oriented approach.

- Avoid degrading your child or speaking in a disrespectful or patronizing way and avoid giving orders.

- Share your fears and concerns about the problem honestly and assure your child of your love. Reject the deed and not the person.

- Encourage your child to acknowledge the problem, and ask him to take concrete steps to remedy it. Suggest professional help like consulting a doctor, counselor, lawyer (and even insist on it) if required.

- Discuss law and order if your child could be taking the law into his own hands, and talk of assuming responsibility for one's own actions. Clarify that you would not bail out your child in the eventuality of his breaking the law.

- Share clearly that you would always live by the courage of your own convictions, and act in a way that allows you to keep your own sense of integrity.

- Do not engage in self-blame if your child gets himself in serious trouble, instead seek professional counseling yourself, and forgive yourself by learning from your own past parenting flaws, so that you do not repeat them again. Join a support group to help yourself so that you are in a better position to parent your child appropriately.

- Communicate honestly yet sensitively with your child. Listen emphatically when your child speaks, and try to enter his frame of reference. Do not allow emotions to cloud the conversation. Have a dialogue and avoid sermonizing.

- Draw clear boundaries regarding mutual respect of physical and mind space, finances, norms of community living at home, and discuss them freely and frankly, with room for negotiation.

- Finally, allow your child to be responsible for and learn from his own experiences, so that he becomes a psychologically mature and autonomous individual who can help sustain life for himself, and those dependent on him.

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