Communication with older children

If you are looking for adult relationships with your adult children, you should treat them like adults. I understand that this looks like a matter of course, but in reality everything can be not so simple. You have given them instructions for so many years, uninvited advice, a system of views, rules, and so on, that this style of communication has become almost unconscious for you. And now you must retrain, and this at first will not be easy.

Of course, the earlier you began to relax your control even when your children were teenagers, the easier it will be for you now. And even in this case, you still have a lot to change in communicating with them. Nobody expects from you that everything will turn out right away. The main thing is to know what to strive for, and not to retreat until you reach the desired. Train yourself not to tell your children what to do, and not to express your disapproval about their style of clothes, preferences in the opposite field and so on.

Half of the transition to an adult style of communication is precisely the cessation of certain actions on your part: starting from directions, how to behave, and ending with reminders of how clever they were in kindergarten( they really do not want to hear these stories any more,which make them now feel embarrassed).

But the second half concerns what you, on the contrary, should start doing. In particular, talk to your children about what you usually talk to your friends about. In order to communicate with children on an equal footing, you have to turn a blind eye to the gap between generations, that is, to perceive their opinion just as you perceive the opinion of other adults - it does not matter on what subject: global warming, events in the Premier League, the upcoming elections or the planting of onions in the garden.

Also ask the children for advice. Necessarily, there are many things about which they know more than yours. Car repair, fashion, photography, applique, model trains, bird watching, ceramics. .. I do not know what else you are interested in. And, of course, new items of computer and other equipment - but about this, I think, you began to consult with them for a long time.

After a while, this style of communication should be second nature to you, but in the beginning you will have to make conscious efforts to do it, otherwise nothing will come of it. And you can not even imagine what pride your children will feel when you are interested in their opinion and treat them as adults - unless your parents did the same in your time, then you must remember how muchit is important.