It is easy to let worrying about your kids dominate your mind. It is easy to let their fears, worries, mistakes and situations consume your time and attention. But when they are grown (that is, they have gone to college or otherwise are over 18), there is nothing you can do to influence their choices. All your worry amounts to zero effect on them and just takes your time, energy and attention away from you and your own issues, purpose, decisions, etc. I would love to solve how to stop worrying about your kids, but as parents, that may be an impossible thing. Instead, maybe we can answer how to not let your grown children’s issues overly-dominate your life.
I think it is part perspective and part discipline. First, the perspective. Your kids need to make mistakes and feel the pain or they will never learn the lessons that life has in store for them. You must not and frankly cannot stop this vital growth process. Yes, there are times when it is right to get in the car or on a plane and rush to their side (such as medical emergencies and childbirth). Otherwise, you need to leave them alone to grow mentally and emotionally.
Now for the discipline. You must discipline YOURSELF to focus on your own mission and to trust that life’s path for them ultimately ends up in a good place. This is particularly difficult when they choose to bombard you with texts, calls and/or their presence. This is also challenging when their choices seem to be leading them to their death, jail or other life-ruining outcomes.
Let’s stat with failure to launch. There is no really good way to tell your grown kids that they should stop calling and texting so much and/or that they should stop coming by for visits so much and go build a life for themselves. They seem to assume that you sit around all day just waiting to attend to them with no life of your own.
If they are living in your house and you want them out, you are going to have to do the hard thing and explain, lovingly, that it is time for them to grow up and find their own way. You might offer to help them find a place of their own. You might advise them on how to get a job. But you will have to put a deadline on it and not make excuses. Will it damage your relationship with them? Yes. Good! This old parent-child relationship needs to be broken so that a more peer-to-peer relationship can be formed.
If they are not living with you (good job!), but are making their business and their drama far too known with daily calls and texts, it is time to take a more subtle approach. As tempting as it is to to tell them too shut TF up and manage their own shit like the grownups they claim to be, I would not. Instead, cultivate selective responsiveness. That is, decide to not respond until tomorrow and then only respond to good news with a congratulations or to bad news with encouragement that they can handle anything or that you hope they feel better soon. Then let it go two days. Then three days… until you get down to a place where you feel like they are not dominating your mind and they have time to try and handle things themselves. Do NOT solve their problems for them.
Now to the harder problem of when they are (or seem to be) on a path of self-destruction. You may want to offer them counseling, rehab, etc. But ultimately, if they do not believe that this path is self-destructive, your offers of “help” will be taken as trying to tell them what to do, or as disapproving, or judging, etc. They are likely to cut you off or at minimum blow you off. At this point, there is literally nothing you can do. For your grown children who do not live with you, you must accept that their life is theirs to do with as they please. You don’t have to support it financially (and you should not anyway). but you should accept that their life is a gift that you gave them and gifts do not come with strings attached. If they want to destroy their lives and themselves, that is their sovereign right. You must mourn the loss of who they were and try to accept that, for reasons beyond your understanding, this is their path and they must walk it. Then live your life. Your worry does nothing. Try to make it clear to them that you love them and are here to help and let it go. To let it go, however you need to; mourn their loss fully as if they are already gone. Because they are. That beautiful soul that you raised, the person you though they were is gone. If they come out the other side of this, they will be someone new (and hopefully better) but they will not be who they were. Mourn and move on. The reality is that their path in life was going to be their path in life no matter how you raised them. Remove your roll from their choices. Focus on making the most of your own life. Let’s not waste two lives because you feel some duty to permanent bereavement.
Now back to your grown children that are not self-destructive and not living with you but are simply derpy and doing the kinds of stupid things that we all did at that age. They don’t seem all that bad off now do they? You did some stupid things too and if you think you didn’t, it’s because you have not faced it yet. They will be fine. Say it with me now…”They will be fine.”
Now go put your phone on “do not disturb” for a few days and enjoy the peace while your grown children handle their own lives as they are perfectly capable to do without you. Celebrate the fact that they don’t need you. Find your purpose and LIVE.
