Parents, if you find yourself caring more about your young adults’ future and well-being than they care about themselves, you need to back up and take a look behind your back.

As you look behind your back, ask yourself these questions: What kind of burden are you carrying? Whose burden is this? Is this your almost-adult child’s, or your 48-year-old adult child’s, burden that you have been carrying all these years?

Still don’t know what I am talking about? Let me illustrate. When your 18-year old goes off to college, gets into binge drinking, and flunks most of his classes, who worries the most, you or your child? When your 38-year old young man has never held a job for any more than 6 months at a time, and is still living with you and financially dependent on you, who gets upset the most and who finds ways to make life better for this young man, you or your child?

When you are doing most of the thinking, planning, worrying, and grieving - and even spending money to make all these wonderful plans come to fruition so your child will be protected from self-destruction – something is wrong. You are doing all the work that should be his!

Your child is not doing his work because you are doing it all for him – emotional, physical and financial work. It’s time for you to shed the heavy load from your back. You don’t need to put it on your child’s back. You just shed that load, put it on the ground, and let your child pick it up when he wants to. If he doesn’t pick it up, he will have to live with the natural consequences of not doing it.

I have learned a few things that are truly priceless in launching young adults or older adults.

1.  Recognize that your role as Protector and Provider is over. When your child reaches young adult years, she is becoming responsible for herself. Your role is more like a coach or mentor. It is no longer your job to protect and provide for your child, so keep your mother hen’s wings down.

2.  Check your own motives. When you feel the urge to pull the wallet out of your pocket to pay for your child’s car insurance, to buy her that nice dress, or to pay for a trip to Hawaii with her college friends, stop and think. What is your motive for doing this? Is this your need to be needed that is driving you to this? Is this your need to keep the umbilical cord throbbing with blood flow by pumping dollars into it?

3.  Know that helping is hurting. My husband and I have learned, the hard way, that helping young adults often has the consequence of hurting them. They are trying to develop their confidence by meeting challenges in life. They develop this confidence by actually facing life situations that at first look like mountains. As they discover solutions, they build confidence. When I am quick to be generous, I am short-circuiting that growth and preventing them from building this confidence.

4.  Trust life to be a powerful teacher. One of my favorite quotes is this: “Life is a hard teacher: it gives you the test before it gives you the lessons.” How true! Life will indeed teach our children what they need to know – the burdens they need to bear, how to carry these burdens, what burdens to shed, and what are some smarter ways to handle these burdens. If I am forever bearing the emotional, mental, physical and financial burdens of my adult children, I am in effect getting in their way. I need to get out of the way to allow them to face life squarely and directly.

5.  Hold your child capable. This generation of parents is a generation of anxious parents. We worry about a lot of things:Will my child have too much homework at school? Will he have enough activities to keep him entertained? Will he have enough friends? And the list goes on and on. Believe me, I am one of the anxious parents I am now writing about. It is only after several years of doing a lot of internal work that I came to realize how capable our children are. They are able to show their capability only when I step aside so they can step forward.

What are some situations you may find these tips helpful? What situations have you found exceptionally challenging? What have you tried to tackle these challenges? What could you share that could potentially help someone?

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