If we’ve learned anything in the years we’ve lead parenting classes, it is this: The parenting process is a series of relational transitions. In our Parenting Phases letter, we described four stages and the relational phases:
Birth to Toddlerhood – Discipline Phase
Toddlerhood to Childhood – Training Phase
Childhood to Teenagers – Coaching Phase
Late Teens though Adulthood – Mentoring/Friendship Phase
It’s often difficult for parents to transition through each of these phases and make the necessary relational adjustments, because of the emotional investment involved with each previous phase. We can get comfortable in the way we relate to our children and can sometimes overlook the fact that we too, must transition to the next phase. Ultimately, we need to move toward relational equilibrium with our children. It can be hard to imagine this when they are young, but this is the goal of our parenting!
The transition from childhood to the teenage years with our boys wasn’t easy for us. That’s because the years between six and ten were very special and we had strong emotional attachment to the many joys we experienced in those years. There were great family vacations, holidays and fun family time and, subconsciously, we never wanted this treasured time to end! But Trevor and Alex kept growing up and we needed to evolve and grow in our relationship with them. They needed us, as mom and dad, to emotionally leave the childhood years and allow them more freedoms/responsibility to grow and mature. There were times when, without knowing it, we still thought of them and related to them as eight- and six-year-olds.
Now fast forward and visualize your precious child as an adult. They’ve graduated college, have a job, pay their own taxes and met someone special. Do you still see them as a child or a teenager and seek that same level of involvement in their life? We’ve seen many older parents have a difficult time transitioning with their children who are now adults. The emotional investment in pouring out their love, time and energy can cause them to be blinded to the ways they continue to intervene and interfere in their adult child’s life. While these parents may have loving intentions, inadvertently hindering their adult child’s life can quickly cause relational problems and, in some cases, turn into resentment.
Now, as you look at how you are transitioning with your own children, there is another side to this “transitioning” coin that we, as an adult child, also experienced firsthand. In our Grandparents/Mom & Dad letter, we described that our own parents faced the exact same parenting challenges we face with our own children. For some of us, we could be experiencing some negative (or positive) side effects because of our own parents’ challenges in transitioning through the phases with us.
Awhile back, we attended a marriage conference where Dr. Dan Allender reported that, he could trace 90 percent of marital discord to an adult child’s failure to “leave his/her parents” and shifting (transitioning) one’s loyalty from parents to spouse. Leaving your parents does not mean you no longer have a relationship with them or that you would dishonor them. Rather, leaving your parents is recognizing that your adulthood and marriage create a new relationship. This new family allegiance must take a higher priority than your or your spouse’s family of origin. And just as we must “leave our parents”, eventually our own children must “leave us” too.
The key point in parental transition, is that we must understand and appreciate our own parent’s strong emotional bond just as we will have to recognize that with our own children. However, if our parents struggle to make the necessary relational transition, it is our responsibility to lovingly forge a new dynamic in our relationship with them… for the sake of our own marriage and family.
We will always have a mom and dad. We will always be mom and dad. These relationships will exist forever, but they must take on a new, healthy, relational meaning. So, as you transition through each parenting phase with your children, the goal is to appreciate each phase and gracefully move toward relational equilibrium.
Blessings to your family,
Shelly and Rich