Friend or Foe: Be Prepared to Offer Tough Love to Your Young Adult

by Hallie Crawford, MA, CPCC

As much as you want to, you can’t hold your adult son or daughter’s hand for the rest of their life.

Just when you thought all that sweat equity you put into raising your child had paid off, now may come the biggest challenge yet. Achieving the right balance between being your graduate son or daughter’s friend versus parent may be one of the biggest parental dilemmas you will face.

Tough Love or Good Parenting?

As a parent it is normal to want to protect your child and be their safe haven during tough times. You want to be able to offer them a soft landing when they hit tough times in their job search or career choices. However, you need to be careful what safety net you put in place.

Call it tough love or good parenting, but making your high school or college graduate accountable and responsible is only going to help them be successful young adults in the long run. You cannot, should not coddle and clean up for these in-betweeners all of their days.

Failure Is An Option

After offering some friendly help and even limited financial assistance, you have to be the seasoned adult and set them loose to make it or break it in the workplace and world. But you should prepare yourself – and your grad – that failure is an option. It’s a real part of life and your son/daughter has the high possibility that they will fail at some point.

However hard it is to watch your child struggle, there are a lot of valuable experiences to learn from failure. Empower your young adult to find themselves by working through this trying process of entering the grown-up world.

By acting in the capacity as firm adult instead of a compliant friend, you are building a self-reliant young adult who will be able to move forward – and securely – in his or her career and life.

Copyright 2009 Hallie Crawford. All rights reserved.

NOTE: Feel free to "reprint" this article as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end).

About the Author: 

Help your college grad get on the right track!

Certified Career Coach Hallie Crawford specializes in helping recent college grads and boomerangs identify their ideal career path and make it happen. To schedule a complimentary consultation and find out more about Hallie visit http://www.halliecrawford.com or contact her at 877-298-6444.

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