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When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives

When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives

Table of Contents: Contents Introduction May I Talk to You Privately? - Whose Story Is This? - When Bad Things Happen to Good Parents - Our Dirty Little Secret -...

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Vendor

Free Press

Type

Print Books

Binding

Spiral Binding

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Table of Contents:
Contents

Introduction

May I Talk to You Privately? - Whose Story Is This? - When Bad Things Happen to Good Parents - Our Dirty Little Secret - The Elephant in the Parlor

Chapter One

The Kids Are All Right and Other Lies Parents Tell About Their Grown Children

The Most Privileged Generation in History -- Except Theirs - Great Expectations: Ours or Theirs - Who's in Trouble Here? - Making Them Happy Is Not Up to Us - But Can We Be Happy If They're Not?

Chapter Two

We're Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting

When We Were Their Age - Prolonging the Search for Identity -- Or Just Avoiding It? - Excuse Us, But We're Having an Identity Crisis, Too - Our Other Unfinished Task - Two Kinds of Parents, Same Kind of Kids - In Whose Good Time? - Addicted, Depressed, and Dependent: A Detour or a Final Destination?

Chapter Three

Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?

The Two Myths of Parenthood - "I'll Never Make the Mistakes My Parents Made" - Wrestling Guilt to the Ground - The Echo of Our Childhoods - Regret Is Guilt Without the Neurosis - Why Wasn't I Listening? - When the Writing's on the Wall - Good Enough Is the Best We Can Do

Chapter Four

They're Ba-a-a-ck!

The Never-Empty Nest - Out of Time and Out of Patience - Sparing the Help vs. Spoiling the Child - Lives Without Guideposts - Leaving No Forwarding Address

Chapter Five

The Challenge of Independence

Strangled by Our Purse Strings - "Why Should They Wait Till We're Dead?" - Codependent on Dr. Spock - Parents Who Give Too Much

Chapter Six

Maybe We Shouldn't Have Inhaled

The Perils of Nostalgia - It's Not the Age of Aquarius Any Longer - Is It a Symptom or a Disease? - Family Day at Rehab - Staying Out of Their Program - Doing the Wrong Thing

Chapter Seven

The Limits of Love

Paying a Different Kind of Attention - Denying the Undeniable - The Real Truth About Gay Pride - Following the Pied Piper - An Alternative to What? - Who Are the Victims Here? - Forgiving the Unforgivable

Chapter Eight

Separating from Their Problems Without Separating from Them

The Key to Our Survival - Thank You for Sharing - Marriages Under Fire - Blurred Boundaries, Loving Limits - But What About the Grandchildren? - Phantom Guilt and Other Crimes of the Heart

Chapter Nine

Reinventing Our Lives:

The Challenge of Postparenthood

Reinvigorating the Postparenthood Marriage - New Wine in Old Bottles - Different Times, Different Agendas - Shuffling the Deck for a New Deal

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Publisher Marketing:
How do parents cope when their adult children struggle to launch, battle depression or addiction, or return home unable to face independence? With empathy and insight, When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us confronts the painful gap between parental hopes and the reality of "adultolescents" who are stuck, struggling, or spiraling.

In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns, including our silence and self-imposed sense of isolation, when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a generation that "did everything right" and expected its children to grow into happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven't, at least, not yet--and meanwhile, we're letting their problems threaten our health, marriages, security, freedom, careers or retirement, and other family relationships.

With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to "fix" their adult children--Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own. As we navigate this critical passage in our second adulthood and their first, the bestselling author of I'm Still Your Mother reminds us that the pleasures and possibilities of postparenthood should not depend on how our kids turn out, but on how we do!


Contributor Bio:Adams, Jane
Jane Adams has spent over two decades researching and reporting on how Americans live, work, and love, and especially how they respond to social change. A frequent media commentator, she has appeared on every major radio and television program. The author of eight nonfiction books and three novels, she is a talented communicator, and an expert in managing personal, professional and family boundaries, dealing with grown children, coping with change, and balancing life and work.

A graduate of Smith College, Jane Adams holds a Ph.D. in social psychology and has studied at Seattle Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Washington, D.C. Psychoanalytic Foundation. She has been an award-winning journalist, a founding editor of the Seattle Weekly, and an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. She is the recipient of the Family Advocate of the Year award from "Changes," an organization devoted to improving relationships between parents and adolescent children.


Author: Adams, Jane
Publisher: Free Press
Binding: Paperback
Pub Date: 2004-06-03
BISAC: Family & Relationships / Parenting / Parent & Adult Child|Family & Relationships / Life Stages / Mid-Life|Self-Help / Emotions
Weight: 0.45 lbs
ISBN: 9780743232814
ASIN: -
SKU: SP-9780743232814

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