What to Do When Grown Children Disrespect?
Parents raise their children with much love and affection. They dream about their future and dedicate their life to them and their success. But when they grow up, some children forget the sacrifice of their parents and only do what they want. Even they don’t respect them.
So, most parents ask what to do when grown children disrespect us. It is a heartbroken situation for all the parents.
Broken promises, harsh criticisms, and any other negligence by anyone can be tolerated, but how do parents bear the disrespect of their children?
Therefore, I will discuss all the related information you should know about grown children’s disrespect towards their parents. As a family counsel, I have years of experience dealing with these kinds of issues. Let me share my insights about this scenario.
Once you read this article, you will come to know about the reasons for the disrespect of the grown children, why it is hard to handle disrespectful grown children, and the actions that should be taken when grown children disrespect.
I have listed the topics below that I discuss in this post. Feel free to jump straight to the one you are interested in. Let’s get started!
Why do grown children disrespect?
Grown-up children can be cited as the children who have reached the age of maturity. Most of the grown-up children are living with their parents, and they are neither schooling nor working.
Therefore this stage is also known as emerging adulthood. However, frustration and stress are common to most of them. As a result, it can be seen that there are many conflicts in families with grown-up children.
Most of the time, they do not respect their parents. What their parents want them to do is not favorable to them. So, we can see that there are many reasons behind their disrespect. Following are some of such possible reasons.
Home truths
Sometimes parents hear harsh criticisms from their children. It may affect the choices you make and whether your intended or not personal characteristics of yours. Or sometimes their anger may be a result of a past event or an injury you made.
You may consider the real reason for these when grown children disrespect you at home.
The condition of mental health
Suppose you are parents of a child with a severe mental health condition. In that case, you may have already experienced the stress over your well-being. It may affect even your working life.
Accordingly, the mental health condition can affect how your children perceive you, how your children communicate, whether they can manage the emotions consistently, and whether they can pinpoint the causes for the conflicts between you and them.
Inappropriate uses of the children
When grown children disrespect their parents, they have to be very careful about this. You should find out whether they have become addicted to an unsuitable substance because it may ruin your child’s whole life.
Here, alcohol or other substance use disorders can significantly affect your relationship. The emotions can be ramped up; the desire to blame others and reduced capacity to communicate healthily are the results of using these substances. So, their disrespect is no wonder here.
The influences of other people
The displeasure about you in your children can be a result of another person in their life. They may disrespect you because of a friend, spouse, or another important person’s influence.
They may want to separate you and your child and exert pressure on them and shape their opinion according to them.
An earlier abuse
Your children might do the same when your spouse talks to you or your children in an abusive way. It can be seen that those who have been exposed to abuse while they were children have more tendency to abuse their elders in life later.
Why is it hard to handle disrespectful grown children?
Have you seen that it is tough to handle when grown children disrespect? Why? There are many reasons for it. Here I will present to you some commonly seen reasons for this.
- The feeling that the sacrifice is devalued
You may feel that all your sacrifice is being cast aside and devalued. And, you might silently toll the dollars you had spent, recollecting the games you have watched together, the projects and homework you have supervised while your child is accusing and listing the failures of you.
You may feel that it is useless to make him understand the sacrifice you made because of their harshness.
- Your identity as a human being is judged by what your child thinks of you
This is another difficulty that your identity as a human being is bound up in your child’s thoughts about you. Some parents become strangers to guilt and regret in various aspects of their parenting role.
And your children are more aware of the failures than anyone else. The assessments of them weigh on you more than the assessment of anyone else.
- Fear of losing the children
This is the deepest parental fear. You may fear that you will lose your child if you try to discipline him or if you argue with him. It can be seen that most of the grown children misunderstand the parents’ advice, and they find them to be accused.
So, when they are uncontrolled on themselves, they might even commit suicide or leave their houses. Therefore the parents are so afraid to lose them by going to handle when grown children disrespect.
- Children are invested only in their issues
It can be seen that the parent-children conflicts mainly affect parents more than children because the parents have been more dedicated and sacrificed their relationship over many years.
When children are growing up, they increasingly invest in their careers, relationships, etc. Therefore they do not care what their parents say. So, it is tough to handle such disrespectful grown children.
Actions to take when grown children disrespect
It creates a stressful and challenging situation when grown children disrespect their parents at home. At the same time, it is tough to handle such disrespectful children. But it will be an enormous pain for parents rather than children.
So, what actions can we take when grown children disrespect? I will present some of the steps that you can take in such a situation as follows.
- Trying to empathize with your children to see where their hostility comes from
This goes to be a sticky activity as it wants a greater deal of willingness and self-awareness to become honest with someone. There are no perfect parents in the world, and some parents make bigger mistakes than others do.
Some of those severe mistakes cause long-lasting influences on the minds of their children. And sometimes, what we can do best is not all that is good. It takes more effort and time to come to terms with that fact.
The grown children may try to work out their problems and come to terms that they have had up to that point with their life. Sometimes they will blame their parents for those problems pointing out their responsibility.
Everyone is not able to handle the stress and pressure of work well. Especially a grown child may not have the emotional intelligence or experience to handle those mental conditions well.
Sometimes they may struggle with mental health problems due to these issues. It can have drastic effects on their loved ones and the world.
So, try to put yourself in the child’s place for a moment and try to deal with what they are dealing with. Then you may be able to work with your grown child well.
- Discuss with your grown child about their disrespectful behavior
You may open the conversation with dearest words. Then he will reveal to you the details that you don’t know but affect his behaviors. So, you can understand the situation and the things in their mind which leads to disrespectful behaviors.
There you should be open-minded when asking him this kind of question. He may have harsh criticisms that they might think that you are controlling them although you do everything for their success.
On the other hand, they will not respond well to this type of conversation. There you have to put boundaries to them to find solutions for their disrespectful behaviors.
- Talk openly, and the child may want to find a compromise
Here, the child may be willing to talk with you openly. They might not have realized that they were acting negatively or that their behaviors affect them. As no one is perfect, it happens.
There, they might need to go to a compromise that both of your honor. Then you can carefully consider the center that you want to create and ensure that they respect your feelings and personal boundaries.
It effectively works out if you give them a little ground and convey that you are not the only one to it. And it is fair for you to wish for improved behavior and follow the house rules.
- Follow any rule, boundary, and compromise that you reached
This is very hard to proceed with. But you have to explain the consequences if the rules break clearly and the compromise is breached. So, they have the choice to respond to it.
- Have a break from each other
You and your grown child might not be compatible with staying in each other’s personal space for an extended period.
You two should have a break from each other to help create some space, clear the air and give a chance for both to breathe because the relationships improve with time and space among people.
- Consult a counselor
Sometimes parents cannot deal with grown children with disrespectful behaviors. However, they try out all the things like discussing, going to compromise, etc. Then you can consult a family counselor because there are some deep problems that we may not realize.
Sometimes, grown children may have things that they do not want to share with their parents. There may be the roots of their disrespectful behaviors in problems such as mental illness or trauma.
In such a situation, you may consult a qualified counselor without hesitation. They can help serve as integral emotional support for you to come out of the difficulties you face with your child.
Conclusion – What to do when grown children disrespect?
We have discussed what to do when grown children disrespect with more details. Accordingly, I have discussed; why grown children disrespect, why it is hard to handle disrespectful grown children, and finally, I have provided the actions to take when grown children disrespect.
I think this article will effectively work out for both parents and children to understand the actual situation behind the disrespectful behaviors of grown children.
The disrespectful behaviors are common to most grown-up children. But there are many reasons behind those behaviors like; home truth, mental health, earlier abuses, etc. And they are tough to handle. But the parents should sharply discover the reasons and take appropriate actions to control their disrespectful behaviors. Then they can create valuable and successful children who are respected by everyone.
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned with BestFamilyLife for more good content.
