One of my husband’s long standing friends moved to Florida when he graduated, but he always stays with us when he’s in the UK. His daughters were home-schooled and we’ve vaguely followed their progress all the way to the latest stage which involves the eldest now living and working in London.
When I heard she was here my first response was to reach out and invite her to Sunday lunch. My second was an overwhelming sense of sadness that my daughters may one day live many miles from me; indeed, my eldest, bonus daughter, is now living in Turkey and is about to move to Uzbekistan. There’s not much reason to travel there, except my love for this magnificent woman.
I guess this is the way the world works now. Our kids follow their hopes and dreams, and a piece of our heart wanders the planet, still tethered to the base via a silk thread. We parents are left in the stillness after the hurricane, clinging to that thread, hoping that when it is tugged we are able to do our best to support them through the challenges of life.
On the same day I’d started thinking about this issue I saw a tweet by @goingGodward which said, ‘I really feel like parenting is harder when your kids are 18 to 22 than when they're 0-4. The adult emotions and disappointing experiences that come into their lives that you have zero control over are honestly terrible to witness from a parent's perspective, tell me it gets easier. She had a flood of responses; an outpouring of pain from parents in the same position, and others begging ‘Please don't say this. I've got to know that it's going to get easier.’
Having gone through this stage with my two bonus daughters, and now with a teen on the brink of turning 18, I decided to probe her perspective on it. I was delighted to hear that she’s excited about the future but she was aware that school is all she’s ever known and that ‘not knowing’ can be daunting. For those that have kids who don’t have a further education path mapped out for them it can feel like standing on the edge of an abyss.
Anticipate the ‘Danger Zone’ of Post-School Life
Leaving school can feel like stepping into an abyss. For many, the structured rhythm of school is all they’ve known, and without a clear next step—like further education or immediate employment—the transition can be overwhelming.
My bonus daughter lounged around for a couple of weeks in the sun after she’d graduated, but I knew that it could only be a short break before I started pushing her to begin applying for jobs. There's a fine line between taking a break and purposeless drifting.
Some may withdraw, as one parent shared with me about her son, who spent his post-school days playing video games in his room. This is a common response to feeling unprepared for life’s new challenges. As parents, recognizing these signals early allows us to offer guidance before unhealthy patterns take root.
Help Them Establish a New Rhythm
One of the best things we can do as parents is help our children establish a new routine. Encourage them to set goals, apply for jobs, and maintain connections with friends. Whether it’s exploring volunteer work, part-time jobs, or hobbies, keeping them engaged and moving forward can prevent inertia. It’s not about controlling their path but about giving them the tools to create their own structure.
Empower Their Sense of Internal Control
A significant challenge of this phase is realising we have no control over our child’s experiences. Those disappointing experiences mentioned in the Tweet are inevitable. When we accept the fact, and develop ways in which we can support our kids through disappointment and out the other side, we are far more likely to be helpful and less stressed by this stage.
One key element of this is to help them develop an internal locus of control—the belief that they have the power to shape their own outcomes.
I’ve only recently become aware of how strong my internal locus of control is; I’m utterly convinced that I have to make my own luck, and that it’s vital I put in the hard work because nobody else is responsible for my future. My sister is far more inclined to point to other factors, or people, as being responsible and I believe it has severely hampered her progress through life.
On the other hand, my 18 year old tells me that she feels she has the ability to control things to her advantage and will take any disappointments and use them to learn and use them in her favour. This is a clear growth mindset which means that she’ll cope far better with life’s challenges than she might if she felt she wasn’t competent.
My other teen recently corrected me when I suggested I’d made her angry. She said, ‘You can’t make me angry, mummy, I’m the person reacting to what you say; it’s on me.’ I was stunned. The great thing about this approach is that they both feel empowered to build life around them, not the other way around.
My daughters have learned that setbacks are opportunities for growth. We’ve embraced the family motto: “Have a go. You either win or you learn.” This mindset allows them to approach life with resilience, taking ownership of both successes and failures.
Be a Mentor, Not a Fixer
Another phrase the Tweet uses is ‘zero control’, and she’s right. We don’t have control. The trouble comes when we feel that as pain. I think the best thing we can do is move our psychic distance away from our child.
Yes, climb into the hole with them so they don’t feel alone, but we need to sit back far enough so that we can rub their back and help them talk through the process, rather than be collapsing in a sobbing heap with them. This is the mentor mindset talked about in the book 10-25 by Daniel Yeager. It comes from a belief that our kids are competent and able to deal with the challenges of life.
Teach Self-Coaching Skills
I think I worry more about this point than some because I have had cancer and have seen my friend, and my bonus daughters’ mother, die from it. Going through something like that focuses your mind on making sure your kids have the skills they need to cope without you.
I’ve now spent years making podcast episodes trying to track down the best way to help my kids and I’m thrilled to see that – through my coaching - my daughters have learned the benefit of reaching out to others to offload, gain perspective, and ultimately be helped to reframe the way they are seeing things.
Only the other day my daughter messaged me with a problem that was really upsetting her. In response, I simply acknowledged her pain and how hard it must feel. When their pain is seen and understood our loved ones are often able to heal themselves.
She then messaged me again saying she wanted advice. Note to all parents this is not usual and really took me aback. Luckily, having spent a lot of time learning how to coach my kids, I didn’t jump in with an answer. I repeated what I thought was the problem, both to affirm that I was listening and to check that I was right.
Straight after my affirmation she began sending me messages that were effectively coaching herself. I was stunned. She was giving herself the sort of advice I would have given her, but probably better phrased and more on point. All she needed me to do was to affirm and expand on what she thought; challenging her if I thought she could benefit from seeing things slightly differently.
This comes from years of laying down those foundations.
Here are the key steps:
- Listen and acknowledge their pain. Just be there for them to talk. Don’t try to fix anything or jump in with any ideas.
- If they’re still interested in talking ask them to walk you through what happened. Often, revisiting the situation can help them unpack how it evolved and to get some objective distance from it.
- Be curious in your own mind about whether there could be a different way of seeing the situation, and gently offer an alternative to them, asking whether their viewpoint is true or whether it’s possible that it could be seen in this different way.
The big problem for us parents is the emotional snapshot. Often they just need somewhere to dump their feelings, and it’s vital we don’t take on their pain. It’s like seeing a photo of the ocean when the waves are at their highest, without having the chance to witness the wave break and calm restored. So often my kids have poured out their hearts to me over something that seemed incredibly upsetting. When I’ve checked in with them the next day, after a sleepless night, they’ll tell me they feel great and had a lovely day.
Maintaining that emotional distance, and seeing their feelings as a snapshot, is vital at this stage. It becomes easier when we know that they have developed the skills to coach themselves and those skills become even more important as they move further away, both geographically and emotionally, from the daily support of home.
It does get better
Just as our kids need a new rhythm to their life when they go through this stage, so do we. I pointed out to Phoebe that while she’s spent 18 years in a school bubble, we parents have spent 18 years in a parenting bubble, and we’re often just as institutionalised as they are.
It’s natural to feel a mixture of pride and sadness as our children move from school to work, from dependence to independence. But this transition is also an incredible opportunity to watch them grow into the adults they are meant to be, and for us to grow into the adults we’re meant to be in the next stage of our own lives.
The advice I have outlined for helping our young adults through this transition applies equally to us. Find a new rhythm and routine and use the three steps I have outlined to coach yourself. You can journal it, or ask a partner or friend to be your ally by following the steps.
And finally I urge you to reframe your own script. Yes, they will face disappointments, but that’s how they’ll learn and grow stronger. I have zero control, which means I can stop trying to control things and start being curious about how to help.
Do you see what I did there?
