Supporting adult children with their career development. How to help but not hover.

I occasionally get calls from parents of adult children who want advice on how to support their offspring toward better career success.  Most calls are from parents with kids between the ages of 22 – 30.

I have two children, both of them adults, so I can relate to this desire to help. Our daughter, age 29, is launched in a career; the other, 21, is finishing college.

I’ll admit I’ve been a helicopter parent at times, which is the practice of hovering above (similar to a helicopter) our kids to keep an eye on their progress. When my daughter was working on her degree, for example, I edited a few of her papers and lined up a tutor to help with chemistry. I really wanted her to succeed and figured I’d be assisting her toward that.

Turns out that support like I provided can create the opposite effect. In a study reported in Psychology Today, the majority of children with helicopter parents have higher anxiety, and view life’s challenges as being more daunting than those with more hands-off moms and dads. So what can we do, as parents, to truly support career success in our children? Psychiatrist Joel Young, M.D., suggests these strategies:

-Rather than sharing your goals and wishes for your child, listen to theirs. This builds their skills in independent thought and critical thinking, and sidesteps imposing your values on them.
-When your child receives a consequence, such as not getting hired for a job you think they’d excel in, don’t try to intervene to change the outcome.

-Avoid being your adult child’s keeper, and don’t remind them of deadlines. By middle school, they should have learned to stay on top of their to-do lists.

– Instead of offering your solutions to their career challenges, encourage your child to come up with remedies on their own.

It’s this last suggestion that I’m doing better at as a parent this second time around. After listening to my son describe his long list of his assignments, rather than saying, “What can I do to help?”, I’m now saying, “What’s your plan?”

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