Clearly there are a lot of sites or urls on parenting- 242,000,000 as of last count. Google parents of Millennials and the urls on the Internet are 631,000 or .2 percent of the parenting website. Millennials are just 1% of a more closely related parenting adolescents website. Websites and resources for parents of young adults/millennials are sorely lacking.
Parentslettinggo.com is being introduced as a resource to help parents of young adults find helpful information and guidance in the balancing act they have to perform in successfully launching their young adults. How do I know when to step in and help and when to back off is the balancing question these parents often ask?
This site is personal for me for several reasons:
- First, I am a married father of three young adults. My relationships with my three adult children continue to present challenges as well as growth opportunities. I have regrets, feel guilt at times of what I did or didn’t do, wonder if I did the right thing and continue to question what is the best way to relate to these children who have now become adult friends.
- Second, when I was in graduate school many years ago, I completed a Ph.D. dissertation on defining healthy separation of adolescents from their parents. This research and the application of my findings have guided a lot of my early work with adolescents and young adults. A clear finding in this research was the normal or healthy sample of adolescents had parents who were high on affiliation (love) and high on giving autonomy.
- Thirdly, and maybe the most important factor in developing this website has been the growing number of parents of late adolescents and young adults who have come to my private practice seeking support and guidance in their relationship with their young adult. These parents of young adult’s concerns and sources of fear, hurt, sadness and frustration are compounded by the fact that they can’t help or fix the young adult when it is clear they are struggling.
This website resource is a work in progress and dependent on parents writing in with their concerns and recommendations. I’m a real believer that the community is wiser than any one person so getting suggestions from parents and professionals in this field is critical to the success of this website. Please visit parentslettinggo.com with a willingness to learn, share your concerns, and offer support and ideas that might be helpful to other parents.
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