Integritus Prime

In our last blog, we looked broadly at interfering parents. Here, let’s examine the possible reasons why parents interfere in their children’s lives. Six common reasons for interfering in their children’s lives may include:

1. Entitlement – parents feel that they brought you into the world and helped you grow up so they more or less own you or you owe them. Because they raise you, they feel they have the right to decide what is good or bad for you or what you should or should not do.
2. Welfare – parents may overdo parental care. There is a fine line between caring and going overboard with parental concerns and starting to interfere with children’s lives and decisions in the name of looking out for the child’s welfare.
3. Overreacting – sometimes when children experience a negative event, parents may overreact and try to fix it, especially if it’s to do with difficulties in their child’s romantic relationship. Parents may become over protective and without realizing they might further jeopardize their child’s relationship.
4. Unhappiness– some parents may believe that since they have never been happy in their own romantic relationship, their children will never be happy either. These parents may then try to prevent their children from developing romantic relationships or constantly sabotage them, defaulting to the norm of their own misery.
5. Projection – when children do get into a relationship, parents may interfere by asking whether their partner does certain things or not – things that the parents want their own partner to do for them. In this way, they are projecting their own marital problems, not realizing that their children are different people and may have different needs, values and expectations from their own partners. This can further damage the child’s relationship with their partner.
6. Empty nest syndrome – this is usually when parents fear that the children will leave home and they will lose control over them. Reluctance to let go of their children to find their own niche in life leads to controlling behavior that can trigger the child to leave even sooner, or to not come back.

Some of the signs of controlling parents include interfering in every aspect of the child’s life, criticizing any choices that children make on their own, setting high standards for children without discussing with them and trying to fix everything for the children instead of guiding them to find solutions for themselves.

If parents continue to interfere in their adult children’s lives, then there are some smart ways in which children can learn to cope without disowning or disrespecting their parents. Parents are usually the ones who love you unconditionally and have your best interests at heart, after all. It’s important to love yourself and form your own opinions on your lifestyle, career and relationships with other people. Listed below are ten tips on how to cope with interfering parents:

1. Listen to what parents say, if it does not agree with your own principles, ignore and forget about it.
2. Be polite but firm if you do not agree with what they say.
3. Have your own opinions, do your own research.
4. Try not to get influenced against anyone by your parents, especially your partner.
5. Beware of emotional blackmail. Find out what really distresses your parents and what is just emotions and learn to separate their baggage from your decisions.
6. Concentrate on your goals and success. This will make your parents respect you.
7. Have your own place or move away as this will help you have more freedom.
8. Take care of your parents as best you can, within your healthy boundaries.
9. Be compassionate to your parents as they are human beings too. It will be easier to understand and forgive them.
10. Be open and honest with your parents – calmly tell them how you feel when they interfere in your life.

Many times children leave home, the city or country and move far away when parents keep interfering with their lives. The above tips may help children look at ways to cope with interfering parents.

Share your thoughts and tips on how to cope with interfering parents.

This post is written by our intrepid wellness advisor, Dr. Margaret Cornelius.