Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with your Adult Children [Paperback]

Dr. Ruth Nemzoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2008

Parents make enormous sacrifices helping children become healthy and autonomous adults. And when children are older, popular wisdom advises parents to let go, disconnect, and bite their tongues. But increasing life spans mean that parents and children can spend as many as five or six decades as adults together: actively parenting adult children is a reality for many families.

Dr. Ruth Nemzoff--a leading expert in family dynamics--empowers parents to create close relationships with their adult children, while respecting their independence. Based on personal stories as well as advice that she has accrued from years of coaching, this lively and readable book shows parents how to

-communicate at long distances
-discuss financial issues without using money as a form of control
-speak up when disapproving of an adult child’s partner or childrearing practices
-handle adult children's career choices or other midlife changes
-navigate an adult child’s interreligious, interracial or same sex relationships

No other book treats the challenges of parent and adult offspring relationships as part and parcel of a healthy family dynamic. This practical guide will help parents play a vital and positive role in their children's lives.

 

10 Tips for Communicating with your Adult Children

Know the environment: Things ain’t what they used to be so make sure you know the realities of life today.

Know yourself:  What are your motives? Your child, brilliant psychologist that all children are, will assess your motives so you should, too.

Give up fantasy and deal with reality: You may want life and your children  to be perfect, but it isn’t and they aren’t , so enjoy what you have.

Take the long view: Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your children or grandchildren be fully mature in a day or even a year…

Expect the unexpected and be flexible enough to change plans.

Don’t bite your tongue, but don’t blurt out every thought you have.  Instead of using energy to squelch yourself, use that energy to figure out how to say what you want to say so it can be heard.

Be forgiving: We all make mistakes, all of us are rude sometimes or unintentionally hurtful. Forget holding a grudge!

Talk to your kids about money, yours and Thiers. So you both know what is available for future crises.

Don’t play “go between”  between your kids or your kids and your spouse. Now that you are all adults, kids can and should create their own individual relationships with siblings and each parent.

Get a life! Now that your children are grown, share whatever wisdom or skills you have with someone. Make the world a better place.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A very wise book. It not only takes into account the perspectives of parents and adult children but helps us to understand how changes in society influence these perspectives. Its non-judgmental framework and helpful questions should foster important cross-generational dialogue.' -- Rhoda Unger, author of Women and Gender: A Feminist Perspective 'Although tons of parenting books line the shelves of bookstores, very little exists to help parents of 20, 30 and 40 somethings. Ruth Nemzoff has written a wise and readable book that covers most of the universal developmental issued faced by today's parents of adult children. She encourages both generations to reflect on our inevitable differences, and advises us on how to speak respectfully about them. If her advice is followed, family relationships will be strengthened, improving life for all involved, including the following generations of children.' - Linda A. Braun, former director of Families First Parenting Programs

About the Author

Dr. Ruth Nemzoff is a resident scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center and lectures widely on family dynamics. Her papers are archived at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University where she also holds a doctorate in social policy.  She  has served three terms in the New Hampshire legislature and is the mother of four adult children.  She lives in Newton, MA with her husband Harris Berman.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230605184
• ISBN-13: 978-0230605183
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Parent & Adult Child

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what I needed - unfortunately, November 12, 2008

By 

Kathy A. Flament "kaf" (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with your Adult Children (Paperback)

I hate needing this book. My daughter and I were very close as she was growing up, and now we hardly talk. It feels like I'm always saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing.

Ruth reminds me that I don't have to stay with these feelings, and that the adult pair, mother - daughter, in this instance relies on two adults who used to have different roles with each other and now must find new ones with their complicated emotions and perhaps outdated ideas of each other. And, Rth reminds me that love is strong, and gives me a path to somehow finding a way.

Even if my daughter never talks to me again, I will know I have tried to communicate honestly. Maybe I can lay the groundwork using Ruth's exercises at the end of each chapter.

Wish me luck, my daughter luck and to yourself, of course. Thank goodness this book exists.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Bite Your Tongue, March 2, 2009

By 

CF (Cambridge MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with your Adult Children (Paperback)

"Don't Bite Your Tongue" is a wonderful primer for Advanced Motherhood. The "other Dr. Ruth" gently guides us through the intricacies of parenting our adult children. Written with the wisdom of a scholar and the humility that only the mother of four grownups can bring to this subject, she deftly addresses issues of communication, in-laws, stylistic and cultural differences, grandparenting, disappointment, adult sibling relationships, money, and more, while encouraging us to acknowledge and utilize our childrens' expertise. The book is filled with vivid vignettes and sound suggestions to help us create satisfying mutual relationships.

As a family therapist, I recommend "Don't Bite Your Tongue" to all parents of launching children, since it so clearly delineates developmental issues that are bound to arise as the parent-child relationship moves into it's final metamorphosis.

Book clubs, and parent's groups will find rich material for unending discussion in this book.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your regular self-help book, October 6, 2008

By 

Dalia (Scarsdale, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with your Adult Children (Paperback)

I loved the way the author organized the content, the questions she raises for consideration and her beautiful writing style. Nemzoff doesn't talk down to her reader but rather engages her in considering these very sensitive relationships. I am always suspect of self-help books because they imply that one size fits all, but Nemzoff avoids this assumption yet finds the commonality in the experiences of the adult child and the parent.