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When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives
 
 
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When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives [Paperback]

Jane Adams (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 25, 2004
How do today's parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our twenty- and even thirty-somethings who can't seem to grow up? How can we help our depressed, dependent, or addicted adult children, the ones who can't get their lives started, who are just marking time or even doing it? What's the right strategy when our smart, capable "adultolescents" won't leave home or come boomeranging back? Who can we turn to when the kids aren't all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed?

In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns, including our silence and self-imposed sense of isolation, when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a generation that "did everything right" and expected its children to grow into happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven't, at least, not yet -- and meanwhile, we're letting their problems threaten our health, marriages, security, freedom, careers or retirement, and other family relationships.

With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to "fix" their adult children -- Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own. As we navigate this critical passage in our second adulthood and their first, the bestselling author of I'm Still Your Mother reminds us that the pleasures and possibilities of postparenthood should not depend on how our kids turn out, but on how we do!


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When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives + Setting Boundaries(TM) with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents + The Enabler: When Helping Hurts the Ones You Love
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

So your adored son is nearing 30--or past it already--and still living at home, unable to hold onto a McJob for longer than six months running, relying on you to feed him and make his car payments. Your beautiful, brainy daughter is anorexic, or addicted to drugs, or unwilling to leave the man who hits her. Increasing numbers of baby boomers are finding that their grown children have fallen far short of their expectations. These parents are confused, angry, guilt-ridden, and ashamed. Jane Adams’s When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us is for them. She reveals the kinds of disappointments that other parents are facing: kids who are unable or unwilling to support themselves, kids who are addicts or convicts, kids who’ve joined cults or seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. She stresses that these are real problems--but that they aren’t the parents’ problems. Adams reassures parents that they’ve done their jobs and that they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives picking up the pieces for their grown children, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. Continuing to prop up kids who’ve repeatedly fallen on their own teaches them nothing; it’s just a temporary fix. Beyond offering sympathy, reassurance, and wisdom, the book doesn’t lay out a plan for solving anyone’s problems, but reading it may help disappointed parents shuck some of their guilt and shame, gather the courage to take back their own lives, and let their grown children fend for themselves. --Jennifer Lindsay --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jane Adams has spent over two decades researching and reporting on how Americans live, work, and love, and especially how they respond to social change. A frequent media commentator, she has appeared on every major radio and television program. The author of eight nonfiction books and three novels, she is a talented communicator, and an expert in managing personal, professional and family boundaries, dealing with grown children, coping with change, and balancing life and work.

A graduate of Smith College, Jane Adams holds a Ph.D. in social psychology and has studied at Seattle Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Washington, D.C. Psychoanalytic Foundation. She has been an award-winning journalist, a founding editor of the Seattle Weekly, and an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. She is the recipient of the Family Advocate of the Year award from “Changes,” an organization devoted to improving relationships between parents and adolescent children.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Free Press (May 25, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 074323281X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743232814
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Smith College, B.A. Doctorate in social psychology. Author of 12 books, fiction and nonfiction, over 200 magazine and newspaper articles, columns and essays.Frequent media commentator,speaker, coach/consultant in parenting adult children and family business. Brand new novel, out 6/09: Sugar Time!

 

Customer Reviews

40 Reviews
5 star:
 (26)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (40 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Pierces the Veil, July 7, 2003
By A Customer
This was not a book I would have imagined myself having the guts or integrity to buy. It is not that I am in denial about my grown children but I am in denial about the energy I spend fretting over their adult lives. Buying this book at the recommendation of a friend was a leap - and one I am so pleased I had the gumption to do. Dr. Adams touches something here; I sense that a collective sigh is heaving its way from the huddled masses of parents like myself who cannot imagine how our grown kids have ended up with their current lives. We know there is a lot of this going around but perpective has proven uniquely hard to come by. I would have bet the mortgage I could not gain such piece of mind from a piece of non-fiction; I'd now be willing to bet most any so strung out mom or dad could not help but gain wonderfully cosmic hall passes through this painful corridor of regret, guilt and aging. Brava Jane Adams.
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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars There's enough of us out there to write a book!, September 23, 2003
By A Customer
Reading this book was a great comfort to me. When moms at work pipe up about their kids great accomplishments its pretty hard to chime in that your kid is on probation for a felony for selling pot and on a tether for violating probabation and just lost his job because he falsified the time card at the pizza joint. Geez. We didn't want the world but give me a break! Jane takes the heat off and the guilt does ease a bit - this book has helped me love the prodigal son without paying his rent for him. Thanks Jane!
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Jane Adams speaks for all of us, June 4, 2003
By A Customer
It felt as if Jane Adams was sitting at my kitchen table helping me work through my complicated feelings about my daughter and her beau. With her warm and practical wisdom, this author manages to provide generous comfort and sound advice at the same time.

If you feel guilty, or critical, or even just frustrated with your grown-up kids, you'll find this book reads like a tall glass of cold water on a really hot day.

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This book is for you if your grown kid's problems have taken over your life. Read the first page
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