Finding Calm in the Storm: Holistic Strategies for Parents Over 60 Supporting Adult Children with Emotional Issues
Faith, a caring mother in her 60s, faced one of the hardest challenges of her life. Her 51-year-old daughter and 18-year-old grandson were living with her. Although Faith loved them deeply, their presence created ongoing stress and constant conflicts in her home.
Over time, these tensions significantly affected Faith’s health, causing dangerously high blood pressure and chronic anxiety. Her doctor became increasingly concerned, warning her that her health could suffer even more serious consequences if things didn’t change.
After months of internal struggle, Faith made the extremely difficult decision to legally evict her daughter and grandson. Although this choice deeply hurt her heart, Faith recognized it as essential for her own health and well-being. (You can read Faith’s complete story here).
Faith’s story isn’t uncommon. Many parents over 60 find themselves burdened with emotional stress and health issues because of their adult children’s emotional struggles. Understanding these challenges, adopting holistic strategies can significantly help older adults improve their emotional strength, mental clarity, physical health, and spiritual peace.
Here are some strategies inspired by Faith’s experience:
Emotional Wellness: Embrace Compassionate Acceptance
Example
When you notice feelings of worry arising, observe them without engaging deeply. You might say, “I notice I’m feeling worried, but my child’s life choices aren’t mine to control. I can support them without taking responsibility for their decisions.”
Explanation
Observing your emotions without judgment or trying to justify them reduces their intensity and helps you stay calm. This mindful observation prevents overwhelming feelings and promotes clearer, more compassionate responses.
Mental Wellness: Cultivate Mindfulness and Positive Thinking
Example
Each morning, take just 10 minutes to sit quietly and focus on slow, deep breathing. You might say calming phrases to yourself like, “I am safe,” or “This stress will pass.”
Explanation
Practicing mindfulness helps you slow down anxious thoughts and feel more peaceful. Regular mindfulness can sharpen your mental clarity, reduce stress, and improve your overall emotional health, giving you a stronger foundation to handle daily challenges.
Physical Wellness: Prioritize Your Health
Example
Make simple daily routines, like walking around your neighborhood or attending a gentle yoga class at a community center. Even a brief 15-minute walk can noticeably improve your mood and energy.
Dietary Example
Focus on eating balanced meals rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. For instance, include leafy greens, berries, nuts, and lean meats or fish regularly.
Explanation
Regular physical activity and good nutrition significantly improve your physical health. Exercise reduces stress hormones, boosts energy levels, and enhances emotional resilience. A healthy diet provides essential nutrients that support overall health, increase energy, and strengthen the immune system, helping you feel better physically and emotionally.
Spiritual Wellness: Strengthen Your Connection
Example
Spend a few minutes each day quietly reflecting in prayer, meditation, or simply enjoying the peaceful sounds and sights of nature. You might also attend spiritual gatherings or services that align with your beliefs.
Explanation
Strengthening your spiritual connection provides inner comfort, promotes peace, and helps you maintain perspective during tough times. Believing in a higher power or greater purpose can offer profound emotional support and acceptance, guiding you gently through life’s difficulties.
Relationship Boundaries: Compassionate Detachment
Example
Have clear, kind conversations with your adult child. You might say, “I love you and I care deeply about you, but there are certain things you must learn to handle on your own.”
Explanation
Setting compassionate boundaries protects your emotional and physical health. It also encourages your adult child to develop personal responsibility, become more independent, and learn from their own experiences without relying solely on your support.
Seek Comprehensive Support
Example
Join a local support group for parents facing similar challenges with their adult children. Sharing your experiences and listening to others can help you feel less alone and more understood.
Explanation
Professional counseling and support groups offer valuable emotional relief and practical guidance. They connect you with other parents who understand exactly what you’re going through. This supportive network provides comfort, encouragement, and practical tips to handle challenging situations effectively.
Build New Interests and Activities
Example
Try exploring hobbies you’ve always wanted to pursue, like gardening, painting, crafting, or volunteering in your community.
Explanation
Engaging in enjoyable activities helps redirect your focus positively and reduces stress. Pursuing new interests provides personal fulfillment and helps you maintain a balanced life outside of family worries.
Maintain Social Connections
Example
Schedule regular coffee dates, phone calls, or social outings with friends or community groups.
Explanation
Staying socially connected reduces feelings of loneliness and isolation, enhancing your emotional well-being. Friends and community activities provide valuable emotional support and enjoyable distractions that contribute significantly to your overall happiness and resilience.
A Transformative Path Forward
By incorporating these holistic strategies into their life, parents like Faith can significantly enhance their emotional resilience, physical health, mental clarity, and spiritual peace. This balanced approach helps parents over 60 manage the complex emotional relationships with their adult children, ultimately leading to healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives. Remember, your wellbeing is vital – not only for yourself but also to create healthier dynamics within your family and your community.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Are you struggling as a parent of adult children? What are your main struggles? What strategies are you using to maintain your wellbeing?
Tags Adult Children
This is such an emotional topic.
My mother found my 57 year old sister dead on the floor in 2019. She was allegedly clean, but methadone is simply a synthetic form of heroin”. My mother also buried my sister’s son when he was not quite 21. My mother was the classic enabler. My sister and mother were co-dependent and fought like cats and dogs. They couldn’t live “with or without” each other.
I never lived within 100 miles of them. This was self-preservation.
I’m curious as to whether any of those who shared their stories realized their problem child was mentally ill from childhood and you just didn’t “see it”, or did their problems manifest a bit later?
I am almost 83 years old and have lived with this issue for almost 40 years…..my brilliant beautiful daughter suffers from Complex PTSD…I won’t go into details but those who are familiar with C-PTSD will understand the alternating rage, dependency, lack of emotional control, susceptibility to abuse from predatory men, poor decision-making “I hate you – don’t leave me” nature of this heartbreaking condition. She has two Master’s degrees and can’t hold a job….she is divorced with two wonderful (and amazingly healthy!) sons. I have been their sole source of support since her divorce 10 years ago – I am reasonably financially secure but cannot support a family of three (not including myself) without continuing to work at my consulting business long after I should have been able to retire. It is emotionally draining (tantrums, suicidal rages, verbal abuse) – Because of those two little boys, I have been unable to break with her or even keep to reasonable boundaries because I have wanted them to have the best upbringing possible.
This has been going on for over a decade….I promised myself that once the boys were launched, I was going to pull back…..that is actually happening as we speak! the older one finished college with a degree in engineering and the younger graduated from high school with plans to enter the military. They are amazing young men. By the end of this month, both will be “settled” into their own lives….it will be interesting to see whether I can manage to let her begin to fend for herself as I have sworn to do….there has been tons of therapy involved for me (which has helped) and for her (which has been less successful) and the boys (they’re so good!) and I feel good about doing this….but it is time to stop. Wish me luck
I can relate to your situation so well even though mine is a bit different. If we could evict our adult kids without a care, it would sure be simple. But where we live the winters are long and severe and a lot of the homeless here are addicts and many violent confrontations occur in the facility that shelters them overnight. I have also received counseling, which was helpful, but nothing I have said to our son had resulted in action. I was told I am an enabler. It took a long time for that to sink in. Our situation remains. As for some of the suggestions in this article, we are way out in the country and I don’t drive. We don’t know our neighbors to and my social connections are basically the cashier at the nearest grocery store. If you send me a friend request on FB we could occasionally chat if you like. Carol Cole.
Best of luck, Louise: time to take care of YOURSELF now! You’ve done more than enough for others. Put on your own oxygen mask and retire. Life is actually good without all my daughter drama now, but I had to disengage. All good wishes.
Depending on the state in which you live you can call the police and have her escorted out as she is practicing “Elder Abuse”. This may be the only way she can get help, get treatment and you can save your sanity.
You have no idea how similar our stories are.We have two grandchildren from our divorced
41 year old. Yes, it is so emotionally draining the thought of her committing suicide is always on my mind. I have dealt with verbal abuse and tantrums when my husband and I don’t give her money. Yes, it is time to stop and we wish you the best!!!!!
Good luckl louise. . Iam heading down that road . My daughter will not spake to me . Her lovely boys are only one and 4. I see them very little. I want to let go and get on with my lift .
But like you it’s so hard . My daughter like yours has 2 degrees .she is so beautiful. On the outside. And never could hold down a job .
Your so brave to keep going for so long .
Iam 65 and feel I can’t do it for much longer. But I live in hope. X
My adult daughter is a toxic pain. I have had psychological guidance but honestly daughter is détermined to be hostile. I am enjoying the peace and quiet without her and am putting myself first.
Same here, Jane, with my 43 year old daughter. So much better this way.
Maybe, Jane, she is ill and not really “a toxic pain”. She should get screened for any type of mental imbalance so that you might both heal.
No she is not ill. She has been screened and I paid for her therapy twice. I am now fed up with her temper tantrums.
Jane, I love your strenght and hopefully I can finally put myself first.
Oh, boy, does this article speak to me!! We have a 40 year old daughter who has suffered from severe Mental Illnesses for 20 years. Her journey has been so difficult for her and I do not underestimate that is is SHE that who has suffered most. It has been heartbreaking for my husband and I and nearly resulted in our having serious and life threatening health problems and, worse, the demise of our now 50 year marriage. While her situation remains up and down and often tragic, we had to decide to get help on every level and then follow the exact mentioned lifestyle changes in the article. I have not one but TWO therapists I see most every month. Now retired three years, my husband and I spend all our days focusing on our own health and well being and love her from afar when necessary. She can only sometimes manage her life and has had jail time, homelessness and remains mostly ill with several illnesses. I could go on about the many ways to “help her” from afar and how to live our best life but much of it is quite detailed. Thank you for bringing this to the attention of others as they should know that they do NOT have to suffer the depths of despair for the rest of their own lives and well being. It is complex and difficult but not impossible. Anyone can contact me privately for additional support and resources.
I must add that our daughter does NOT and may not reside with us through a court order as when she is psychotic she can be aggressive, abusive and even dangerous. Again, hearth breaking as we love our beautiful daughter but must protect our own sanity and safety by loving her often from afar.
Patricia, my husband and I are going through the exact thing with our 41 year old daughter.
I would love to know how you “help her” from afar. Retirement has been a nightmare for my
husband and myself.We have been through so many therapists and don’t know how to handle our grandchild who is only six. Please email me if you can!
We seek out community resources that might help her with all kinds of services and contact them. We then forward that information to her to her cell phone and/or social worker. We actually have a list of 1)what we can and will do and 2) what we will not do and 3) the gray areas we discuss. We are active members of NAMI in our local chapter and participate by giving back to the community at large to make known about subtle illnesses that go unchecked and how families can direct their loved ones to resources. It is not a fine science, for sure, but our boundaries are strongly in place. Her daughter, our 17 year old granddaughter lives with her dad now for 12 years and she gets a therapist’s support for the issues of the “loss” of her very ill mother. We do let our daughter know we love her even when she is manically abusive. If on the phone and she is railing, for example, I say “this is not a conversation that is productive for either of us so I am going to end the call now. I love you and wish you well.” Click. I do NOT cut the call by a rude hang up but tell her my truth. There is a lot more. I cannot email you without an email address.
With severe mental illnesses, can she not be in a group home?
Redirecting the focus away from the troubling adult daughter or son, toward new activities, skills, and interests is something that really does work!
I also liked this quotation very much: ‘Have clear, kind conversations with your adult child. You might say, “I love you and I care deeply about you, but there are certain things you must learn to handle on your own”.’ Can confirm that this works.
Boundary setting is also extremely important when dealing with troubled/troubling adult sons and daughters. Parents have a right to be safe in their own homes, to be free of bullying and harassment, free of slander and libel, and to live free of abusive, toxic rudeness and disrespect. We have that RIGHT. We don’t have to beg for it. But we do have to stop tolerating bad behavior. We have to set and hold boundaries. It is non-negotiable not to be badly treated.
If you would not put up with it from any other adult, certainly don’t put up with it from the adults you raised and cared for.
Thank you for addressing this difficult topic!
PS I can recommend the books Done With The Crying and Beyond Done with the crying, by Sheri McGregor. Very helpful exercises in those books. Her site, rejectedparents dot net, is also helpful!
Our son is actually quite pleasant, but does have some problems and lives with us, and is financially dependent on us. Because of that our other son and he do not speak to each other. The at home son is about to turn 40. I can’t discuss the situation with my husband or other son because of their anger, and I don’t drive to go for counseling (we are out in the country). Whenever I bring up anything with our son he rushes me to finish talking and will placate me with some kind of promise to look into things (job wise), which never pans out. I feel rather paralyzed. No one lets me even talk.
You might need to move out and/or seek help from a Domestic Violence resource out of your small town. For your own safety and peace of mind and quite possibly, to save your life.
Thank you for your response. I don’t feel in danger, I just have Panic disorder and cannot deal with anger. It makes my heart beat weirdly ( I take meds for that, which helps). I would rather find a way to get my son to look harder for a job, for his own good mostly. He really is a joy to be around, very sweet and helps if you ask him. But groceries have gone sky high, and our electric bill as well. If I tell him these things, which I have, he gets even more anxious because he feels guilty. I am going to try and get him to go see a psychologist who is familiar with ADHD. I haven’t brought it up yet, I just can’t seem to find the words. Last time I did he just said no quite abruptly – I think it is a macho thing or something. Pride, I don’t know. I don’t know how to get around that.
In California we have a stature against “Elder Abuse”- physical, emotional or psychological. It does require either police intervention and/or filing a court restraining order. This is what we had to resort to for our own sanity and also so that our daughter might find the path to get help for her mental illnesses through various sources. One in FIVE humans in this country have either a diagnosed or undiagnosed MI so don’t just think that they are necessarily just “toxic or spoiled”—my experience tells me that there is likely some type of MI going on that remains undiagnosed and untreated. The stigma of this typically keeps families from seeking help. Their getting diagnosed properly even if through the court or jail system may be the only way for them to get help in a system of Mental Healthcare highly understaffed, undersupported and inaffective (at least here in Santa Cruz Co, CA.). With the adult child in the home I am guessing it impossible for “trapped”/abused” parents to merely “get other interests and put yourself first”. I know this as I have lived it. She HAD to be removed from our home. While she still suffers currently she is very slowly getting some help and some mild improvement in her life. And….my husband and I have been able to restore our physical and emotional health. Very difficult but not impossible.
Liz: if there is any type of mental illness-even mild or perhaps serious- going on with any adult child it is not possible to “have clear communication” and even to “set boundaries” as long as they live with you and threaten and cannot control their rage and toxicity. The sources you site are for folks with solid mental health not for those that are ill.
I agree with you! That is an important caveat. It is so good that you got help and that your state has those resources and statutes. The situation has to be handled carefully when mental health issues are involved.