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No Strings Attached : A Guide to a Better Relationship with Your Grown-up Child
No Strings Attached A Guide to a Better Relationship with Your Grownup Child Author:Howard Halpern Once a child becomes an adult and starts leading an independent life, the parents' role of control and protection and nurturance no longer exists. Like someone replaced by a machine, they see their old functions become mostly obsolete, yet they will always have a lifetime appointment with their offspring. As John Updike wrote in ... more »A Month of Sundays: "Society in its conventional wisdom sets a term to childhood; of parenthood there is no riddance. Though the child be a sleek senator of seventy, and the parent a twisted hulk in a wheelchair, the wreck must still grapple with the ponderous sceptre of parenthood."
No Strings Attached explores many areas of conflict in this adult-to-adult relationship: the angry grown-up child, the distant child, the overly dependent grown-up child, the child who develops a totally different set of values from those of the parents, the consequences of becoming an in-law and a grandparent, the passages of later parenthood — divorce, widowhood, remarriage, retirement, aging. In each area we see that difficulty can be caused by an inner child who exists in each of us, a part of our feelings and ways of looking at things that has failed to grow up. Often, it is the inner child of the parent that interacts with the inner child of the offspring in ritualistically repeated songs and dances which can jeopardize a genuine and enjoyable relationship between parent and grown-up offspring. The author explains how parents get into these rituals and suggests how they can get out of them so that a more satisfying adult-to-adult relationship may be built.
What is the most appropriate role for parents? How can they best handle the concerns and conflicts of a deep rift, or simply disappointment or anxiety about a grown-up child? In this most understanding and perceptive book, Dr. Halpern shows how parents can find a newer and wiser perspective.« less