May 5, 2025 • 12 mins
In this episode of the Happy Families Podcast, Justin and Kylie tackle a tricky parenting dilemma: how to support your adult child without damaging the relationship. Responding to a listener's concern about her 20-year-old daughter's social media presence, they explore the importance of autonomy, the dangers of forceful guidance, and how parents can remain a supportive influence while respecting boundaries.
KEY POINTS:
-
Adult children crave autonomy; unsolicited advice often creates resistance.
-
Connection, not correction, is the key to long-term influence.
-
Dropping the parental agenda fosters openness and trust.
-
Seek consent before offering advice to show respect and preserve the relationship.
-
Employers do check social media – nearly 70% of them, according to the Harvard Business Review.
-
When you share concerns respectfully, you plant seeds that may grow later.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Our kids, especially our young adults, want autonomy more than anything – it’s like oxygen to them.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
-
Harvard Business Review statistic: ~70% of employers check candidates’ social media.
-
Happy Families Podcast – Submit tricky questions via happyfamilies.com.au/podcast
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
-
Let go of the agenda – Accept that your adult child will make their own choices.
-
Prioritise connection – Build trust through presence, interest, and nonjudgmental conversation.
-
Ask for permission – Before giving advice, say: “Would you be open to hearing a thought I have?”
-
Share perspective, not prescriptions – Offer insights gently and leave space for reflection.
-
Respect autonomy – Even when it’s hard, show you trust their ability to learn from experience.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today a question with the difference. This time we're dealing
with older kids, in fact, adult kids. Because every Tuesday
on the Happy Families Podcast, we answer your tricky questions
about what to do when things are challenging at home,
family relationships, well being, screens, discipline, the works. That's what
we talk about every Tuesday with tricky questions. Welcome to
(00:27):
the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every day. It
is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast where Justin and Kylie Coulson.
We don't get to talk about grown up kids very often,
but today that's where we're going. A question from Lucy
who says this, My twenty year old university's student daughter
really enjoys posting photos of herself with friends on Instagram
(00:47):
and Facebook. These photos are usually quote sexy party girl,
close quote poses. Her accounts of public She has about
twenty five hundred followers on Instagram about five hundred friends
on Facebook. Husband and I concerned that her quote sexy
party girl, close quote poses will be a disadvantage to
her character and her future employment. We're planning to discuss
(01:10):
this with our daughter. What should we say. I really
want to support my adult child. Your support is so
much appreciated. Thanks so much, Lucy. All Right, Kylie, we
haven't been in this exact situation, but it's a bit
of a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The word that jumps out at me as you were
reading was support, And I guess my question is does
her daughter feel like she needs support?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I love tricky questions and I love your insight here.
When our children, regardless of whether they're teenagers or toddlers
or young adults as in this particular scenario, when they're
doing things that we as parents see as being unwise
or unsafe or unhealthy, our instinct is to stay and
(02:01):
fix correct And because we've done it for so long,
that makes sense, right. But now we're talking about a
young adult. We're talking about somebody who's twenty years old.
She's got a big girl pants on. Now she is
a grown up, and she wants to make her own decisions.
Is she fully mature neurologically? Is she cognitively and emotionally
where she needs to be to have the perspective that
she should have?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Does she recognize how her choices may impact her in
the future.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Correct answer is no. Of all of those questions, No,
she doesn't but my first central response to this is
our kids, especially as they move into late adolescents in
early adulthood, they prize their autonomy so highly. They have
an enormous desire for autonomy, and when we as parents
(02:47):
try to step in and make corrections and offer directions,
they perceive that as force, and force creates resistance. This
is the kind of thing that can does will rupture
the relationship if you can't let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
When our eldest daughter decided that she was no longer
going to follow the rules of our home and was
going to blaze a trail through the jungle in all
its claws, she.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Was asserting her independence, and.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
We decided that she definitely needed our support, she definitely
needed our help. And one day she came to me
and she just said, Mum, I've always been that kid.
If you tell me that the stove's hot and I
need to be careful or I need to stay away
from it, I'm the kid who wants to feel it
(03:38):
because I want to know what hot feels like. She's
just that kid. She's hands on, she wants to experience
it for herself, and then she goes out, you're right,
yea oh, whoops. But she got to make her own choice.
She got to experience it. And as frustrating as that
is being a parent who can see the train just
(04:00):
about to happen, there is something so profound that happens
for our kids when they feel like we trust they
can make good choices for themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Essentially, when I think about this situation, the second point
that I would make is drop the agenda. You've got
a child who is now an adult. Well, you don't
agree with everything that your child does. You probably won't
now for the rest of their life. They're a big person,
they're a grown up, and even if their brain isn't
quite where you'd like it to be, and even if
the decisions aren't quite what you'd like them to be,
(04:35):
our experience with our own adult children has been to
drop the agenda and focus on connection. The great irony
is that the more you connect, the more open your
child will be to hearing how you feel about things
and wanting to invite you into their world. Whereas the
more that you tell them what to do, the more
you are agenda driven, the more you feel like you
(04:57):
need to guide them along their adult life, the more
they start to resist you. Stay away from you, see
sharing things with you.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And the only reason you're so smart, you're so wise,
is because you've had your own years and years of experience.
You've actually made some really poor choices in your time,
and you've learnt from them, and our kids need the
same opportunity. Recently, I was talking with a young woman
(05:28):
and she shared with me that her boyfriend's parents are constantly, like,
every time they have a conversation, they're trying to tell
them how to live their lives right, and she just
she's so infuriated by it. And then she looked at
me and she said, you know, I'm so grateful that
even though I know my parents aren't happy with some
(05:50):
of the decisions I make, that they have allowed me
to make them. And you said it from the very beginning.
Our kids, and especially our young adults, want autonomy more
than anything.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Like, it's literally like air to them, Oxygen.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Bon Jovi saying it, it's my life, Billy Joel saying
it as well, I don't care what you say anymore.
This is my life. Like this has been a repetitive
theme of youth and young adulthood for decades, centuries, probably
for Millennia. They want to be able to make their
own choices and not have parental agendas. They just want
parental engagement and relationship. So I would say connection is key.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, and that connection only deepens and strengthens when there
is no agenda. When you are able to sit down
with your child and just be happy to be with
them in their space, find out how their day was,
find out how the party went, enjoy being together. You
have got more opportunity for influence in their life because
(06:54):
they will come to you, right, They will come to
you instead of you going to them.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
After the break. Two more quick ideas that can wrap
this up, knock it on the head and make it
easy for Lucy and anyone else is raising. And by
the way, this is relevant not just for young adults.
It's also relevant parents of teens and even younger kids.
Two more solutions after the break, Okay, Kylie, Two more
(07:23):
solutions to help Lucy. I need to highlight we're not
suggesting that Lucy is being controlling about everything her daughter
is doing. We're not suggesting that she's being forceful and
creating resistance and being super controlling across the board.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
All of the things that she's suggested, are completely and
utterly appropriate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Reasonable. I mean, you're a parent, you care about your child,
you want your child to do well. My last two
ideas are really simple. Number one, if you do want
to share something, if you want to provide some guidance,
if you believe that you have some especially important inside
that your child absolutely must receive right now. In spite
of the fact that they are an adult, they do
have a brain and they can figure this stuff out
for themselves eventually, because your wisdom might just save them
(08:03):
from making an unsafe, for an unhealthy or unwise decision.
Get permission before you share the idea. I just say, hey,
I want to talk about a tricky thing and I
want to share a couple of ideas with you. Would
you be okay with that?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I love the question you ask our kids. You often
will just say to them, are you open to me
sharing with you some thoughts? And that question that opener, yeah,
taps into their autonomy in such a powerful way.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Well, they become open to it right when they say yeah,
I'm open. What have you got? What are you thinking?
Then you can step in really gently and say, well,
as I think about this particular situation. Here's what I'm
concerned about, and I had a thought about it, and
you can share that thought they go. They might still
dismiss it, but at least they're giving you a gentle
open hearing as opposed to you need to.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
But the wonderful thing is you've created a space where
they are open. So even though they may not in
that moment except want or even take it on board,
you've planted a seed and there will come a point where,
if you are actually right, there will come a point
where they'll be doing something and they'll be like, huh,
(09:12):
I'm said blah blah blah blah blah. Maybe I don't
want to do this, just photo and post it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
This one might be a bit much and it might.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Take years, it might take weeks. It doesn't matter. It's
the fact that they're open to having that conversation and
they recognize and know that while you've shared it with them,
your love hasn't changed, your desire to connect hasn't changed,
and you're always there, but you respect their autonomy.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, I'm wrapping this up with some stats. According to
the Harvard Business Review, around about seventy percent of employers
do check the social media feeds of their prospective employees.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This kind of blows my mind a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It feels like it's just big brother is watching it. Yeah,
so we're not in that corporate world. We're not experiencing that.
So it feels really foreign. But the reality is that's
happening in Australia. It happens in the US, it happens
in the UK. This is a thing. If I'm a recruiter,
I want to make sure that the person I'm recruiting
is a good cultural fit. And as part of my
screening process, I'm going to check their social media to
(10:12):
see who they are, what do they show about themselves,
do they sit well culturally with what we're trying to
create in our business. And so I'm not going to
say that this is definitely going to be an impediment
for Lucy's daughter. But when you can show up with
a conversation like this and say, hey, why don't we
(10:32):
just have a check, let's see if this is a
real thing, Like maybe I'm being alarmist, maybe I'm being
over the top, And then you jump onto HBr and
realize that Harvard researchers have discovered that seventy percent of
employers are checking potential employees via their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They're just going to find a wholy bit bad hairdoo
is from ten or fifteen years ago when it comes
to maybe.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But this adds a little bit of weight and credence.
Is this is not a parent shouting at the cloud
saying what are you doing the World's going to end.
This is somebody with some credibility saying your mum and
dad might be onto something here. Again, you're not looking
for an instant commitment. You're not looking for instant change.
You're not presenting this as the solution. You're trying to
offer some perspective with consent while respecting autonomy. Do that
(11:20):
and you're probably going to have a much better relationship
with your child because you're making the relationship central rather
than you being the parent who has to be right
all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So take home messages from today. Autonomy is key. Force
creates resistance and therefore hurts our relationships with our children.
Connection is imperative, and lastly.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Get consent before you share stuff. Just make sure that
the kids are on board with you opening your mouth
and telling them how to live their lives, because if
they're not, you're going to rupture the relationship and potentially
push them in exactly the opposite direction. I mean, our
adult kids have said to us at times, the fact
that you've just asked me to do that makes me
not want to do it, and I'm like, oh my goodness,
this is hard, Lucy. We really hope that's helpful. Thank
(12:05):
you so much for asking your tricky question. You can
send your tricky questions to us via Happy families dot
com dot au. We prefer the voice notes. I'm not
gonna lie like the emails are great, but we really
do prefer the voice notes. Just jump on a happy
families dot com dot au, scroll down to where the
podcasts section is and push the button and start talking.
It's literally that simple, and we want your voice on
(12:27):
the pod. You can also email voice notes to podcasts
that's podcasts with an SS at happy families dot com
dot au. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Ruland from Bridge Media, and if you'd like more information
and more resources to make your family happier, visit us
at happy families dot com dot A.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You
Today a question with the difference. This time we're dealing
with older kids, in fact, adult kids. Because every Tuesday
on the Happy Families Podcast, we answer your tricky questions
about what to do when things are challenging at home,
family relationships, well being, screens, discipline, the works. That's what
we talk about every Tuesday with tricky questions. Welcome to
(00:27):
the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every day. It
is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast where Justin and Kylie Coulson.
We don't get to talk about grown up kids very often,
but today that's where we're going. A question from Lucy
who says this, My twenty year old university's student daughter
really enjoys posting photos of herself with friends on Instagram
(00:47):
and Facebook. These photos are usually quote sexy party girl,
close quote poses. Her accounts of public She has about
twenty five hundred followers on Instagram about five hundred friends
on Facebook. Husband and I concerned that her quote sexy
party girl, close quote poses will be a disadvantage to
her character and her future employment. We're planning to discuss
(01:10):
this with our daughter. What should we say. I really
want to support my adult child. Your support is so
much appreciated. Thanks so much, Lucy. All Right, Kylie, we
haven't been in this exact situation, but it's a bit
of a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The word that jumps out at me as you were
reading was support, And I guess my question is does
her daughter feel like she needs support?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I love tricky questions and I love your insight here.
When our children, regardless of whether they're teenagers or toddlers
or young adults as in this particular scenario, when they're
doing things that we as parents see as being unwise
or unsafe or unhealthy, our instinct is to stay and
(02:01):
fix correct And because we've done it for so long,
that makes sense, right. But now we're talking about a
young adult. We're talking about somebody who's twenty years old.
She's got a big girl pants on. Now she is
a grown up, and she wants to make her own decisions.
Is she fully mature neurologically? Is she cognitively and emotionally
where she needs to be to have the perspective that
she should have?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Does she recognize how her choices may impact her in
the future.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Correct answer is no. Of all of those questions, No,
she doesn't but my first central response to this is
our kids, especially as they move into late adolescents in
early adulthood, they prize their autonomy so highly. They have
an enormous desire for autonomy, and when we as parents
(02:47):
try to step in and make corrections and offer directions,
they perceive that as force, and force creates resistance. This
is the kind of thing that can does will rupture
the relationship if you can't let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
When our eldest daughter decided that she was no longer
going to follow the rules of our home and was
going to blaze a trail through the jungle in all
its claws, she.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Was asserting her independence, and.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
We decided that she definitely needed our support, she definitely
needed our help. And one day she came to me
and she just said, Mum, I've always been that kid.
If you tell me that the stove's hot and I
need to be careful or I need to stay away
from it, I'm the kid who wants to feel it
(03:38):
because I want to know what hot feels like. She's
just that kid. She's hands on, she wants to experience
it for herself, and then she goes out, you're right,
yea oh, whoops. But she got to make her own choice.
She got to experience it. And as frustrating as that
is being a parent who can see the train just
(04:00):
about to happen, there is something so profound that happens
for our kids when they feel like we trust they
can make good choices for themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Essentially, when I think about this situation, the second point
that I would make is drop the agenda. You've got
a child who is now an adult. Well, you don't
agree with everything that your child does. You probably won't
now for the rest of their life. They're a big person,
they're a grown up, and even if their brain isn't
quite where you'd like it to be, and even if
the decisions aren't quite what you'd like them to be,
(04:35):
our experience with our own adult children has been to
drop the agenda and focus on connection. The great irony
is that the more you connect, the more open your
child will be to hearing how you feel about things
and wanting to invite you into their world. Whereas the
more that you tell them what to do, the more
you are agenda driven, the more you feel like you
(04:57):
need to guide them along their adult life, the more
they start to resist you. Stay away from you, see
sharing things with you.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And the only reason you're so smart, you're so wise,
is because you've had your own years and years of experience.
You've actually made some really poor choices in your time,
and you've learnt from them, and our kids need the
same opportunity. Recently, I was talking with a young woman
(05:28):
and she shared with me that her boyfriend's parents are constantly, like,
every time they have a conversation, they're trying to tell
them how to live their lives right, and she just
she's so infuriated by it. And then she looked at
me and she said, you know, I'm so grateful that
even though I know my parents aren't happy with some
(05:50):
of the decisions I make, that they have allowed me
to make them. And you said it from the very beginning.
Our kids, and especially our young adults, want autonomy more
than anything.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Like, it's literally like air to them, Oxygen.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Bon Jovi saying it, it's my life, Billy Joel saying
it as well, I don't care what you say anymore.
This is my life. Like this has been a repetitive
theme of youth and young adulthood for decades, centuries, probably
for Millennia. They want to be able to make their
own choices and not have parental agendas. They just want
parental engagement and relationship. So I would say connection is key.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, and that connection only deepens and strengthens when there
is no agenda. When you are able to sit down
with your child and just be happy to be with
them in their space, find out how their day was,
find out how the party went, enjoy being together. You
have got more opportunity for influence in their life because
(06:54):
they will come to you, right, They will come to
you instead of you going to them.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
After the break. Two more quick ideas that can wrap
this up, knock it on the head and make it
easy for Lucy and anyone else is raising. And by
the way, this is relevant not just for young adults.
It's also relevant parents of teens and even younger kids.
Two more solutions after the break, Okay, Kylie, Two more
(07:23):
solutions to help Lucy. I need to highlight we're not
suggesting that Lucy is being controlling about everything her daughter
is doing. We're not suggesting that she's being forceful and
creating resistance and being super controlling across the board.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
All of the things that she's suggested, are completely and
utterly appropriate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Reasonable. I mean, you're a parent, you care about your child,
you want your child to do well. My last two
ideas are really simple. Number one, if you do want
to share something, if you want to provide some guidance,
if you believe that you have some especially important inside
that your child absolutely must receive right now. In spite
of the fact that they are an adult, they do
have a brain and they can figure this stuff out
for themselves eventually, because your wisdom might just save them
(08:03):
from making an unsafe, for an unhealthy or unwise decision.
Get permission before you share the idea. I just say, hey,
I want to talk about a tricky thing and I
want to share a couple of ideas with you. Would
you be okay with that?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I love the question you ask our kids. You often
will just say to them, are you open to me
sharing with you some thoughts? And that question that opener, yeah,
taps into their autonomy in such a powerful way.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Well, they become open to it right when they say yeah,
I'm open. What have you got? What are you thinking?
Then you can step in really gently and say, well,
as I think about this particular situation. Here's what I'm
concerned about, and I had a thought about it, and
you can share that thought they go. They might still
dismiss it, but at least they're giving you a gentle
open hearing as opposed to you need to.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
But the wonderful thing is you've created a space where
they are open. So even though they may not in
that moment except want or even take it on board,
you've planted a seed and there will come a point where,
if you are actually right, there will come a point
where they'll be doing something and they'll be like, huh,
(09:12):
I'm said blah blah blah blah blah. Maybe I don't
want to do this, just photo and post it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
This one might be a bit much and it might.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Take years, it might take weeks. It doesn't matter. It's
the fact that they're open to having that conversation and
they recognize and know that while you've shared it with them,
your love hasn't changed, your desire to connect hasn't changed,
and you're always there, but you respect their autonomy.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Okay, I'm wrapping this up with some stats. According to
the Harvard Business Review, around about seventy percent of employers
do check the social media feeds of their prospective employees.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This kind of blows my mind a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It feels like it's just big brother is watching it. Yeah,
so we're not in that corporate world. We're not experiencing that.
So it feels really foreign. But the reality is that's
happening in Australia. It happens in the US, it happens
in the UK. This is a thing. If I'm a recruiter,
I want to make sure that the person I'm recruiting
is a good cultural fit. And as part of my
screening process, I'm going to check their social media to
(10:12):
see who they are, what do they show about themselves,
do they sit well culturally with what we're trying to
create in our business. And so I'm not going to
say that this is definitely going to be an impediment
for Lucy's daughter. But when you can show up with
a conversation like this and say, hey, why don't we
(10:32):
just have a check, let's see if this is a
real thing, Like maybe I'm being alarmist, maybe I'm being
over the top, And then you jump onto HBr and
realize that Harvard researchers have discovered that seventy percent of
employers are checking potential employees via their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They're just going to find a wholy bit bad hairdoo
is from ten or fifteen years ago when it comes
to maybe.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But this adds a little bit of weight and credence.
Is this is not a parent shouting at the cloud
saying what are you doing the World's going to end.
This is somebody with some credibility saying your mum and
dad might be onto something here. Again, you're not looking
for an instant commitment. You're not looking for instant change.
You're not presenting this as the solution. You're trying to
offer some perspective with consent while respecting autonomy. Do that
(11:20):
and you're probably going to have a much better relationship
with your child because you're making the relationship central rather
than you being the parent who has to be right
all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So take home messages from today. Autonomy is key. Force
creates resistance and therefore hurts our relationships with our children.
Connection is imperative, and lastly.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Get consent before you share stuff. Just make sure that
the kids are on board with you opening your mouth
and telling them how to live their lives, because if
they're not, you're going to rupture the relationship and potentially
push them in exactly the opposite direction. I mean, our
adult kids have said to us at times, the fact
that you've just asked me to do that makes me
not want to do it, and I'm like, oh my goodness,
this is hard, Lucy. We really hope that's helpful. Thank
(12:05):
you so much for asking your tricky question. You can
send your tricky questions to us via Happy families dot
com dot au. We prefer the voice notes. I'm not
gonna lie like the emails are great, but we really
do prefer the voice notes. Just jump on a happy
families dot com dot au, scroll down to where the
podcasts section is and push the button and start talking.
It's literally that simple, and we want your voice on
(12:27):
the pod. You can also email voice notes to podcasts
that's podcasts with an SS at happy families dot com
dot au. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Ruland from Bridge Media, and if you'd like more information
and more resources to make your family happier, visit us
at happy families dot com dot A.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You
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