As the parent of a 20 year old, 18 year old and 17 year old who all live at home, I might have an insight or two into this.
The first thing you have to realize is that, at 18, your child *is* an adult and does *not* have to listen to you. This may be hard for you to internalize — after all, you’ve watched over them from birth when they were helpless and seen them at their stupidest. It’s perfectly natural to think of your children grown children as “still children” and that, as a parent, you know better*.
But the fact is that, at this point, they’re already raised. They are their own person, not a “little you.” Their ideas may be different than yours, their values may be different than yours and their personalities may be different than yours — and you have to learn to accept that. Your job as the shaper of your child’s personality is pretty much over. Yes, you can still shape it by example, but that’s pretty much it.
As such, you have to allow them the freedom to do things their own way, even if you don’t necessarily agree with that way. It’s painful sometimes, but it’s what you have to do.
I read something a while back, which stayed with me. It stated that, as your children approach their teenage years, your job as a parent changes from that of management to one of sales. I would further add that, as your teenager becomes an adult, your job changes from sales to adviser.
Of course, all that does not mean that you don’t have the right to set certain rules within your own home. You absolutely do have that right. However, they have to be rules that your child can understand and accept. They have to be reasonable and have more of a basis than “because I said so.”
For example, our twenty year old does not have a curfew. He did at seventeen and eighteen, but, as he became older, we had to learn to relax that restriction. (Part of what made it easier was trying to remind myself of how I would have felt at that age with that restriction.) However, he does know that if he’s going to be very late, he has to call or text us, just so that we don’t worry. Yes, it’s a rule, not a “guideline” or “please do it.” We get on his case if he doesn’t. But it’s a rule he can understand. He can understand that we, as parents, get worried if he’s out really late and we don’t know that he’s okay.
Another rule is doing the Shabbos dishes. The kids rotate weeks. He knows that, even though he’s twenty, he has to do the dishes every third week. It’s a rule he can understand – that he has to chip in and help out around the house. Would he rather not do it? Sure. Could he say “I’m an adult and I don’t have to do the dishes?” Sure, he could, but he doesn’t because he understands that he needs to help out to maintain the house.
In short, you have to allow your adult the freedom to be himself, even if it’s not what you would do for yourself. There are things about my son that I wish were different, but I have to understand that he is not me and that he is going to choose his own way in life. It’s sometimes painful to watch as a parent, but you have to learn to let go and let them take control of their own lives.
The Wolf
* As a parent, you probably *do* know better than they do, even at this age. But you have to let them make their own mistakes (and learn from them) at this age, just as you did. After all, that’s probably how you acquired your parental wisdom.