Understanding Attention

Find a therapist to help with ADHD

A struggling adult child's problems gradually becomes their identity within the family

Even well-intended parental help can feel like a constant performance review

Shame can make expressed concern feel like oppressive judgment

Stefanie (altered names throughout to protect privacy) said the following to me in a recent parent coaching session: "Dr. Jeff, I don't freaken (substitute word here too, just use your imagination) get it! Jimmy (Stefanie's 29-year-old son) gets all my attention, more than anyone else in the family, and I am so freaken drained. I worry about him, offer guidance, give him money, and spend countless hours thinking about what I did to cause his problems."

Stefanie's words mirror so many parents who share those painful stories with me about their adult children. They, like Stefanie, also share this sense of a crazy contradiction. Why is it that these parents care so much and do so much, and yet their adult children say things like: "You don't understand me." "All you do is invalidate me. Everyone thinks I'm a loser." So how can these adult children, who get so much attention, feel........

© Psychology Today