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You must first have a clear-eyed view of your relationship with a parent before you can make improvements.

Parents’ individual backgrounds often hold the key to annoying patterns affecting you as a grownup.

Committing to improving your relationship liberates you from your “child” role and can reduce conflict.

Grown-up relationships with parents are layered and complex, and at times, frustrating and stressful. The good news is that it is possible to make meaningful improvements in how you relate to your parents as an adult if you start from a place of understanding.

You may feel at a loss about how to change the situation because this relational dynamic has existed to some extent since you were a young child. So the first step to turning around adult child-parent issues is identifying and defining those challenges. Contrary to what you may believe, you have clear options—and many more than you may think—to direct the course of your connection, including with the most difficult parents.

By contrast, when problems are allowed to fester, they can threaten the adult child-parent relationship. For example, if parents try to exert power over grown children, that can put strain on the relationship that erupts into arguments........

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