If you want to keep a strong bond with your adult children, say hello to these 7 habits

As someone with two grown children, I can’t deny that it’s bittersweet to have an empty nest. 

On one hand, I love that they’re both independent and confident enough to go out in the world on their own. 

On the other hand, I do miss having them at home and share meals, chat about our days, and simply enjoy one another’s company.

I used to be scared we’d lose that strong bond once they moved out. But like any new chapter in life, learning to adapt is necessary. 

When it comes to keeping a strong bond with your adult children, it’s simply about embracing new ways of being together. 

If you’re in the same situation and want to stay close with your adult children, here are 7 habits you should adopt: 

1) Communicate regularly

Isn’t it great that we live in a time when there are so many ways to communicate?

Gone are the days when parents had to rely on expensive long-distance calls or snail mail to know what’s going on in their children’s lives if they lived far away. 

Today, we’ve got messaging apps and video calls. My adult children can send me photos whenever they like, and vice-versa. 

I particularly love seeing the meals they whip up on their own, and they love seeing photos of me and their dad going off on our own adventures. 

Thanks to these technological advances, we can keep track of the delightfully mundane details of each other’s lives!

That said, don’t fret if your child misses a call or two, or if they haven’t been messaging as much. As a parent of a grown child, it’s also important to…

2) Give them room to live their lives

I remember back when I was newly grown myself, I had a roommate who had to call her parents every single night. 

On the occasions that she’d go out drinking with friends and miss this call, there would be drama. There would be accusations that she was being a neglectful daughter. 

She loved her parents, but in time, she came to resent this nightly tradition. She felt like the same strict rules were still in place despite the distance, and she was still a child who had to report her whereabouts. 

All that to say, don’t be a clingy parent. You’ll likely just end up pushing your child away. 

If you want to maintain a strong bond with your adult child, balance is key. You want to provide support when needed, and also give them the freedom they need to live their lives. 

3) Keep advice and opinions to yourself unless asked

How do you provide support? Well, definitely not by giving unsolicited advice and opinions. That’s a quick way to get your child dreading your calls. 

You see, once your kids are grown, there’s going to be a shift in your role. You’ll no longer be the parent who needs to guide every decision or solve every problem. 

Instead, your role shifts more towards being a supportive confidant who listens and only offers wisdom when it’s asked for. In fact, once they hit their late teens, you should already be pivoting to this role, even if only slightly. 

Unsolicited advice and opinions can hit differently once your child is an adult. They’ll likely perceive it as criticism or lack of faith in their abilities. 

According to family therapist Sarah Epstein:

“Adult children may not want consistent feedback on their choices. If parents can embrace only offering advice when asked, and learn the skills to listen thoughtfully, their relationship will almost certainly strengthen.”

4) Share your life

Speaking of shifting roles, now that your children are grown, you can now actually be their friend! 

One of my most delightful discoveries as an adult was getting to know my mom as a person, not just as my mom or my dad’s wife. 

When I was a child, she didn’t really share much of herself – she always presented a strong and brave front because she knew it was important for me and my sister to have a strong role model. 

Not that she was actually a weak person, I only mean to say that there was more to her than what we saw as kids. 

And when we grew up and she started taking on the friend role, she began sharing more of her life with us. 

Suddenly, she wasn’t just the woman who took care of us and had all the answers. She was also someone who had dreams and fears and experienced the same complexities of life that we were beginning to understand as adults. 

Seeing her in this light brought a new level of respect and a deeper connection between us. 

So now I do the same with my own adult children. I tell them what’s going on in my own corner of the world. I talk to them like I talk to my friends. And it really has been so instrumental in keeping our bond strong. 

5) Engage in shared activities

Of course, it goes without saying that even if your children live away from you, there should still be time for shared activities. 

Any meaningful connection requires time and effort, and that goes for your relationship with your adult children, too. The strongest families are those that find ways to still get together, no matter the distance. 

Maybe you can spend the holidays together or plan an annual family vacation.

If you’re lucky and they live close to you, you can even have weekly or monthly get-togethers for lunch or game night, or just some good ol’ hanging out on the porch. 

This is also the perfect opportunity to…

6) Create new traditions 

Back when the kids were little, our family had its own set of traditions, just like any other family. 

For example, in the summers, we’d go camping at a national park. On Halloween, we’d sit out on the porch and tell horror stories. For every holiday, we had our own little thing going as a family. 

But when they grew up and moved away, it was no longer possible to keep those up. We had to think of new traditions that were much more doable given our circumstances. 

So now, we have a monthly virtual game night. We’d set up video calls and choose games that could be played online. 

Of course, it doesn’t beat playing board games together in real life, but it’s done the job of keeping us close despite the distance. 

If you want to maintain a strong bond with your adult children, I’d say some new traditions are in order. 

What this means is that your lives may have evolved, but it’s okay, it’s nothing a little effort can’t fix! 

This brings me to the final point…

7) Stay adaptable

This is perhaps what lies at the core of a successful parent-adult child relationship – adaptability. 

Life is a never-ending series of changes. The ones who can’t adapt to this new role are likely the ones who struggle with staying close to their adult children. 

For example, if you: 

• Insist on communicating with your child the way you used to when they were younger
• Demand that they adjust to your schedule all the time
• Refuse to acknowledge their new boundaries
• Stick rigidly to old family roles and traditions

…you might be in for a lot of disappointment. 

To be successful as a parent of a grown child, you need to respect who they are today. You need to acknowledge the change in roles and adapt to their evolving needs and lifestyles. 

If you can do that, your adult children won’t dread hearing your voice on the phone. And you can bet that they’ll look forward to spending time together just as much as you do.