From Director to Advisor as a Parent

The first decade of our children’s lives creates a director-subject relationship between us and our kids. They come into this world helpless. We find them food, we change their diapers, we hold their hand crossing the street. We teach them that we are to be looked up to, and teach ourselves that they are dependent on us.

The belief then is that we know best. Maintaining that director role, even after they are able to think for themselves, comes at a number of costs. First, it stunts the child’s ability to think and act for themselves. If you are the holder of knowledge then they are the always ignorant. I have seen plenty of clients who anxiously second guess themselves in large part because they never got the idea that they can do things themselves.

Secondly, it causes great harm to the parent-child relationship, one that lasts well into adulthood. If the parent maintains the director role, then it is impossible for even the high achieving adult child to ever feel fully worthy in their eyes. The director parent is sticking to the director script, continually failing to just say “you are doing great, trusting yourself is working.”

This comes up a lot when adults are choosing their romantic partners. A parent is always going to have thoughts about their adult child’s choice in this area, and everyone knows that. So there is an internal, often unconscious motive to choose someone they would approve of. How a parent voices their views here can affect things ranging from their adult child’s decisions, their relationship with you, to even their self-esteem.

A bad way to do this is to say some version of “the guy you picked is a loser, you gotta pick leave him.” You might as well be saying “you are a dumb child and you never will be an adult.” By doing this, you as a parent close off trust with your adult child, and make the relationship about them impressing you.

Much better is to make the shift from director to advisor. Ideally this shift begins around puberty years. A time when you nudge your kids with advice, but don’t seek to control the outcome. The ‘let them get their bruises and learn from them’ kind of parenting. This may require telling them you trust in their judgment, even when you are uncertain if you do.

What you gain from this is credibility and respect. The child, then the adult child (we really need a better name than adult child), learns that you are someone they can safely come to to consult with. That you have wisdom, but that they don’t have to act a certain way to keep your approval and love.

Taking the romantic partner choice example, the advisor parent can certainly point out what they perceive may be red flags. But the language is important here. ‘They perceive’ and ‘may be’. In this the advisor parent makes clear that they (the parent) don’t have all the knowledge. That their vision is skewed by their own biases, their own history, and their lack of complete information. 

From there the advice becomes something the adult child can consider without pressure to outright accept or reject. The advisor parent can offer their cautions, and allow the adult child to try out different actions in the real world. All the while safe in the knowledge that they can return again and again to their advisor parent without fear of loss of love and acceptance.