To ask how you stop worrying when your children become adults!

[MancMamof1]

Because I can't and I know it is ridiculous.
My dd is 19 and does have autism but she is independent and works some evenings and weekends and I worry!
I hate the idea of her on the bus station alone at night especially because she still is fairly vulnerable and can be waiting an hour for the bus.
Often she will get chatting in the staffroom to her manager meaning if she was due home at 6pm she does not get home until 8pm and by that time I am worrying even more.
She does not want to be texting me to tell me where she is at 19 which I fully accept and I know I am being ridiculous.

Do you all just worry? Does it stop?😳

@LobeliaBaggins you sound very dismissive about the difficulties that some young people face.

I disagree with you on several counts but most perhaps most importantly that young people expect their parents to fix their MH difficulties or anxiety.

This might be the case for some, but too many don't tell anyone, least of all their parents about what they are going through, and they don't reach out for help.

In my opinion this isn't at all helpful. I wouldn't expect an adult friend to struggle on without reaching out for help, so of course I wouldn't want a child to either.

My kids and GCs don't worry about me worrying - they laugh.😉

DD, SIL, and GD (18) are currently in Florida, visiting my son and other family.

They sent me a pic this morning, of them at something called GatorLand - with DD and GD on a zip wire over a river full of alligators....😳

Jeez lol

DD is almost 22 and was living in Australia for 2 years whilst I worried endlessly as to where she was, if she was home ok, if she was safe. It drove her mad. In the end, the only thing that's helped is me having a baby DD (I had DD when I was very young) which distracts me from worrying so much about grown up DD.

I'm too knackered to stay up worrying and messaging DD1, so leave her to it, whilst I now worry about DD2.

Probably not a particularly practical suggestion but that's what helped me!

I think that the only thing that stops me worrying is being incapable of worrying due to some external reason. So, when my kids were little only extreme exhaustion stopped me worrying in the night because I couldn't stay awake.
When my kids become adults I'll be only early/mid 40's and plan to work more and keep my mind occupied with other things. I think this might be one thing I can do to somewhat control my anxiety, ie force myself to think of something else.

I agree that being able to text has made a huge difference, @JustDanceAddict My parents asked me to phone once a week at a certain time when I was at university, for example, and if didn’t, they’d start worrying. I usually did, but was sometimes asleep or the phone was in use…he olden days! 🤣

The flip side, I suppose, is that we’d really worry if our teenagers/adult children spent all their time at home not doing much and moving forward with their lives. That would really panic me, as I’d know something was wrong and feel helpless.

That’s the situation with one of DD’s old school friends (18) and her Mum is so worried. ☹️

I did the same in the ‘olden days’ 😆 I’m sure I put some hairs on my mum’s chest with all the stuff I told her. My dd is the same - TMI child!!!
But both DCs struggle with their mental health and so I’m really relieved they’re relatively ok & living their lives (jury is out as to whether ds will make it to uni but he’s working and socialising so it’ll do for now). Living through the pandemic made things a lot worse for them both but also made me realise that the most important thing is their happiness really.

Distraction works for me. I try to keep busy.

We're all good at ringing or texting to say we've arrived safe and we speak each day so keep in touch with what we are all up to.

Also we're all on find my phone so can quickly check where we are. For us it works as dh travels internationally, dd works in London which is over 3 hours drive from here.

I check on there to see if Dh has landed safely, I have plane finder too (he bought the app as he likes planes, its on my phone because same cloud).

If there is an incident on the news I always check to see where dd is due to her job.

You don’t, I haven’t had a decent nights sleep in years.

Seriously, he went through a phase in his teens of leave me alone, you don’t need to know everything. Bloody hard.

One evening when yet again he had failed to update me, he roared WHY Mum, Why, I roared back, it will give the police a good place to start.
Cue dumbstruck silence, he checks in 9/10 these days.

When he was being particularly tight with his information in his teens, DH and I made a point several times of going out and leaving the house in utter darkness and not answering the phone the first time, when the inevitable where are you call came, we would reply loftily oh just out, he didn’t like it very much and things improved from there.

Last weekend he went out, we live in a small town, nowhere open after midnight, I waited until 2,30 and texted WTAF, he rang and said sorry we are at X’s, I replied stay there as long as you like, come home when you like, now I know that you are not in a ditch, party on.

The worry increases when they have their own car.

It is truly a fine line, between giving them roots and wings.

I'm 41 and my Mum still worries about me. I don't think the worry of a Mum ever stops, it just changes to worrying about different things. My Mum worries about me worrying about my children 🤣🤣. I guess she understands the worry. It's just a never ending thing I guess and something we sign up to as Mums.

Yes, I worry far more now mine are 20 & 18 than I ever did when they were “children”. Mostly about jobs and university and relationships, rather than safety, as they’re both very sensible.

It’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one worrying! My ds (18) is taking his driving test soon, and I know that’s going to be a whole new level of worry 😨

I'm 35 and I have my mother on Life360 so she won't worry! Occasionally she's sent me weird messages because I'm in a place she doesn't expect me to be and she thinks my phone's been stolen -- so I get the whole 3 security questions spiel. Bless her.

LobeliaBaggins I don't know about that, my design and tech teacher in the late 80s told me that we would run out of oil or any fuel sources and we will all be dead by the time I was thirty.... 😳

Bless her!

I think you learn to live with it when they leave home and you have no ide what they are up to. When DD went to university the first year (till covid lockdown) was tough as she struggled to find her people and cope with the bitchy politics in her residence. But since the. It's been much easier - as she has become more and more independent and resilient. She's happy so I'm happy.

It doesn't matter how old you are. If someone is expecting you somewhere at a certain time and you are running late, you text. It's manners and having manners is part of being a grown up. Im 46. If i'm running late to meet my mom. I text. If Im going to be home late I text my kids to let them know. she can text you.

My 2 are in their 40’s and I still worry! Just the type of worry evolves over the years. When they were teenagers it was the usual concerns about them being out late, maybe drinking too much, coming to harm on the way home etc. That worry diminished when they hooked up with long term partners who travelled home with them. Fast forward another few years and they’re married to those partners. Then I worried about their pregnancies, childbirth, careers etc.
Now I’m back where I started on the worry scale. 2 of my 4 grandkids are teenagers and old enough to go on nights out! 🤣

@RRandom789
So sorry. I understand why you worry about your son.

At last a question with a very easy answer @MancMamof1 - You dont.

My eldest daughter is in her 40's. But it doesn't make it any easier whether they are sons or daughters. Now, I have Grandchildren to worry about as well. But the joy they bring makes all the worry worth it!

I haven't read the whole thread but would your DD with you having a family locator type app on your phones? So at least you can see where she is?

I know this is tempting-but please don't ask this of her however much you want to! It's so intrusive.