The complicated feelings when you can't "fix" your kids problems

[HetTup]

DD just called me in a panic. She slept through her alarm and is a couple of hours late to set off to meet a friend in another part of the country. DD is 19 away at Uni so not at home.

She is worried about getting the train and to the town feeling guilty, her friend being upset with her. She has ADHD so sleeping and waking up on time and organising generally is hard for her so I do feel for her. But I can't fix this for her. She has to take responsibility for letting her friend down, and for probably setting herself up to fail by planning an early set off time and only one alarm (I have bought her 4 alarms while she has been away at Uni).

I have had to try and tamp down my frustration and be supportive but it is a good lesson for me in letting go. I can't do anything and she has to fix it. She just called again to say she is getting an Uber so she can get the next train so at least she is being proactive! Anyway this is a minor example of many panicked calls from DD over the last 18 months and she is always going to call for a sympathetic ear when things go wrong and she is on the verge of a meltdown.

I have to let go and it is hard as I always want to make things better for DD she is a sweet soul but an agent of chaos. Being her mum is a rollercoaster ride and it is hard to watch from a distance when I know things are going to go wrong...

You can't fix everything even when they're with you. You have to let them live and learn, and this incident is an example of that.

By having these experiences she will learn better ways to manage, and better systems that work for her. It's hard to step back but, at some point, they do need to take over. Often that involves a few missteps along the way.

I know and she made it to meet her friend and go to the gig. I need to stop trying to take responsibility it is hard though when she calls in a panic. I am letting go. But knowing the right thing and doing it are two very different things!

I have a ds with ADHD those panicked calls never stop. At Uni Ds used to call me all the time to talk through a minor fuck up - going around in circles asking for advice, not really wanting it, me being careful not to tell him what to do - getting him to take responsibility for his own decisions.
He's finished his degree, lives at home now, has a grad job - comes home every day needing to chat about a work issue - it's exhausting and it can dominate our whole evening and solve nothing. We have put a time limit on him bring stuff up, we will listen but then we have to say - stop now, this isn't going anywhere - we need some headspace. He's been working for 2 years now and I'm not sure it's getting any better.

This was a very minor issue, OP, and I'm surprised that it even occurred to her to call you. You just need to stop responding so quickly and if/when you do speak to her, encourage her to find solutions for herself.

I do often wonder what the balance is in these situations between the disorder itself and the coddling that the person's had in the past that makes it much easier to call home to get a problem resolved.

@Waywardremote- I totally relate to your post. I think it is likely we will have similar with DD when she graduates. A time limit is a good idea, boundaries generally are healthy but difficult to hold with ND kids as they need a sounding board for things that for others will seem very trivial. I hope you can all find a balance. With DD I do tell her when her that as her mum I do reserve the right to tell her when she's messed up and I am not just an emotional support person. I am always going to be supportive but I will have opinions and am not just going to tell her what she wants to hear.

@Miranda65it may surprise you, it is a relatively trivial issue from your perspective. But for DD she needed someone to talk to that she trusted to help her move on and actually get out of her flat. An autistic meltdown (DD has AuADHD diagnosed since primary school), is debilitating and she gets "stuck". I am a safe space for her when she feels out of control. You can call it "coddling" or whatever. I don't agree that it is, but I have a different perspective.

I am a product of 70s/ 80s benign neglect pareting from my dad and anxious parenting from mum. I was not coddled, I was pretty well given freedom and not much oversight and my father died a week before I went to uni so I have had plenty of experience of less parental involvement. I am glad that my kids see me as someone they can trust/ talk too... There is a balance somewhere. We are in the process of finding it.

How would they cope if they didn't have a mobile phone to call their parent on? Would they just get on with it.

this is what I am thinking also
at least the OP's daughter has the guts to venture out
Imagine grown people who never leave the family home, one reason or another - how do you feel then

Im afraid, OP, whenever you post on here about a neurodivergent child, you'll get people piling on to say that you are enabling their problems and mollycoddling them. Please just ignore. I think that anyone with neurotypical children should not bother commenting.

@HetTup She had a vent to you and then she found a solution-that’s brilliant! I’d praise her up for sorting everything out and tell her how mature she is.

It’s hard, but it sounds as if she’s learning to overcome the initial panic and find solutions, which is great.

Well my question about the phone was aimed at all young adult DC.

I used to phone my mum from a phone box. Sometimes you just need to say it out loud to get your thoughts in order when you have ADHD.

My dd is 23 and what has made it easier (for us) is her meeting her boyfriend. She seems much more together and sorted. But really she just tends to go to him with her issues now. They have been together 4 years and just in process of buying a house.

I agree completely.

I opened this expecting at the very least, a break up or the adult child being fired.

Not oversleeping an alarm and phoning a parent for ‘emotional support’ about it.

That is one way of looking at things. We did it after all! And yet I think back to when I left home at 19 and all the things I could really have done with a sympathetic chat with my mum to help me with (some situations more serious than others) and partly because mobiles cost 35p a minute and were never used for calls but also because my mum was too busy to be a sounding board for me I never did make those calls. Did I work things out for myself? Yes, I guess, but I also fucked up many times large and small and had some quite horrible things happen to me. I might have learnt some things in a slightly softer way if I had had the opportunity to give my mum a quick call.
My DS is not one to call me for help (unless the help is wanting a lift or money!) but I'm sure glad he has the option especially when he leaves home and will be doing a lot of stuff for himself for the first time. It's not coddling to provide support.

Perhaps your role is more sympathiser and encourager now? Also remind yourself that DDs friends must know what she's like by now and will probably help her plan if asked.

You will also get responses on threads like these from ND women who had no choice but to suck it up at various points, and actually it did give them better coping mechanisms in the long run.

Unfortunately the arrival of a romantic partner (of 2 years) has not improved things as he only discusses problems with us not them.

OP, you sound like a thoughtful, caring, and levelheaded person and parent. Your daughter and you have a good thing going here, and you have the awareness to let it gently transform itself as she gets more mature.

I try to remind myself that my daughter uses me like a bin for her emotional rubbish: calls me and dumps when she is worried or upset. My job is to take the trash out for her, not to sit and mull it over.

I am not good at this and am often left worried and upset- I find this part of parenting to be pretty hard.

It is interesting thinking about the whole "school of hard knocks" or "I was beaten to death every morning as a child and it never did me any harm" ... I was taught resilience by my experiences living away from home at 18 with a newly bereaved parent and no money or security behind me. I also drank myself into oblivion and got into risky situations and never even occured to me to ask for help or advice. I want better for my kids and they have that. If we are too involved in some people's opinion I am ok with that. I see the risks and benefits of our approach it is not perfect at all. But you have to parent the child you have not a construction of your ideas of perfect parenting. I was the best parent when I was pregnant for the first time and had very good and noble ideas and then the screaming puking reality was in my arms and then it was "heads down lets all get out of this alive" (3 kids in under 4 years).

I understand feeling stressed by being an emotional dumping ground. Fortunately or unfortunately... My job is being an adviser (well trainer now) so I am very used to empathetic listening and keeping my own emotional distance. Sometimes I forget DD isn't a client and start being too brisk and practical but it is usually fine. DH cannot do it he is too anxious and finds the listening without judgement difficult... I have heard a thousand worse more pathetic stories in my work so nothing shocks me any more.

@HetTup It sounds as if you handle the emotional support really well as your DD is learning how to problem solve independently- even if she needs an initial panic vent.

I am absolutely a sympathetic listener but with DD it can edge into "man in the chair" as one memorable night DD called at 2am in floods of tears at a deserted station not sure how to get back to her halls. She had been left behind by her friends (also ND), after travelling back together from a gig in the nearby city. She thought she had left something on the train and stupidly told her friends to go on without her back to halls while she went back to check. They went on. So she has missed the bus next one on a hour or so, she was so distressed that a homeless lady asked if DD was ok ... Anyway I directed her to get a cab and stayed on the phone while she got home to halls. The number of errors of judgement she made that night were many, her friends were also useless but I know DD can be very difficult to reason with but she has a disability and this means her decision making and judgement is sometimes impaired. aDHD delays your maturity emotionally and she is super clever in many ways her writing skills are incredible but she is unable to manage things that other people find easy.

They were all ND?