Managing Parent-Child Love in Life

We all have or have had parents. That means we all have to either directly deal with parent love or have to process the result of years of parent love.

Parent love comes our way, whether we like it or not.

Parent love can come in many forms.

Parent love can be sweet, it can be harsh or something in between.

Life is a journey and we have our parents on board for a part of that journey.

Hence, it is helpful to see our life interactions with parents as a team experience.

When the team is working well together, the family prospers and so do the sum of its constituent parts, the respective members that is.

When a family is not working well together, what happens?

You may have guessed it, the constituent members are not happy.

Why?

That is the first question to ask if the family is out of balance.

Why are we out of balance?

Starting a conversation is often challenging, as most of us are respectful towards our parents' feelings.

I argue that this child -> parent love is actually unhelpful in adulthood.

If a child is unhappy with a parent, it is in both people's best interest to speak frankly, openly and amicably.

Conversely, if a parent is unhappy with a child, the same rule applies in reverse.

So, if you are in a family where some discontent is present amongst the constituent members, I urge you to boldly proceed forward with an honest and respectful conversation, as equals.

Things are more complicated if the parents are no longer with us and psychological therapy is probably the best way forward in these cases.

Love you all as always,

Peter