#62 When Adult Kids Come Home

Your adult child is coming home and you’re genuinely happy… so why does your body feel that quiet, low-grade stress? The real struggle usually isn’t the dishes, the food, or whether they pick up after themselves. It’s the mental spiral: Do I say something up front and risk awkwardness, or stay silent and risk resentment in my own home?

I walk through a real coaching scenario where a mom braces for a two-week visit from her son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids. The details are familiar to so many of us: shared spaces getting messy, different habits around meals, and the extra layer of complexity when it’s not your own child but their spouse. We dig into what’s happening underneath the surface and why avoiding a clear conversation often creates more tension, not less.

Then I teach the PEACE framework I use with clients: Pause, Examine, Align, Choose, Entrust. We slow down and name the fears driving the overthinking, align our thoughts with truth (it’s not unkind to have expectations in your own home), choose how we want to show up with calm clarity, and entrust the outcome to God. You’ll also hear practical, natural wording for setting expectations without apologizing, overexplaining, or coming in hot, plus a reminder to ask your adult kids what they need so they feel seen and respected.

If you want healthier boundaries, better communication with adult children, and more peace in your home, press play, then subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend who needs a calmer way to speak the truth in love.

Click the link below to set up a free discovery call to begin your transformation today.  Or email me @ smurph923.sm@gmail.com to find out more about how I can help.  

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Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Tension

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy, and I'm a certified life and mindset coach, and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. There's something that happens when your adult child comes back into your home, even just for a visit. You're excited, you're looking forward to the time together, of course, and yet at the same time there's this low-level tension underneath it. Because you're already thinking ahead. How is this gonna go? Are they gonna clean up after themselves? Am I gonna end up feeling frustrated in my own home? And then there's this bigger question, do I say something ahead of time? Or do I just let everything go and hope for the best? This is what we're gonna be talking about today in this episode number 61 of the podcast. And I bring this up to you today because in my own life, my daughter and her fiance are going to be coming home this week. They're coming, they're flying in from out of state. It's actually gonna be her uh wedding shower that we're having for her. So I'm I'm super excited. And I just want to say right off the bat, in all transparency, I am not having tension or anxiety about her coming with her fiance. And that's the truth. I've had a lot of times where I've had kids, my adult kids come back into the home. And so I have on occasion dealt with the situation, having people come and stay. So I'm very familiar with it. And of course, our kids, you know, as you know, if you have multiple kids, they're all different. Every child is different, they handle things differently, your relationship with them is different, so it's gonna look different in every situation, every single situation. But I this was on my mind because I knew she was coming back home. And it's something that I deal with so often when I I've been when I work with people, it's something that moms really struggle with is how to handle

When Adult Kids Feel Like Kids

SPEAKER_00 2:00

this. And even just in talking with friends, understanding where that balance lies between, you know, wanting to be hosp, you know, hospitable, you know, and showing great hospitality and welcoming people into your home, but also understanding when it's appropriate to set some boundaries. And if it's just for a short visit, if it's a couple of days, usually it's not much of an issue, which is exactly what's happening with my daughter. So I just want to say right away that I'm not saying this because this is something that I'm dealing with with her partic in in particular. But like I said, if you've dealt with having children in your home, your adult children come back and stay with you, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Because there's this, it's odd. And it's to be fair, it's odd for them as well. They're coming to stay in their parents' home. So this is why, you know, when we're welcoming guests into our home, it it looks a little differently because they realize that they're guests. However, when it's our children who are now adults, there's still this idea of that, you know, we're their parents, and so they still feel like you're they're the child. So it can get a little bit muddled and it can get a little bit confusing. And it depends upon the age of your children, if they're married, if they have children of their own. There's so many things go into it. In this particular situation, I'm gonna use an example that someone had shared with me when I was coaching her a while back, and it's something that stuck with me, and I know just in talking with women all over the place, this is exactly the kind of thing that we can get very confused about as to how we how we handle this, what's okay, what's not okay. And so

A Real Visit That Went Sideways

SPEAKER_00 3:34

that's what I want to talk about today. So, in the particular situation that I'm referring to, this woman had shared with me that her son and his wife and their two young children were coming to stay with them. And she was really, really excited. And I think it was, I think it was like two weeks. He, I believe, was a teacher. He was in some sort, I think he was in education and they had a break, and so they were coming, and she was she was absolutely thrilled. However, she had some concerns and she said, They've already stayed with me. And there were some things that had happened with the daughter-in-law. Okay, so it was her son's wife, and she said, and we get along very well, but there were some things with with food, and I I'm not not gonna get into all the details because it doesn't really matter. This looks a little different for everybody, but it was something related to the food choices and with cleaning up and just how they she had said their home was spacious enough. Her son and his wife and their two chunk, two young children, they were able to have like the upstairs to themselves. And she said, so they kind of have their own space, but what she had struggled with the last time they had stayed with her was just the fact of that the wife, the daughter-in-law, didn't eat any of the meals or any of the food that she had prepared. And she just said she kind of claimed that, you know, she was just a picky eater or what have you. Now, the woman that I was I was working with had different ideas. She said, I think there could be some other things going on. I think she had even referenced maybe some eating disorders, or there was just different things. And she said, so it can get a little complicated. So she wasn't sure how to bring it up, basically was the whole point. And that also that like dishes weren't done, like the dishes were just always set in the kitchen. And so again, this can get a little bit more complicated because it wasn't her daughter, it was her son's wife. But you get the idea, and this is this is the kind of stuff that we can really get tripped up on. And this is the stuff that can, it can really have a big impact on your relationship because we sit here as mothers and we think, do we say something? Do we not say something? How do I approach this? I, you know, so that's what we're gonna dive into a little bit today. And you realize that when you're welcoming someone in your home, we have all these conflicting emotions, and there's this internal tension of like, I don't want to be controlling, but I also don't want to be disrespected in my own home. You you want to maintain the relationship, and yet if you don't say anything, sometimes that can cause more problems down the road. The reality is in this situation when I was talking to this woman and she was describing it, you know, it was about dishes, and there were some things with meals, but it it really isn't about those things. It's not about the dishes, it's not about the meals, it's not about the surface level things that we think, you know, can cause problems. It's what's happening underneath. And that's where it's really important to slow things down and to get very, very clear about what's happening and what's happening in your thoughts and in your mind because it isn't, it isn't about the dishes. It's about something much deeper. It's about, and it's not even about, okay, so I'm talking about dishes, but it's not even really about the house rules. It it's like I said, it's what's happening internally. And what's happening is in in this woman's mind, what she was really struggling with was if I say something, how are they gonna see me? You know, am I gonna come across as being difficult? Is is my son and my daughter-in-law gonna think that I'm difficult? How are they gonna perceive me? And you know, will I am I is this gonna create tension? If I say something now, this was her battle, do I say something or do I just let it go? Do I just deal with it when they're here? Do I just suck it up and not say anything at all? And this is just part of what I'm supposed to do? Or do I say something and risk the fact that then the whole while they're here, there's tension. This is where this is where this all lies. So instead of getting clear, this woman, you know, she started to negotiate with herself and question all these things. Maybe I shouldn't say anything. Maybe it's not a big deal. Maybe I'll just deal with it if it happens, and maybe, maybe this time things will be different. But what she was really doing was she was avoiding discomfort in the moment. And what she was doing was setting herself up for possible resentment later on. And she had some evidence because they had stayed with her prior, so so that's why she was going off of past experiences, and she ended up feeling resentful from the previous ones. So she kind of knew she already had kind of an idea, this wasn't a new thing to her, and that's kind of what we talked about. And this is really typically what happens is we feel like we have these choices of either I say something, and I'm I have to face the discomfort of saying something, because that's not easy for us. Or I just say nothing, and I just try and be easygoing, and that's what she was trying to do. She was she was having this battle of do I just let this go? You know, and then possibly in a few days, start to feel frustrated. And that's what happens, and that's what happened to her previously. Her experience was is that she didn't say anything, she let it go, but she noticed she began to get frustrated. And then all of a sudden, the interactions, she's like, you know, my tone changed. Because that's what happens. We can we can pretend and we can say the right things, but if our thoughts don't align with that, the energy, the emotions, our emotions come from our thoughts. So we can say the right words, but if that emotion and that energy doesn't tie with it, they're gonna know. Our child is gonna know, their spouse is gonna know, people around us are gonna know. So that's the whole point is we need to get very clear about what we're thinking and how we want to handle it ahead of time. And so for her, what could be what could have been simple, just a clear conversation about, hey, just so you know, just addressing this, it becomes very emotional. It became, you know, if you're not gonna address it ahead of time, it can become a very emotional thing. And we start to go through this all in our mind. Not to mention the reality of how much energy it drains us of. I talked about that last week, the energy that we're using up when we're trying to go through all this in our mind. So there was either this you stay silent and you risk being resentful, which this woman had kind of already proven was probably gonna be the outcome, because she already had some of that carried over from the last interaction. Or you speak up from frustration in the moment. And that's again, if she doesn't if she doesn't address it ahead of time. And neither one of those are going to create the outcome that you're looking for. Neither one of those are going to create peace. Staying silent, being resentful, or ending up speaking up in the situ in that moment when you're frustrated, none of that plays out the way we

Why The Fight Isn’t About Chores

SPEAKER_00 10:07

want it to. What I want to just talk about today is a framework that I take people through when they're having these issues, and it's really just a way of slowing things down. And it's what I try and teach my clients so that they can approach things like this differently. I've just named it appropriately so, the peace framework piece, P-E-A-C-E

The PEACE Framework Explained

SPEAKER_00 10:27

piece. And the first part of this is just to pause. The P is pause. When she started to have these emotions like, what should I do? You know, whatever. First of all, it's just to slow down and to pause and to realize that you don't need to solve this problem right now. And I also told her that, so this works, okay, this worked with my client when I was talking to her. She was trying to decide what to do when her child came. But this can work in the moment as well. So say she, you know, I'll tell you how she handled it when we get to the end. But say that this woman decided she wasn't going to say anything, and she was in the moment with her son and his wife, and she was in a situation where she was feeling very frustrated. This works there as well. You can pause and decide that you're not going to react in this moment. You don't need to say anything. So this pause works as you're trying to figure this all out, or also in the moment. This framework works for everything. So just to pause. You don't need to solve it in this moment, and you don't need to have the perfect answer, but just taking a break and slowing down long enough not to react or to make a decision from that internal pressure. So that's what the pause is. The next part is the E, which is the examine. This is where you're going to ask yourself, what's really going on here? This is when you start to realize, okay, what's happening? When you're starting to feel uncertain, she was feeling really, you know, she was having a lot of anxiety about them coming. And it was causing her a lot of emotional, emotional upset. She wasn't sleeping at night and she was like, I don't know what to do. And again, playing this out in her head. So this is where after she paused, she's examining what is actually happening here? What am I afraid of? And so when I asked her, what are you afraid of happening? And she talked about the fact of creating a distance in the relationship, about offending the daughter-in-law, about saying something that might, you know, cause a rift in the relationship, and then her son wouldn't come back. Or she was afraid to say something up front because she was fearing the fact of, as I had said, that potentially then the whole while they were at her house, there would be this tension. It would be this weird, awkward thing. That was part of her fear. And again, you know, this can go on. This is some of the stuff I asked her. Are you, you know, are you afraid that they're going to be upset with you? And I also, one of the things she had shared was that she was a little bit afraid that they thought she would be controlling. She said, I kind of have a strong personality. And I know that about myself. She's like, I don't want to be perceived as being controlling. And one of the things we also looked at was, was she making their potential reaction mean something about her? If they reacted in a certain way, she was immediately causing that, or she was using that as a as a reference of some to say something about herself. And again, she said, I can be kind of a controlling person. So she was a little unsure about her own stance. And so she thought, you know, if they didn't receive it well, am I a bad mom? Am I saying too much? Am I not saying enough? You know, all those things. So this is where this is really important is to just examine what's going on. And again, that's getting clear about what you're thinking, what's happening in your mind. That's what the E is. Next, we're going to move to A, which is to align. And that's just bringing this back to the truth. And I like to say, you know, the capital T truth. That's when we take a look at our thoughts and we examine how those align with truth. One of the things we talked about when she was looking at some of these things, and we got very clear about what was true. What were the what was true for her and what was true for this situation? Kind of cleared all the clutter. And for her, we came up with it's not unkind to have expectations in your own home. Yes, these are your children, and yes, they're always welcome back. But the truth is, is they have their own home now, right? They're adults, they're living there in their own home. You are always inviting, we're always inviting our children back home, and that's great, but it is still your home, and it's okay to have those expectations. It's no longer their home. They have their own lives now. Another truth that we came up with is that it is not controlling to communicate what helps your home feel peaceful and what helps you maintain peace and to have a sense of order. Now, for her to want to have the dishes done and things like that, that wasn't that's not wrong in her home. If she were to say, well, I don't care, and and to allow them to disrupt her home and to make a mess out of it, would have just caused a lot of a lot of resentment for her. That's not what she wanted. And that's kind of what happened to her the previous time. So we walked through that a little bit. And the fact of that she's not wrong for wanting that, that's not a bad thing. But she had some judgments about that. And so that's what happens for a lot of us as moms. It happens to a lot of you. I see that is you start to judge yourself then for wanting these things. And that's when we got really clear about that, and she saw that there was nothing wrong with that, she felt better about it. But one of the things that happens and happened what was happening for her, and happened previously, was that when she wasn't clear with her kids, we decided this, I should say. She didn't say this before, but when she when you were not clear with our children, when we were not clear with others, what that does is it often creates more tension, not less. And we we talked this through and we talked about the fact of maybe her her daughter-in-law did not understand what she was expecting. Maybe her son didn't understand. Maybe her son sort of did and was hoping that she would set some clear expectations because he was feeling torn between his wife and her, and he didn't really know how to address that. We went, we walked through all these different scenarios, but because she didn't get clear about what she was hoping to have happen in the home, it just made it very unclear for everybody, everybody involved. And then then there was tension because she didn't speak up. So then she couldn't even it this falls in lines with with boundaries. We're all very familiar with boundaries. That's a very overused term right now. But the reality is, is if we don't state clearly what we're expecting and what we're expecting of others, we can't hold them to that then. So that's that was one of the things we had talked about. And again, I I've brought this up in other episodes because I've also seen boundaries used against people that we love. It's been used as a kind of a weapon to like push people away and to do things, which is that is not what I'm talking about here. But in this situation, this mother was really trying to, you know, she was excited to see her grandkids and she was excited for all of this, and yet feeling like she had no ability to speak up because of how she'd be perceived. And that is a very appropriate time to be clear about expectations and to set those boundaries. Now she didn't need to go into so much, when I'm saying boundaries, she wasn't necessarily going to say these are the consequences if you don't. We hadn't gotten to that point because I think she knew as well that if she could just at least speak into this a little bit, that's at least where where it all begins. And then she could take that further. If it didn't, if it didn't land well, then she could take that up with her son in the future. And we'll get into more of that as we move on into other episodes. But that's where it begins is just sharing the truth. And that was what she was deciding to do. Is that what she had desired and what she was hoping for that visit, it was okay. And then she released that judgment for herself, and it actually brought a lot of clarity about how she wanted to handle it moving forward. And so that is one thing that I want to just be very clear about is that speaking truth and being charitable are not in opposition. So many times I see people avoiding speaking truth in kindness and in love because of fearing tension or feeling fearing discomfort. So that was something that we worked on a little bit as well, is just her being able to do that from a place of peace. Now the next one is C.

Scripts For Clear Kind Expectations

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So we're again working through the framework of peace, P-E-A. Now we're on to C, which is choose. That was the next step. She needed to choose how she wanted to show up. This is very simple, but it's very powerful when you understand this in a very deep way. When you realize that you have a choice, it makes all the difference. It can release so much pressure. And for this woman, she was really feeling like she was stuck. She was feeling like she was either, as I said earlier, don't say anything and then probably be frustrated and resentful, or say something and have them risk the relationship of there being tension. She she didn't see a better option. And yet when we talked through it and she could see the truth of the matter is that she can actually speak this in love, that she could decide that it just was very freeing, that that was a choice for her. Or she didn't need to choose that. She also had the choice to say, I'm not gonna say anything this time. But then she needed to realize that the the consequences of what might play out there were hers to own. She wasn't the victim. She made a choice, and the consequences were gonna be something that she needed to live with. One of the things we talked about is that when we had talked about the options that she had, you know, I put this back on her. I said, what do you think some some options are? Because that's not for me to decide. You as the mom, you as the parent, you have the answers within you. And when you're given the space to clear out all the mental clutter and to actually look at things clearly and to align it with truth, that's when everything just it becomes it becomes so clear. That's that's the beauty of that's the beauty of coaching. That's why I love when when you see, when I'm working with someone and you can see them when the light bulb goes on and they actually come up with these ideas. Anyway, in this particular situation, she had some options. And what she had come up with is something like this is that her and her husband, we're really looking forward to having you here. And one of the things that really helps me is just keeping that the shared spaces picked up. It makes it makes the week feel so much more peaceful for everyone. And so, you know, if we could, if we could just pick days, you know what? And she was she was talking about the fact of how she could pick days. Now, she was discussing the fact that she was probably gonna have this conversation, to be fair, with her son, not her daughter-in-law, because she thought he would receive it a little better. And that's fine. That's for her to decide. At least that was an option for her. It always needs to be something that feels natural to you. Now, speaking that, the way she came up with that, I'm not sure that would feel natural to me, but that's because I'm a different person, I have different personality. That may not feel natural to you. But however that works within the context of your relationships, you're gonna find something that does feel natural and does work for you. If they're staying with you, it could be even if you want them to share the grocery bill, depends upon how long they're staying with you. If it's just for a week, and you're probably not gonna want them to share groceries. I would hope not. But if it's for an extended period of time, we all know that, right? We have when our kids, if they're selling a house or they're moving across country, there's times when our kids will be moving back home with us. That's become a very real and natural thing in our day and age. So these are things that we need to be very, very clear about and think about this before this happens. So there's things like helping with the dishes, it could be maintaining clean space within your home. Those are all things that you might be dealing with. Now, in this situation, this woman she decided not to address anything with the food. She just felt like there was more underlying with the daughter in law, and she was just going to let that alone for now and see how it played out. But she did. decide that after the stay, if she still saw some things, she was probably going to address it with her son. But at least she had a clear plan and she felt better about addressing it if it did come up. And she was just going to kind of observe and see how that all played out. Anyway, and just to add to this, to be fair, I'm speaking here to moms, but it's also super important that if you're inviting your children back into your home, it's obviously, it's just to ask them as well if they have any expectations or what they would like, because that might give you a better understanding of where they're coming from as well. We have our ideas of how things should work, but you know, as parents, asking them what they would like, it also helps them to feel like they're seen and heard as well. Because if they come into your home and you start setting these expectations, they can sort of start to feel like you're taking on, you know, the overbearing mom role, no matter how kind you come at it. So it's okay to ask them, what can I, what can I do for you? Is there anything that you'd like, any favorite meals that you'd like to have? Is there anything that we can make sure we have ready for you? And you can decide if you're going to honor it or not. But at least asking them will help them to feel seen and heard and appreciated as well. So but anyway, once she got to that point, back to the story, once she got to that point and she was going to address it, she felt so much better. I said that's it. You just explain you explain what your what your expectations are and what you want and you just don't over explain it. You don't need to apologize. You don't need to tiptoe around it and say I'm really sorry. This would really help me out. We don't need to come at it from that energy and we don't need to come at it from like hey just so you know this is what I expect. Those are two very opposites and I think you can tell how both of those land. Neither one lands very well. So just express it as if you would, you know, and I think part of it is we have a hard time I'm going to say as women but I maybe people in general but women especially we have a hard time expressing our needs. So of course this can be challenging but it is so it's such an important thing to be able to learn how to do is to express what you need whether that's from your spouse or your children or whoever it may be. And when you can learn to do that and to share that from a place of love, it's going to help you in your relationship so much. We can be very clear, very calm, very grounded. That's the whole part of this that's why we pause. That's why we take a look at our thoughts to make sure that we're not just emotionally reacting and we're not in a triggered response. That's why we can do some nervous system regulation. Coming at it from the right head space makes all the difference. And so once you've done that once you've paused once you've examined your thoughts your emotional state once you've aligned it with the truth and how objective truth yes but also what's true for you in this situation. It doesn't always have to be some big overarching theme. She could see the truth and where she was believing some things that had no truth to them. And then the fact that she could choose after that we move to the last one which is the final E in piece which is entrust.

Entrust The Outcome And Let Go

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And this is the part that so many people struggle with is to entrust the rest of it. You entrust the rest of it. And what do I mean by that? It means understanding that you are not responsible for number one how they receive it. That's a big one. You're not responsible for how your child receives what you share. Again, that's why we do the work beforehand to make sure we're coming at this that we're not emotionally reacting we're not frustrated we're not triggered that we have gotten rid of our own mental junk and we're coming at this from a place of peace and that we're approaching it with an open heart and from a place of charity. We're also not responsible for whether they agree with us. Did you know that they might not agree with us in this situation when when this one was talking about cleaning up and things like that her son and his wife and I did not follow up with her after this to see how it went but her son and his wife when I talked about this might not agree with the fact that they should do their own dishes and put it in the sink or put it in the dishwasher. They might not agree with that. But you know what? That's okay. That's okay right not everybody has to agree with us. That's another thing that we need to entrust to God. That we have to let that go. Now the other thing that we're not responsible responsible for is whether we handle this perfectly and this is what I really want to hit on. I do a lot of talking about helping moms in the relationships with their adult children in all of our relationships I'm and I what I offer here is things that I've learned along the way tools and tips and techniques but I just want to say this from the rooftops, you guys, it does not need to be done perfectly you're not going to do it perfectly you're going to mess up. You're going to react you're going to say things you shouldn't say you're human. We all are but when we can learn these things and we can make progress that's what matters. So if you don't handle it perfectly that's okay. We don't want to go back and overanalyze and rethink everything and judge ourselves it's entrusting it to God. That's why it's it's titled peace. That's why we use the peace framework because we need to let that go. We need to release it. That's what it looks like to entrust it is to just you show up you did the best you could you try to show up in truth and in love. That's all you can hold yourself responsible for the rest belongs to God. That's when we turn it over to God we put it in his hands and we let it go. I just want to say that peace in your home does not come from avoiding expectations we think that if we stay silent and don't say anything that we're actually helping to maintain peace. But if you have expectations holding back and not expressing them that's not helpful. What is helpful is expressing them with clarity from a place of peace and calm from a place of love and then letting go of the outcome. Now the key here I talked about this specific scenario but you can use this in in any of your situations. You get to choose you get to choose what you want to think feel and act but it's going to require you to pause to do that. And once you've done that once you've paused you've examined your thoughts you've aligned it with truth the truth got rid of all the stuff that you were believing that wasn't truth when you decide you chose then you entrust. And I like I said that can be the most challenging thing is just letting it go and then just understand that you've handed it over you've

Practice This Week And Closing

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done the best you can. With that I really want to encourage you to practice this in your own life this week. Go ahead and practice it with your spouse or partner. Practice it with your if you have younger kids you can practice it with them. Practice it with your friends or coworkers. We all have situations in our lives we have relationships where there's times we feel like we should speak up and yet we hesitate or resist because we're fearing others' reactions. We're fearing the the outcome when you follow this when you pause and you go through this framework it honestly it does allow you to it allows you to live and to act and to move from a place of peace. Because learning to choose with intention how you want to show up and aligning it with truth and then entrusting the results or the reactions or the outcomes to God that is the making of peace in our lives. That's it right there. So if this feels hard for you if you tend to overthink what you say or avoid saying anything until you're already too frustrated and you're emotionally reactive this is exactly the work that I do inside my coaching. Learning how to respond from clarity and calm instead of emotion how to hold both truth and peace at the same time that's what changes everything not just in your home but in every one of your relationships. And if this episode has resonated with you I want you to pay attention this week. Where are you holding back clarity in your life? Where are you holding back speaking truth just to avoid discomfort? That's your place to begin. And as always onwards and upwards my friends to the heights thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life you can find me at SharonKcoaching.com. That's Sharon the LetterK Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform and feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard