When Your Adult Child Is Struggling (and You Can’t Make It Better)

When your adult child is struggling, everything in you wants to fix it. 

You want to step in.
 Make a call.
 Say the right thing.
 Take the pain away. 

But what happens when you can’t? 

In this episode, we’re talking about one of the hardest and most overlooked parts of parenting adult children— watching them go through something difficult… and having no way to make it better. 

Whether it’s a situation that feels unfair, a relationship that’s falling apart, or a season of anxiety, uncertainty, or emotional pain… this episode will meet you right where you are. 

You’ll learn: 

•  Why the urge to fix feels so strong (and what’s actually driving it) 
•  The difference between supporting your adult child and trying to rescue them 
•  How to manage your own emotions when you feel helpless, anxious, or overwhelmed 
•  What it looks like to stay present and connected without taking over 

This episode is part 3 of a 3-part series on parenting adult children:
 

1.  When they come to you with a problem 
2.  When they make decisions you don’t agree with 
3.  When they’re struggling and you can’t fix it 

If you’ve ever thought:
 “I just want to make this better for them…”
 “I hate watching them go through this…”
 “I don’t know what to do…”
 
You are not alone.
 
This episode will help you learn how to support your child in a way that actually strengthens your relationship—without over-functioning, over-controlling, or losing yourself in the process.
 
 
If you’d like help applying this to your real-life situation, I offer free consultation calls. You can connect with me on socials, my website, or via email.

 

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend!

And if you loved this episode, please rate the show and leave a review so others can find it, too.  

You can also follow me on my socials:

Instagram: @loribuckcoaching

Facebook: Lori Buck Coaching

Website: www.loribuckcoaching.com 

Email: lori@loribuckcoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, friend, and welcome back to Loving That Midlife. I'm Lori Buck, Master Certified Christian Life Coach, and I'm so glad you're here. Today is the third episode of a little mini-series I've been doing on parenting adult children. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about what it looks like when your adult child comes to you with a problem, and how our immediate instinct is to jump in and fix it, and what we should do instead. Last week, we talked about what happens when your adult child makes a decision you don't agree with, or they're just living their lives in a way that goes against your beliefs, and how you can stay connected to them even in the midst of that. And this week, we're talking about something that honestly might be the hardest of all. What do you do when your adult child is struggling and you can't fix it? But before we dive in, I want to say something really quickly. Sometimes listening to a podcast is enough. You hear something, it clicks, your body relaxes a little, and that's the relief you were looking for. I know this is true because several of you have reached out and told me that. And for that I am so grateful. But other times you realize you could use a little more help and guidance, and that's where coaching comes in. It's a safe place where you can get help with your specific situation. There's no pressure here. I just want you to know that that option exists if and when you need it. So, okay, let's dive into our topic for today. What do you do when your adult child is struggling? Today, I want to walk you through this in a really concrete way. And those who have listened for a while or know me in real life know that I love a good story illustration. Because this isn't just a concept. This is something we actually live through as moms and dads more than we care to admit. So let me take you into a season I walk through with my oldest child. It happened during his first year away at school. And if you've listened to past episodes, you know that first semester was a real struggle for me. And in the middle of that first semester, he called me one day completely distraught. He had just gotten a failing grade, an F, his first ever, on a paper, and it was in his honors class. The one that was required for his scholarship and was part of his 15-member cohort honors program. And it really shook him up. Because this is a kid who is very academic and school always came pretty easy to him. And I remember him saying, Mom, you're going to have to help me get through this class. And the truth is, at that moment, I felt completely helpless. And if I'm being honest, a bit panicked because I knew I was not the person to fix this. Remember, I was a homeschool mom. I was the one who taught him how to write. And I thought he wrote pretty well. I was a journalism major and took English classes for fun in college. So I knew how he wrote. And it became clear pretty quickly that whatever his professor wanted, it wasn't something I could help him with from the outside. So in that moment, the only thing I could really offer was this advice. Son, you are gonna have to go talk to her and figure out what she wants. You're gonna have to go to office hours every week if you have to and find out what kind of writing she wants because I have no idea what that is. And he listened to me. Not only did he show up once, he kept showing up. He met with her every week. Honestly, she was probably sick of him by the time the semester was over. But his writing got better, a lot better. And that sounds like a good ending, right? Well, wrong. What made that semester even more hard was that it didn't seem to matter how much he improved. Week after week, the expectations kept changing. The workload kept increasing. It felt like every time he and his cohort got close, the goalpost moved. The professor not only had them writing papers, she had them rewriting everything they'd already written over and over again. And she just wouldn't give them a grade. So now they're writing and rewriting, and she's even adding assignments to the syllabus. At one point, a new paper was assigned on a Friday that was due Monday, and it was the Monday right after Parents Weekend, when the honors department itself had events for parents and students. And I remember thinking, this isn't just a hard class. This feels impossible. I felt like my son was Sisyphus, having to push that stupid boulder up the hill over and over again every single morning. No matter how hard they worked, they couldn't actually succeed. From the outside looking in, it appeared to be designed that way. I mean, the class was called power, and the professor was showing them exactly how power worked. And it wasn't just my son, which honestly made me, the homeschool mom, feel better. It was most of the class. And I know this because I had met a few of the other moms of the kids in that cohort. And all of our students were struggling, and none of us knew how to help them. Watching my son go through that, knowing he was doing everything he could, and it still wasn't getting better, was one of the hardest things I have experienced as a mom of a college kid, because there was literally nothing I could do. I couldn't step into that situation. I couldn't change what was happening. I couldn't make it fair. I couldn't make it better. All I could do was sit on the sidelines, watch him walk through something really hard, and encourage him. And honestly, just pray that somehow it would get better. And what I noticed in myself during that season was this constant low-level anxiety. Like my brain was always trying to solve a problem in the background. It was running scenarios, thinking of what he could say, wondering if there was something I was missing. And underneath all of that was this feeling of this shouldn't be happening. This isn't how this is supposed to go. This isn't fair. And I didn't know what to do with that because there really was no action to take. There was nothing I could fix. And sometimes it's not even a situation that has a solution. Sometimes it's just watching your child hurt. There was a season with my oldest daughter that we now kind of laughingly refer to as Sad Girl Summer. And I may have mentioned it on the podcast before. But honestly, that name tells you everything you need to know. She was going through a really hard breakup and just navigating all the emotions that come with that. And I remember watching her and thinking, I wish with all my heart I could take this pain away from her. And this is what's so hard. There's nothing to solve in that sort of situation. There is nothing to figure out. There is just feeling. And me sitting there watching someone I love hurt and not being able to make it better. I spent half of that summer on the back deck with her, holding her in my arms and patting her hair and telling her how much I loved her because there really was nothing else to do. And this is where I started seeing something in myself. At this point, I was already a coach, but during Sad Girl Summer, I realized the urge to fix wasn't just about helping her. It was about relieving my own discomfort. Because watching someone you love struggle and not being able to change it brings up a lot. Helplessness, sadness, fear, sometimes even a little panic. And our brain wants out of that feeling. Nobody wants to feel those feelings, right? So it looks for something to do, something to fix, something to control, something to change. But sometimes there is nothing to do. And that is actually the work. Learning how to stay, how to be present, how to be with your child in that season, that is emotional adulthood. Allowing someone you love to have their own experience, to feel their own feelings, to walk through something hard without trying to take it over. And also allowing yourself to feel what comes up for you without trying to escape it by fixing their life. And for me, this is also where my faith comes in. Because I remember having the thought with my son's situation, I don't even see how God can make this better. Just practically speaking, I could not see a path forward. All I could see was four more years of this, because this professor was going to be with him and his cohort for those next four years. And that's where I had to start releasing something, not just control, but the need to understand how it would all work out and learning to put that into God's hands. I had to let go of needing to see the outcome and trust that my role wasn't to orchestrate it. If it was going to be fixed, God had to do it. And like I said, I didn't even see how he could fix it. So I had to get clear about my role, which was to love my son, to support him, and to stay present, even when I couldn't see a way forward. And I would tell you, eventually, that situation with my son, it did work out. When he went back for the second semester, things changed dramatically in that first week of school. Someone spoke up about what was happening, and the administration got involved. And there was a resolution. And honestly, at the time, it felt like a miracle. Like God heard our cries and answered our prayer. Of course he did. Of course he knew how to fix it. Of course that problem wasn't too big for him. But here is what I want you to hear. While I was in it, I didn't know that resolution was coming. There was no guarantee it was going to turn out okay. And that's the part that's so hard. It's not just that you can't fix it, it's that you're sitting in the middle of it with no idea how it's going to end. You know ultimately, if you are a believer, God will work all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. But that doesn't mean it's always going to work out the way we want it to. And if you're in a season like this with your child, whether it's a situation that feels completely unfair or something emotional that just needs to be felt, I want you to hear this. I see you. I know how hard this is because it goes against every instinct we have as moms. Everything in you wants to step in to make it better, to take some of it off their plate. And when you can't, it can feel really heavy. So I want to give you a couple of things you can hold on to when you are in a season like this. The first one is this: it's tool number one. Name what you're feeling. Get really honest about what's coming up for you. Because a lot of times we go straight into action when what we actually need is awareness. So ask yourself what you're feeling. Are you feeling helpless, scared, anxious, frustrated? And listen, sometimes we don't even know what we're feeling. And in that case, it's really good to use an emotion wheel or a feelings wheel. You can find one online. I have one in my planner, and I use it often when I'm trying to sort out complicated feelings. So let me assure you, just naming your feeling, saying something like, okay, I'm feeling anxious about this, or I'm feeling helpless just watching this. That alone can take the edge off. Because when you don't name it, your brain stays in this heightened emotional state where you're much more likely to just jump in and try to fix their life to avoid feeling your own feelings. It might seem counterintuitive, but naming the emotion lessens its power. Tool number two, separate what's yours and what's theirs. The second thing is this. Gently remind yourself that this is theirs to walk through. This is mine to feel. Their situation, their choices, their experience, that is all theirs to carry. It is not your job to carry it. But it can be your job to support them while they carry it. And sometimes just that simple distinction can help you loosen your grip a little bit. Tool number three, give them steady, simple support. Finally, when you're not sure what to do, come back to something really simple. Your presence. Instead of trying to find the perfect words or the perfect solution, you can say things like, I'm here. I know this is hard. I love you. I believe in you. Or you can do what I did. Sit on the back deck and just pat their hair and tell them you love them and not say much of anything else. Because that steady, grounded presence goes a lot further than we think. And if you want something you can offer them that's actually helpful, you can also ask, do you want me to just listen? Or do you want help thinking through the situation and then follow their lead? Because at the end of the day, this work isn't about doing it perfectly. It's about learning how to stay present, even when everything in you wants to fix it or solve it or escape it. And that's not easy. In fact, it shows up in more areas of our life than just parenting. And we're gonna talk about that in the next few weeks. So, what's mid-about the midlife this week? Well, how about going on a relaxing getaway and realizing maybe you didn't relax quite as much as you should have? Last weekend my husband and I went out of town for a little trip, and the place we stayed had this beautiful waterfall on the property. Now, in order to get to said waterfall, you have to hike down a trail. And when I say trail, I mean there are parts of this trail where the only thing between you and a ravine is a rope that kind of serves as a fence. Like not a sturdy fence, but a rope fence. And honestly, I told Jeff it felt a bit like something Peter Pan and the Lost Boys would have strung up in Never Never Land. There were no codes involved in the building of this rope fence. Just good luck to you getting down there and go with God. And keep in mind, I had just gotten out of a boot that I had been wearing for four weeks for that arthritic toe I've mentioned before. So naturally, I thought, you know what sounds like a great idea two days later? A moderately difficult hike, which I'm actually not sure which hurt worse in the end, my toe or my hip flexors, which basically had not been stretched or challenged in four weeks. Also, I'm five foot one, and some of those steps were really aggressive. Like I needed Jeff to either push me up from the back or turn around and pull me up on the step, or I also was grabbing onto that rope and hauling myself up those stairs. But we were doing it. We were committed. We were hiking down, holding onto the rope, trying not to fall into the ravine all for this waterfall. And here's what struck me while we were going down and going back up, there was no way to make it easier. There was no shortcut, no alternate path. Although I was looking around, trying to decide if a helicopter could medevac me out of there if I had a serious medical emergency. But nope, you just had to stay on the trail. Step by step, a little uncomfortable, a little unsure, hoping your footing holds, hoping the rope fence holds you if you start to fall. And honestly, this feels a lot like this season of parenting. Because when your adult child is struggling or making decisions you don't agree with, or just doing things differently than you would choose, there is no shortcut for you as a parent. There's no way around it. There's usually no way to fix it for them. You can't carry them down the trail or back up the path. You can't reroute it and go around. All you can do is Stay. Stay present. Stay connected. Stay steady. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it feels scary. Even when you really wish there was a better way. And maybe that's what's so mid about the midlife. You start to realize some things that you just have to walk through step by step, trusting you'll get to the other side, because the only way out is through. Well, friends, that's all I've got for you this week. If today's episode spoke to you, I want you to remember this. You don't have to take away their struggle to be a steady, loving presence in their life. And you don't have to do this perfectly. This is something you are growing into one moment at a time. And if you're listening and thinking, I don't just want to hear this, I need help applying this to my actual life. That's exactly what coaching is for. I offer free consultation calls where we can talk through what's going on for you and see if coaching would be a good fit. You can find me at Lauriebuckcoaching.com or on socials at Laurie Buckcoaching or email me at Lori at Lauriebuckcoaching.com. That's L O R I B U C Coaching dot com. I'll see you next week.