Learning how to manipulate parents, and doing whatever is deemed necessary to get parents to do what kids, teens and adult children want, sometimes turns into a virtual war between kids and parents. Manipulating parents, often referred to as emotional extortion, means that there are kids of all ages who will do just about anything to get parents to say yes to something, even when saying yes puts parents in a precarious position.

Do children manipulate parents? Oh yes they do, and adult children are just as good at stooping to whatever level they see fit to get their parents to do what the kid wants, and it doesn’t matter what it is children are trying to convince parents to do. The reality of how parents are sometimes manipulated when planning a wedding became a shocking and disturbing reality for a mom I’ve heard from before, based on the email I received this morning.

Regular readers are likely familiar with the article I wrote about who pays for what when it comes time to determine how a wedding budget will be decided and how the wedding, reception and honeymoon will be paid for and by whom. Late last year, shortly before Christmas of 2008, I exchanged a few emails with a mom who was struggling with the decision of who would pay for her daughter’s wedding.

This poor mom, who is disabled and barely able to get by on her meager income, was dealing with her own Bridezilla. Her daughter, who I referred to in the “who pays for what” article as “darling daughter”, has champagne taste on a beer budget. This young, 20-year-old girl pulled every manipulative tactic on her mom and dad that she could muster, in order to have the wedding of her dreams.

Bridezilla wanted what she wanted and she was determined she would get her Cinderella dream wedding, regardless of what the total cost of her wedding finally came to, and who would end up paying for it. Her want list for her wedding was extravagant to say the least, especially when it was to be paid for by parents who don’t have the means to pay for such an expensive wedding. She wanted it all – everything you can imagine that would go into having an expensive wedding, fit for someone on a champagne budget.

She wanted a horse-drawn carriage ride to the wedding venue and limo services to the reception for all eight of her attendants, plus the matching number of groomsmen, flower girl and ring bearer. Add to that the designer wedding gown she “had” to have, an expensive wedding cake and grooms cake, all the fancy wedding decorations and everything else this young lady believed she needed to fulfill her dream wedding.

Throughout our email exchanges, I provided this mom with numerous links to informative articles on ways to reduce the cost of a wedding to an amount that was manageable for her, her ex-husband and the groom’s family. Bridezilla cried, begged, pleaded, stomped her feet, called her mom mean and hateful names, told her mom and dad they owed her the wedding she had dreamed of all her life with one guilt trip after another, and threw a major hissy-fit every time something wasn’t going her way. Wow.

Once our email discussions were over, I wrote the “who pays for what” article and set it up to go live in March of this year, which is right about the time of year when “wedding season” starts kicking in and brides with their moms start working on wedding plans and searching for information online. Did Bridezilla get her dream wedding? Oh yes she did, and how.

“Mom” racked up a killer credit card bill for her daughter’s wedding, and the cost of the wedding that now sits on her credit cards totaled close to $10,000. That’s just the disabled mom’s bill, and when you add another $20,000 or so that was split between Bridezilla’s dad and the groom’s parents, I’d say she got her dream wedding alright.

Her wedding was held during one of the most popular and most expensive months to get married, Saturday, June 6th. The mom put her share of the wedding costs on credit cards, high-interest credit cards to be exact, which was the only way she could help pay for her daughter’s wedding. Guess what has happened?

After getting married just a few months ago, dear “darling daughter” wants a divorce, and she actually expects her mom and dad to “help” pay for her divorce lawyer! There are no real “grounds for divorce” to speak of, no accusations of abuse of any kind, she just “changed her mind” and decided she doesn’t want to be married after all.

Considering the sensitive nature of some of the topics I discuss on Telling It Like It Is, not much surprises or shocks me anymore, but THIS shocked me. Not only was this young lady way too young to get married in the first place, but she’s also one of the most selfish, ungrateful, immature, unappreciative, entitled, manipulative, spoiled brats I’ve ever heard of in all my life.

Who pays for the divorce? Only time will tell, but if past experience is a sign of what is likely to occur in the near future, it’s not looking good for this mom, and probably even the dad. What do you think? Do you think this mom and/or dad should pay for this girl’s divorce after getting married about 5 months ago? By the way, this mom had no problems with me writing about her situation as long as I didn’t use her real name, which I wouldn’t do anyway. Is this situation crazy or what?

Similar Posts:

• Who Pays for What? Who Pays When Planning a Wedding on a Budget
• How to Tell Your Parents You Are Getting Married
• Do Men Want To Get Married? Top Ten Reasons Why Men Don’t Want To Get Married
• A Marriage Without Regrets – Do You Regret Getting Married?
• Free Printable Valentine Cards – Valentine’s Day Cards

Numerous emails from parents needing help in finding support groups for parents with grown, adult children living at home have arrived in my inbox, especially after reading How to Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us and the “Helping vs. Enabling” articles listed there that deal with the difference between helping and enabling and parenting adult children.

Having grown, adult children at home with the parents, after adult children leave home to attend college, get married and start having families of their own, creates enormous problems and conflicts for many families.

Frustrated parents begin searching for a “child parent contract” with a list of “adult children rules” for grown children and parents to agree on and sign, only to discover the hard way that rules for adult children, parent child contracts and adult children moving back home rarely (if ever) works for either the parent or the adult children.

Having adult children living at home may temporarily ease some of the empty nest feelings and emotions for parents, but thinking that you are truly helping your child by allowing your grown children to move back home, especially lazy adult children who refuse to work, don’t budget or live within their means etc will not cure empty nest syndrome, but your enabling behavior will cripple your adult children.

It’s time to stop enabling, and there are online support groups, forums and/or message boards to help you stop enabling people that can, should and need to be doing things for themselves.

CafeMom is the largest support group/social networking site for moms and moms-to-be. Included amongst the various support groups found at CafeMom are groups for parents with adult children at home (commonly referred to as Boomerang Kids).

There you will experience emotional help and support in setting boundaries between parents and adult children, and groups of women/parents sharing personal stories of their adult children living at home and discussing ideas of getting these kids out of the parent’s house once and for all.

Similar Posts:

• Empty Nest Syndrome-Children Leaving Home, What Do I Do Now?
• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• ~Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers~
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• Meet Other Moms Just Like You At CafeMom

Being a responsible parent is never an easy task, from the time our children first enter the world and well into adulthood, our job as parents to teach and train our children in all areas of life is often fraught with one obstacle after another, and parents need to know how to deal with the problems as they occur as well as prevent as many problems as possible.

Regular readers of Telling It Like It Is are likely familiar with previous articles where I have discussed the mounting entitlement issues so prevalent in society today, with adult children still living at home with mom and dad, and the struggles parents have in getting their adult children to be responsible financially, mentally and emotionally. For new subscribers and visitors, here are a list of the articles I’ve written that deal with money management, helping and enabling adult children, teenagers and yes, even very young children:

• Are Parents Helping or Enabling Their Adult Children?

• Helping and Enabling: Is There a Difference?

• Are You an Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors

• Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents

• How to Teach Your Children About Money and Money Management

• Raising Children With Tough Love-Parenting Tips

• Closing the Bank of Mom and Dad

• Raising Independent Children – Not Moochers

• Children Who Refuse to Grow Up

• A Sense of Entitlement

Getting adult children to be responsible for themselves in all areas of life is often hindered by well-meaning parents who want to “help” their children become independent or, “get back on their feet”, but instead come to realize later on that the help provided never seems to end.

Adult children continue to make poor choices and bad decisions regarding how they spend their money, then expect mom and dad to pick up the tab and continuously rescue them from experiencing the consequences of their choices and behaviors, wrongly thinking their parents are a 24-hour bank or ATM machine.

Enabling Adult Children

Adult children, some married with children of their own, are moving back home with their parents at an alarming rate, and shortly thereafter parents become frustrated when boundaries and rules are repeatedly broken, and requests for more money requires parents to dig deep into their life savings and retirement plans to the point where parents have gone broke helping their children.

Enabling occurs even when children are not living with the parents, with adult children and spouse working full-time jobs continuing to make regular phone calls to parents asking for money to pay utility bills because “It’s going to get shut off!”, or saying their “car is going to be repossessed” or the old standby, “We have no food in the house!”. My response would be, “I’m sorry to hear that but I can’t help you this time, and I have full trust and confidence that you will find a solution to the problem, and do what is necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again”. Real NEED creates REAL motivation for change.

Not being an enabler myself, my message to parents is, “Just say no! Don’t give them anymore money and by all means, Kick them out of the house and change the locks!” I’ve heard from many parents who tell me their adult children are constantly asking for money “to pay bills”, while these “adults” are spending their own money on manicures, pedicures, Botox treatments, new clothes, expensive cell phones, concerts and sporting events, electronic gadgets and other luxuries, all while “there is no food in the house”.

Learn How To Let Go Of The Control

Enablers have to learn how to “let go” of their adult children, let go of the control and Co-Dependent tendencies that run rampant amongst enabling parents and their children, allowing their adult children to experience the consequences that go with making choices on their own.

Continuously rescuing adult children, paying their bills, giving them money, allowing them to live at home with the parents, shielding them from the realities of how the real world works has created an Entitlement society. Today’s society of teenagers and adult children have come to believe their parents “owe” them whatever their hearts desire, and if parents don’t put a stop to it and close the bank of mom and dad, the problems of entitlement are only going to get worse.

When your adult children ask you for money tell them, “I’m sorry but I can’t help you this time”. The next time they ask, repeat the same sentence. Do not give your adult children any more money! Able-bodied children, working or not, can and need to learn how to manage their own lives, and that cannot be accomplished as long as children know that parents are their personal “back up plan”.

Why would your children make the grownup decision to get smart with their money, when they know they can spend their own money frivolously on their extensive “want” list, knowing you will give them a handout time after time? Stop it and stop it now, before you find yourselves penniless in your elderly years with no financial means to take care of yourself.

How To Stop Enabling Adult Children

Children know what buttons to push with parents, especially when there are grandchildren being used as an excuse to get money from parents and grandparents, making it vitally important to learn how to stop enabling irresponsible adult children.

If your children have jobs of their own, no one is going to starve to death, and while their electric might be turned off due to bad choices, allowing them to experience the consequences of their own decisions really is helping them more than you may realize.

Oftentimes people in society equate enabling with alcoholics or drug abuse, with many books being written on how parents and family members can help these children and adults conquer their problems, but the overall subject of helping vs. enabling covers a wide range of relationship dynamics between parents and children, but without an equal number of books and resources.

Stop Enabling Your Adult Children

When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us : Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives If you are a parent of adult children still living at home, or children continuously asking for money or help in some way, you must read this book. You don’t have to a Baby Boomer to appreciate the problem parents have in dealing with children moving back home with mom and dad, and taking advantage of the situation and their parents desire to help their kids get on their feet financially or otherwise. The writer, Jane Adams, reassures parents that they’ve done their jobs and that they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives picking up the pieces for their grown children, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to “fix” their adult children — Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own.

Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children As long as we continue to keep enabling our adult children, they will continue to deny they have any problems, since most of their problems are being “solved” by those around him. Only when our adult children are forced to face the consequences of their own actions—their own choices—will it finally begin to sink in how deep their patterns of dependence and avoidance have become. And only then will we as parents be able to take the next step to real healing, forever ending our enabling habits and behaviors.

The Enabler: When Helping Hurts the Ones You Love
Co-dependency of which enabling is a major element can and does exist in families where there is no chemical dependency. Angelyn Millers own experience is a dramatic example: neither she nor her husband drank, yet her family was floundering in that same dynamic. In spite of her best efforts to fix everything (and everyone), the turmoil continued until she discovered that helping wasn’t helping. Miller recounts how she learned to alter the way she responded to family crises and general neediness, forever breaking the cycle of co-dependency. Offering insights, practical techniques, and hope, she shows us how we can transform enabling relationships into healthy ones.

Toughlove
I’m a big believer in being a tough parent, setting guidelines and boundaries with children regardless of their age, and staying firm on what behaviors are or are not acceptable. Toughlove is not about being abusive towards our children, nor is it solely focused on children with drug or alcohol addictions, and I highly recommend this book for parents struggling with their children, teens and adult kids.

Are you an Enabler? Have you been struggling with the difficulties in trying to understand how to help your adult child but find yourself in the rather upsetting position of being an enabler? Do you understand that there is a difference between helping and enabling? What changes are you willing to make in letting go of the control over your children’s lives, so they can be independent and responsible financially, mentally and emotionally?

Further Reading:

Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children
Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents



Similar Posts:

• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• Helping and Enabling – Is There A Difference?
• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• ~Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers~
• Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors

I’ve gotten pretty far behind in responding to various meme’s that I’ve been tagged with, so I wanted to be sure to get busy with this Archive Posts Meme that Hungry Mother tagged me and others with recently.

Archive Meme Instructions: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written. … but there is a catch:

• Link 1 must be about family.

• Link 2 must be about friends.

• Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are… what you’re all about.

• Link 4 must be about something you love.

• Link 5 can be anything you choose.

I think this is a great way to circulate some of the great older posts everyone had written, return to a few great places in our memories and also learn a little something about ourselves and each other that we may not know. Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better….and don’t forget to read the archive posts and leave comments!

My Favorite Family Post- “Taking A Bite Out Of The Sandwich Generation“, where I discuss the trials and tribulations of having had my elderly father in-law living with us.

My Favorite Friends Post- “Don’t Be That Girl” where I mention a friend of mine who has evolved over time into a that girl.

My Favorite About Me Post- “Sometimes Kids Can Drive Parents Nuts” not only shows that I practice what I preach on my blog, but I’m also a Tough Love advocate. Oh heck, I can’t leave out my “Too Young To Be This D*** Old” post, it was just too fun to do.

Favorite Something I Love Post- “Social Networking For You Whiners” because I love giving helpful tips about things I’ve learned along the way.

Lastly, Favorite My Choice Post- “Are Parents Helping or Enabling Their Adult Children?” because far too many people in society don’t understand that there is a difference between helping vs. enabling our children. I get a lot of search engine traffic to this post as well as continued questions and comments from parents struggling with their personal situations at home.

Now, who to tag for this one? Hmm…

• Meg at Dipping Into The Blogpond

• Kevin at Change Your Tree

• John at John Is Fit

• Linda at Exceptional Dental Practice Management

• Sephy at Sephyroth

• Snos at Snoskred-Life In The Country

• Daisy the Curly Cat

• Kacie at Cents To Save

• Mandy at Texas Medical Freak

• Ben at The Ben Spark

What?! Something wrong? Oh, you’re noticing that I linked to 10 blogs instead of just the five indicated in the meme rules, eh? Well…not to worry. Sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

Similar Posts:

• Entrecard Above The Fold and Best Value By Widget Meme
• Social Networking Tips for All You Whiners
• Telling It Like It Is Comment Policy
• I’ve Come To Realize That…MySpace Survey Meme
• When You Comment I Reply – Join The Movement

Is there really a difference between helping and enabling? What is enabling? What are the causes and effects of this behavior on both the “enabler” and the person being “helped”? Helping is doing something for someone else that they are unable to do for themselves. Enabling is doing things for someone else that they can and should be doing for themselves. So, why is there so much confusion between the two?

We have many opportunities in our lives to help someone else, whether it be amongst those of our own families, close friends or complete strangers. Perhaps someone you know has become ill, and you help them by arranging and bringing meals to them until they are well enough to do it for themselves again. A friend’s car may be in the shop getting fixed and you help them by driving them to and from work until their car is in good running order again.

Maybe someone you know has run into a bit of bad luck and is in need of temporary financial help to tide them over for awhile until their situation improves. Did you notice the optimal word, “until”? Providing temporary help to someone in need exemplifies kindness and consideration towards the receiver of help, but it also makes us feel wonderful inside when we are able to do so. But it is still temporary.

What then is enabling?

Enabling is entirely a different matter, but oftentimes gets confused as “help” by well-intentioned family members, friends and even neighbors. Remember, enabling is doing things for someone else that they CAN and SHOULD be doing for themselves. Many people think of enabling strictly in regards to alcoholics or drug addicts, whose family and friends make excuses for unacceptable behaviors, thus creating an atmosphere of comfort and ease for the situation to continue long-term.

Enabling vs. helping has a much broader meaning, encompassing many areas of life, including raising children to become independent adults rather than contributing to the increasing phenomenon of grown children returning home to live with their parents. When we enable addicts, children, friends or family, we are preventing them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions. We are not only preventing them from realizing they have a problem, but we are also depriving them of fully reaching their own potential.

Examples of enabling behaviors-

Sharon is an 36 year-old woman who can and should be working to care for her two small children, but she’s not. She has her own apartment that she shares with her children, and her own car. Sharon hasn’t worked a day in the last six years, since giving birth to her second child. Why? Because her mother and two sisters are paying all of Sharon’s bills, covering bounced checks and bank fees, buying all her groceries, paying her car payment each month, and even gives Sharon spending money. Sharon is not sick, she is not mentally or physically disabled in any way, but she has found a way of avoiding the responsibilities that go with being an adult with the “help” of her family.

Paul is a 28 year-old man who, although working full-time in the construction industry and making a very good income, is still living at home with his parents. All of his free time is spent watching television or playing video games, while others in the household carry full responsibility for paying the mortgage, utilities, household chores etc., while Paul remains stationery on the couch or in his bedroom. Paul is in good health, fully capable of providing for himself, but can’t think of a valid reason why he should be living on his own. His money is spent on month-long trips out of the country, purchasing movies and video games to add to his collection, and buying new clothes. Why? Because the parents are enabling Paul by allowing him to continue living with them, when he can and should be living on his own as an adult.

The Best Of Intentions Often Back-fire

Helping someone in need is truly admirable, until. Enabling someone is not so admirable, fraught with complications that can last indefinitely. Society tells us that a “good” mother or father gives their children everything they themselves never had. Society tells us to try and make things “easier” for our children, but where has this idea really gotten us?

Being an enabler has it’s own payoff, with a false sense of control over the lives of others. Well-intentioned parents, friends and even strangers can often find themselves feeling frustrated, resentful and used, but lack the will to stop the enabling. The “help” provided to those lacking the motivation and determination to stand on their own two feet has become a long-term expectation and outright demand by many. Are you an enabler?

Turning Enabling Behaviors Into Positive Potential-

Friends, family, neighbors, co-workers etc must learn to redirect their “helping” efforts with Tough Love, allowing persons to recognize and accept the responsibilities and consequences of their own choices, rather than enabling the continuance of unacceptable behaviors to the detriment of everyone involved. Take responsibility for any enabling behaviors, which is considered by some experts to be akin to abuse, realizing that creating positive change in someone being “helped” will not only have a positive impact on them but on you as well. There really is a difference between helping and enabling, but it is up to you to choose whether to continue on this path or to put a stop to it now.

A Sense of Entitlement
Children Who Refuse To Grow Up
Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors
How to Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents

Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children As long as we continue to keep enabling our adult children, they will continue to deny they have any problems, since most of their problems are being “solved” by those around him. Only when our adult children are forced to face the consequences of their own actions—their own choices—will it finally begin to sink in how deep their patterns of dependence and avoidance have become. And only then will we as parents be able to take the next step to real healing, forever ending our enabling habits and behaviors.

Similar Posts:

• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• ~Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers~
• Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors

The primary job of a parent is to prepare their children for how the world really works. We teach and train our children from childhood the knowledge and skills necessary to become independent adults, self-sufficient and upstanding members of society. In the real world, you don’t always get what you want. Many young adults today have unrealistic expectations when they initially go out on their own. Many feel they are entitled to immediately live a middle-class life style (or better), because that’s what they’re used to, and because they haven’t learned that there is a difference between helping and enabling. They weren’t born, or were very young children, during the years their parents struggled to make ends meet, pay their bills (and on time), having to eat hot dogs and beans instead of steak dinners, struggling to live within their means.

Many young adults are living at home with their parents, not out of true need, but out of what I refer to as the “Whine Factor.” They whine about the costs of housing, and how they just “couldn’t possibly live in a tiny little apartment, in a sub-standard neighborhood.” They whine about having to live on red beans and rice, ramen noodles, or macaroni and cheese, because their current salary doesn’t allow for the kinds of meals they were used to at their parents home. (Someone get me a tissue…..snif)

What happened to teaching our children how the Real World is?! That in order to have the things you want, you have to work very hard. That you have to perhaps work two jobs instead of one, all the while going to college? Many young adults, some who now have children of their own, believe their parents somehow “owe them” financial assistance, to rescue them from the burden of their own poor money-management habits! What?! Excuse ME…..?!

Let me see if I get this right. Young adults, married or living together, working full-time jobs, with or without a child to support, choose to spend their money frivolously rather than ensuring they are living within their means, and when they run into financial trouble and can’t pay their bills, the parents OWE it to their children to rescue them?! Sometimes even expected to “help” many, many times over? Huh?! Parents, listen very carefully: There is a big difference between helping and enabling adult children, and if you don’t figure it out now and put an immediate stop to the enabling, it will never end.

Maybe I’m being a little too tough. Naw, I don’t think so. I’m of the thinking that if my grown, adult children, CHOOSE to spend their money on things they “want” rather than their “needs” (like a place to live, utilities, food, etc.., like the rest of us do) and their electric gets shut off because of non-payment? Ok! So their food goes bad and they have to throw it away. Maybe, just maybe, it’s more of a “help” to allow them to experience the consequences of their own poor choices, in order to learn the valuable lessons needed to be grown, independent ADULTS.

Rescuing them from their choices and subsequent consequences, giving them money as a fix to their immediate self-made problem, allowing them to move back in with their parents, this is called “help”? I think it’s actually enabling our young adult children rather than help, preventing them from the realities of the real world. In the real world, you work long and hard for the things you need and want. That’s the only way to truly appreciate what you have, when you’ve worked your butt off for it all on your own.

A Sense of Entitlement

Children Who Refuse To Grow Up

Helping and Enabling – Is There A Difference?

Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors

How to Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us

Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents

Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children As long as we continue to keep enabling our adult children, they will continue to deny they have any problems, since most of their problems are being “solved” by those around him. Only when our adult children are forced to face the consequences of their own actions—their own choices—will it finally begin to sink in how deep their patterns of dependence and avoidance have become. And only then will we as parents be able to take the next step to real healing, forever ending our enabling habits and behaviors.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• ~Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers~
• Helping and Enabling – Is There A Difference?
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• A Sense of Entitlement