Learning To Listen

March 1, 2026

As your children become adults, learn to let go of them — or they’ll let go of you

By Tom Hoopes

March 1, 2026

Mission of the Family.jpg — kupicoo / E+ via Getty Images

A disconcerting thing happens when your children become adults: They take you aside and tell you what you did wrong. And, if you still have kids at home, as my wife and I do, they tell you what you are still doing wrong.

Hearing what they have to say has actually been salutary — like a root canal. It can also help us avoid becoming part of a new national trend: parents whose young adult children decide to go “no contact” with them. Here are three things I learned.

First, parents make a critical mistake when we consider our children “ours.” We have a crucial role in their life, but it is a temporary one. Ultimately, they are free individuals who belong to God.

A 2015 study found that the primary reason adult children became estranged is “their parents’ toxic behavior or feeling unsupported and unaccepted.” That describes me. Hearing how deeply my actions offended my adult children transformed my understanding of a parent’s role. It is not to solve our children’s problems so they won’t have to suffer; it is to let our children solve their own problems — even if that means we have to suffer.

Second, it’s hard to go from 90 miles per hour to zero in an instant, but we must. On their 18th birthday, our children go from our legal responsibility to legally independent — and they know it.

Here’s a tip: If they ask your opinion, give them everything you’ve got; they really want it. But your adult children don’t want unsolicited advice. The new rule is that you have to have a mutual, respectful relationship with them — or none at all.

Third, listening is the most important trait for parents, all along. Failure to listen is the number one cause of fatality in the parent-child relationship. But before you decide you’re safe, realize this is an issue of quality, not quantity. According to recent studies, parents are spending more time with their children than ever, yet 1 in 5 young adults say they can’t always “be themselves” around their parents.

One of the toughest things about hearing criticism from our adult children has been realizing that they aren’t telling my wife and me anything new. They are repeating the same things they have been telling us for years — things we were too dismissive or defensive to hear.

Yet it’s never too late to listen with love.

*****

TOM HOOPES is vice president of college relations at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., where he is a member of Sacred Heart Council 723. He and his wife, April, have nine children.

Supper at Emmaus (oil on canvas) by Rembrandt (1606-1669) (Photo Josse / Bridgeman Images)

Learning To Listen

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