Redefining Your Relationship with Your Parents as an Adult

Guest Author: Janice Nishiyama, Psy.D.

Are you feeling frustrated in your relationship with your parent(s)?  Do you keep hoping that they will change how they react to you, how they give you support, or will finally understand you?  You are not alone. Even as adults, many people find it hard to change the familiar and deeply rooted ways they interact with their parents.

 The goal of this article is to help you understand how the dynamic between you and your parent(s) began, how to understand your parent(s), and what you can do to improve your experience with them.

How It Began

Parents are typically the first people with whom we have relationships, so they shape how we see ourselves and the world. As babies and young children, we haven’t had life experience and haven’t yet developed critical and abstract thinking abilities, so we are unable to objectively evaluate whether or not the parenting we receive is heathy or appropriate.  We are also are dependent on them, so we are likely to assume roles and engage in dynamics that fit with (or, sometimes, rebel against) who they are.

The roles we assume in our families beginning in childhood serve a purpose within the family and these roles often extend into adulthood.  Even when we’ve grown, built our own identities outside of the family, and left home, it’s common to find ourselves falling into familiar roles (e.g., caretaker, peacemaker, rebel, pleaser). These patterns are often reinforced by both sides: the parent continues to see their child as “their child,” and the adult child unconsciously responds in kind, perpetuating the dynamic.

Understanding Your Parent(s)

Parents may struggle with their changing role as their children become adults.  For many, being a parent is central to their identity, and shifting away from that position of authority can feel like a loss of control or purpose.  They may also struggle to see their adult child as fully capable or emotionally separate. 

Recognizing that parents often act from love (even when their behavior feels intrusive or critical) may help you reframe the way you see your interactions with them and reduce feelings of defensiveness. However, this doesn’t mean you should accept behavior that feels disrespectful or invalidating. It means understanding where it comes from while maintaining healthy emotional boundaries. 

In order to become clear about the boundaries you want to have and how to best implement and enforce them, it may be necessary to try to objectively see your parent(s) for who they are as human beings outside of the parent role.  What kind of person are they?  How do they engage in most of their relationships? How would you define their personality?  This may help you understand the person they are and allow you to consider how you can relate to them based on who they are as opposed to who you wish they would be.  This may also mean that you will need to grieve your wish for the parent(s) you have always needed or wanted and let go of the hope that they will or can change.  Although difficult, growth sometimes requires mourning — the parent we hoped for, the relationship that never was, or the role we’ve outgrown.

Making Changes

The patterns in your relationship with your parent(s) can feel automatic, but they’re not inevitable. However, changing the dynamic with people you have been in relationship with your whole life can be really difficult.  Attempts at change can create tension and disappointment.  Often, as one person in the dynamic begins to change, the other resists, which can result in a subtle (or not so subtle) emotional “tug-of-war.”  This “tug-of-war” can exist both externally (in the relationship between you and your parent(s)) as well as internally (within yourself -- between who you were and who you have or want to become).

Ideally, you can have a conversation with your parent(s) (and other family members, if appropriate) to discuss the changes you would like to see and you can work together to figure out together how you can make things better. If your parent(s) are willing to work through this with you, it will be important for each individual to take responsibility for their contribution to the problem and be open to listening to one another with empathy.

If you are unable to have a conversation with your parent(s) or they are unwilling to change, hope is not lost.  You don’t need your parent’s agreement or participation, and you don’t have to wait for them to change in order for change to occur.  However, this may mean that you will have to work toward change by yourself. Although this may feel unfair, not to mention, difficult, taking steps toward change can be empowering.  When you hope and wait for others to change, you given them power and control.  And, when they don’t change, it can result in disappointment, resentment and/or hopelessness.  When you take steps toward change with or without their participation, the power lies in your hands. 

A few things to think about and ask yourself when beginning the change process might be:

-       Imagining a healthy relationship between two adults, instead of a parent and a child.

o   What would it mean to engage with my parent(s) as an adult, not as a child?

-       What are my expectations of the relationship?

o   How have my expectations been shaped by my childhood experience with them?

o   Have I been engaging with them in a way that attempts to get them to change?

o   What expectations do I have of them now? 

§  Are those expectations realistic based on who they are?

-       What role did I play in my family as a child?

o   How is that role similar to my role I play in my family today?

o   Do I want to continue in that role?

o   What role do I want to have now in my family?

-       Do I still respond to my parents as though I’m seeking their approval, protection, or permission?

o   How can I create my own protection and validate myself?

Redefining your relationship with your parent(s) doesn’t have to mean severing ties, but it will likely involve changes in your expectations of them, seeing yourself as separate from them, and implementing clear and firm boundaries.

Boundaries might look like: 

o   Limiting certain topics of conversation (e.g., career choices, relationships). 

o   Declining advice that doesn’t feel supportive. 

o   Choosing when and how often to engage in contact. 

The goal isn’t distance, but clarity. When boundaries are grounded in self-awareness rather than resentment, they strengthen rather than weaken connection. Over time, they allow both parent and adult child to relate to one another with more authenticity and less emotional entanglement. 

Getting Help

Changing long-standing family dynamics takes patience, courage, and sometimes professional support. Therapy can help adult children unpack family roles, manage guilt or obligation, and practice new ways of relating that honor both autonomy and connection. 

At PBA Psychology Group, we help individuals and families navigate these complex transitions — fostering empathy, emotional regulation, and healing across generations. 

If you’re seeking to better understand your relationship with your parent(s) — or to redefine it on healthier terms — we’re here to help. 

📞 Call (310) 271-2275 or contact us here to schedule a confidential appointment.