Having Meaningful Conversations with Your Adult Sons & Daughters
scorched earth in the relationship—damage that’s come about through previous interactions between you and your adult children. Even if you’re relatively confident that the relationship is solid and that the soil is ready, what practices will ensure that your meaningful conversations will fall on fertile ground? Part Two, Planting the Seeds. In this section, we’ll explore good communication and caretaking-in-conflict skills that effective parents use. These skills enable parents to successfully start meaningful conversations with their adult children and to keep those conversations going in a positive direction once they’ve started. Part Three, Tending the Buds. We’ll explore additional ways to keep conversations going and good relationships growing. We’ve based the anecodotes we use on several sources: the calls we receive regularly on More2Life, our radio program that airs on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network and SiriusXM130; the conversations we have with our clients at CatholicCounselors.com, our Catholic telecounseling practice; the conversations we’ve had with parents who have successfully established relationships with their adult children; and research about what it takes to turn difficult conversations into productive ones. Learning how to have meaningful and even difficult conversations with your adult children is a gift that keeps on giving. Whatever life throws at you and your adult child, you’ll be ready for it if you know how to talk about it. You’ll also know how to use it to make your relationship everything you want it to be and everything God has designed it to be.
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