Reply to What do you think you did right to have a close relationship with your adult child?

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[quote=Anonymous]I actually had a much better relationship with my dad as an adult than during my childhood, so even a poor start is not necessarily a reason to give up on your adult relationship with your child.

He always treated me with respect, assumed the best rather than the worst, tried not to be a burden. We talked regularly on the phone, I made sure to visit him.

The childhood stuff wasn't traumatic, he was just always on my case over things, and always fighting with my mom (and I took my mom's side generally, because from my perspective I didn't think he was being reasonable). At some point I just decided that I was done with caring about his opinion, which was very liberating.

However, after my mom died (I was in my early 30s), my dad really came through, became the default parent and cheerleader. He is also gone now, and it's more evident than ever, how much he was there for me.

Having said that... Sometimes you have a personality mismatch and a relationship does go off the rails. There is alcoholism, mental illness, falling with a bad partner, etc. So you cannot control what kind of a relationship you'll have with your kids, 100 percent.

However, it helps to meet them where they are, try to see them for who they are and not who you want them to be.[/quote]

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