by Ronnie Dauber

Created on: November 24, 2008   Last Updated: December 08, 2008

Are you concerned that if you disagree with your adult child it will put a strain on your relationship? Do you want to maintain a relationship with your adult child so disagreements between you won't jeopardize their confidence to come to you for advice or confidential concerns? There are constructive and acceptable ways to disagree with your child without straining your relationship. Here are some suggestions that will help you keep your relationship solid while engaging in disagreements.

Start when they are born to teach, train and direct your children in a consistent and stable manner so that they develop a trust in your instructions, suggestions and opinions. By the time they are adults, they should have ingested everything you taught them and be on the road to making their own wise decisions based on your example.

However, along this road they will often make a decision or two that we adamantly disagree with, and because we love them and because we are their superiors, we often feel it's our place to tell them that they are wrong. This approach is probably the biggest mistake that we could make and will likely cause the greatest relationship damage. Why?

Children want to believe that they have learned from their parents. They want to make choices and apply themselves in ways that will please their parents and make them proud. But their decisions may not be what we had envisioned for them or what we had limited our minds to accepting for them.

The world will change considerably from the time our children are born until they are ready to step out on their own. If we, the parents, do not accept that change then we will suffer because we will expect our children to be modern-day young adults living in our past. Technology, economics and education have excelled tremendously just in the last twenty years, and we must excel along with it. We cannot expect our children to live outside of what today's world has to offer.

When we are confronted with a bad choice made by our child, it is our reaction that will help guide them either in a reconsideration of the issue or a commitment to the issue. When we say they are wrong, we have insulted their intelligence and they will continue with their decision just to prove their point. It's not so much to prove the parent wrong as it is necessary for them to prove that they are right.

We should speak to them as intelligent people and discuss their situation respectively. Instead of speaking negative words we should offer suggestions,

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