When you have an adult child with anxiety, you experience many challenges. It can be a struggle to maintain your mental and physical health while supporting your adult child. However, with parent coaching and support from a program, you can learn skills that help both yourself and your child. When you work with a coach, you will address your needs while learning how to navigate your responsibilities and give the best care you can. Getting coaching is not a sign that you are not a good parent, it is a way for you to help your adult child become more independent while learning new skills as a parent.
Adult Children With Anxiety
If you have an adult child who suffers from anxiety, their symptoms will be unique to them. However, symptoms of anxiety often include:
Nervousness or restlessness
Feelings of being in danger
Increased heart rate
Sweating, trembling, or rapid breathing
Trouble concentrating
Feeling spurts of energy mixed with heavy fatigue
Anxiety is a common reason that many adult children fail to launch. This means that they struggle to transition into adulthood after high school. Getting your adult child help for their mental health is a good first step. However, learning how your family has been affected and how to best help them is also vital.
As a parent of an adult child with anxiety, your family's life is affected. Research shows that the well-being of family members of adult children suffering from mental or physical health issues is affected. However, as a parent, you can help both your adult child and yourself in multiple ways, including parent coaching.
How Parent Coaching Can Help
As a parent, you play a unique and important role in your children's life. When your adult child is struggling with anxiety, there are many ways that you can influence and help them. However, these are often not easy to implement. If you feel stuck, that is ok and completely normal. Parent coaching is a way for you to have the support you need to provide structure and encouragement to your adult child while still caring for your needs.
Structure
Anxiety is a mental health disorder that impacts how your adult child thinks and feels daily. Due to feelings of nervousness or fear, your adult child will likely lack structure and a regular schedule in their life. While living at home, this is often not an issue because you as a parent can provide it for them. However, for them to care for their needs, they need to learn how to create and maintain structure in their life that keeps them on track.
Teaching your adult child to create and maintain structure is not an easy task. For example, helping them to learn structured stress management is complex. It requires them to be aware of stressors and learn how they can decrease their anxiety around them. Through parent coaching, you can work with a professional who helps you to identify helpful structures and how to work with your adult child where they are right now.
Encouragement
As a parent, you are in a role where you can truly encourage and support your adult child. However, it can be difficult to find the balance between encouraging them while helping them learn the necessary skills to become more independent. Too much encouragement without proper boundaries will take away from them having to learn to support themselves.
Parent coaching is a place where you can talk through situations to find this balance. It can help you to encourage them in a way that is helpful for them to progress toward independence. By talking through specific situations and improving your understanding of what your adult child needs to become more independent, you will have improved skills that can help you encourage in the best way possible.
Managing Emotions
When your adult child is struggling with anxiety, they will experience many negative emotions. Since they are an adult child, they might struggle with managing these emotions. As a result, they are more prone to outbursts, pouting, or other unhealthy methods of dealing with their emotions.
As a parent, these situations are incredibly frustrating and can be upsetting. Working with a coach can help you to manage and work through your own emotions. In doing so, you can help your adult child learn to process and communicate their feelings healthily. This is an incredibly important skill for them to learn as they move towards independent living.
Parent Coaching Through Yale's Child Study Center
Yale's Child Study Center is part of Yale's School of Medicine. Their goal is to provide research, services, and training to children and parents to improve lives. As a result of its wide range of services, Yale's Child Study Center offers the most up-to-date information for parents who are looking to improve the lives of their children. While their services are varied, parent coaching is offered at Northwest College Support through Yale's Child Study Center.
When adult children have high levels of anxiety or dependence, it can be a struggle for both the child and parents. At Northwest College Support, we understand that parents are trying their best when they have been put in a hard situation. Parent coaching at Northwest College Support can provide the parents with understanding about guidance for how they can help their children and themselves become more independent and how parents can kickstart progress through Yale's Child Study Center. Our goal is to help parents and younger adults feel supported through the transition into adulthood. Therefore, we offer a variety of programs to help. To learn more, call us today at (877) 485-2776.
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