Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children

Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children – Allison Bottke

Many parents find themselves still rescuing, financing and worrying about their grown children long after those children should be independent. Some adult children struggle with addiction, unemployment, irresponsibility or repeated crises, and parents, out of love or guilt, keep stepping in. Allison Bottke, a Christian author and speaker who faced this situation with her own son, wrote Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents to help parents break free from this cycle.

Bottke explains the difference between helping and enabling. Helping, she says, involves doing something for someone that they cannot do for themselves, while enabling involves doing for them what they could and should do, which can keep them from growing up and facing the consequences of their choices. She encourages parents to examine their own motives, fears and patterns and to recognize how they may be contributing to the problem.

The book presents a six-step program, summarized by the acronym SANITY, that guides parents in stopping their own enabling behavior, assembling a support group, not acting on emotion, implementing rules and boundaries, trusting their instincts and yielding everything to God. Bottke offers practical guidance on creating and communicating an action plan, setting clear boundaries and following through, along with stories from parents who have used the approach.

Compassionate and faith-based, Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children is an encouraging resource for parents who feel exhausted or trapped. It reflects a Christian perspective and is not a substitute for professional help, especially where addiction or safety is involved.