Am I Helping or Hovering?

Over-functioning feels like love, but is actually discouraging to our emerging adults.

Finding Your New Role as
Your Teen Grows Up

Many of us believed that once our kids turned 18, we would be “done.” How silly was that? Parenting isn’t a task with a deadline. It is a lifelong relationship with evolving roles. 

Today’s involved parents cannot magically become uninvolved on a milestone birthday. Just like our kids, we must continue to grow, learn, and change.

The “emerging adult” years, typically spanning ages 18 to 29, are filled with anxiety-inducing transitions and instability. Very often, that anxiety triggers us to over-help and over-advise our kids. Our worry can actually get in the way of their growth. To help our children truly flourish, we must shift from being supervisors to being trusted consultants.

Turning transitions into triumph

Seth Kessler, co-founder of the advisory service Gapwell, helps young adults optimize the journey from high school to career. His research highlights a concept called “near-peer mentoring.”

Kessler notes that our frame of reference is very different from our kids’. We didn’t grow up with TikTok or a global pandemic. Our good advice often sounds like a “dumb idea” to them. On the other hand, a 21-year-old’s advice may strike them as a brilliant revelation. It has “social proof” that parents lack. We must accept that we are no longer their primary source of wisdom.

The cost of snowplow parenting

When we step in too quickly, we stall the launch. Kessler sees well-meaning “snowplow parents” who push every obstacle aside to prevent distress. 

Tedious tasks are actually great places to practice adulting. Consider the simple act of filling out medical forms. When parents do this to save time, it sends a negative message.

Children may assume their parents think they are incapable. They might think life’s administrative tasks are someone else’s responsibility. I love the phrase: “It is always awkward before it is elegant.” Every struggle, mistake, and setback your child experiences is “the awkward” that is in service to the elegant. 

The power of “mattering”

In her timely new book, “Mattering,” Jennie Wallace explores the dual sense of “mattering” as both being valued and adding value. When well-meaning parents swoop in to rescue or give advice, they can cause a child to feel they do not matter. The child interprets our help as a lack of faith.

Jennie recently shared a moving story of a discouraged and jobless college graduate who regained his optimism and motivation only after a neighbor relied on him for rides to chemotherapy appointments. This good kind of weight — being depended upon — provided evidence that he had value. He saw that he made an important impact. This realization changed his entire perspective. He set down his shame and restarted his job search with motivation.

“Grandmothering” yourself

But it’s not just about the kids! Jennie gives wonderful advice for parents. She offers a concept called “grandmothering yourself.” This is the shift from heavy parenting duties to radical self-care. All the energy we once spent on active parenting we now need to redirect to ourselves. It can feel like we are abandoning our young adults, but we are not. 

Identify one small personal desire or need each day and fill it for yourself. It could be curling up with a cozy blanket or taking a 30-minute walk. By prioritizing these moments, you don’t just recharge—you model how to trust and show up for yourself, like an adult.

Promoting individual agency

Adulthood is defined by individual agency, not a paycheck. It is about taking responsibility for oneself. Parents can support this by letting kids manage their own lives and mistakes.

It may take them four times longer than it takes you. That’s okay. They are learning how to follow through to completion. This experience is critical for their long-term professional development.

The goal: A capable adult

We must normalize the struggle. Transitions naturally rattle the nervous system — theirs and ours. It isn’t a personal failure to feel anxious, avoidant, overwhelmed, or confused.

It’s as if kids in this age group are in a chrysalis. As with butterflies, it is the struggle to get out that builds their strength to fly. The goal is not a life without failure. Rather, the goal is for our children to find their own resilience while we create a relationship with them that lasts a lifetime.

Mistakes are painful but necessary teachers. By prioritizing connection over control, we build a stable launchpad. Our kids will learn they are enough. Little by little, we can watch them grow into capable, confident adults.

*Originally published in Washington Parent as: Managing the “In-between” years: A guide for anxious parents.