6 Of The Most Common Arguments Adult Children Have With Their Parents

Parents and children are likely to bump heads from time to time, whether the relationship is strong or strained. But the arguments between parents and their young kids are typically different from the ones between parents and adult children.

We asked therapists to share the points of contention they commonly see in the parent-adult child dynamic and how they help clients work through them in their sessions. Read on for their insights:

1. “There are things we have to address from my childhood.”

Brianne Billups Hughes, a marriage and family therapist in Santa Barbara, California, said the most common issue that arises in the parent-adult child relationship is when the grown kid wants to talk about a difficult experience or aspect of their childhood and is seeking some acknowledgment or validation.

“This could be due to the role they felt they had to play in the family, how their parents handled issues or how they or their siblings were treated,” she told HuffPost. “However, parents might be dismissive, defensive, or refuse to engage in these conversations. The result is the adult child feels shut down and distances themself from the parent, and the parent doesn’t see the problem with what happened.”

It can be difficult for parents to confront their past mistakes and acknowledge how their actions negatively impacted their child.

“Parenting is really hard, and the truth is that it is impossible to get completely right,” Hughes said. “Most often, parents are still dealing with wounds from their own childhoods and may not have examined how that impacted their parenting. Parents often want acknowledgment for the many sacrifices they made for their children and struggle to hear what their children have to say, due to their