Support for fathers with "difficult" adult children

Judith Smith
2 days ago
3 min read

FOR DADS WITH ADULT CHILDREN

with serious mental illness, substance use disorder and/or chronic unemployment.

10 week SUPPORT GROUP STARTS

Thursday September 26th, 7 pm

DADS

Imagine talking to a group of fathers who are looking for answers about how to help their "difficult adult children" and often feel confused, enraged, and depressed. "Difficult adult child" is not meant to be pejorative, but describes the predicament that parents of adult children with serious mental illness, substance use disorder or chronic unemployment experience. They don't know how much help to give, when to step back, and how to handle their own feelings of guilt and shame.

The groups are facilitated by Judith R. Smith, Phd, LCSW, a psychotherapist, researcher and the author of Difficult: Mothering challenging adult children through conflict and change (2022) and Jeffrey Hoffeld, LP, a psychotherapist who practices in New York City and is a part of the Spectrum Neuroscience and Treatment Institute.

The book and the support groups are based on the data that Smith collected during a multi-year research project with over 50 older women whose adult children were struggling with being self-supporting and self-sufficient. She learned that there were many commonalities in parents' emotional reactions to this difficult situation, regardless of the differences among the adult children's problems.

This is what fathers' reported after the past group.

Feeling more hopeful

“I think my health is improving, honestly … in terms of my mental health. My mood has improved overall … I think I have been able to look at myself in a different way and lightened up on myself.”

“I felt hopeful for both myself and my kids … a little more positive feeling about my situation.”

The pivotal shift: letting go of expecting change

“There is one transformation that I underwent from listening to Larry. He was also spending a lot of money every month to support his son and he wasn't expecting that condition to change. Hearing his attitude of acceptance - influenced me very concretely — pretty much by later that evening. I let it go… I have ceased worrying. It's freed up a lot of time how will I get him to grow up? I don't know that he will.”

Moving beyond my “echo chamber”

“My own situation is a bit of an echo chamber. I talk about it with my wife, I don't talk it through clinically with anybody else… through the group allowed me to get out of the echo chamber — there's, in our case, five other voices… hearing other people's perspectives widens how I see myself and my son— it's helping.”

Camaraderie and validation.

Hal shared that "it was pretty obvious right from the get-go that it was a really nice group of people... I was totally comfortable and happy to share the experiences I had had as best as I could." He described the surprise of feeling that the other fathers "just really wanted to be helpful... a happy surprise that there are five guys that really want to make an effort to really help another human being's life."

Interested in joining? Questions? Register here for a one-on-one meeting with Judith Smith. https://www.difficultmothering.com/support-groups