One The Problems with Adult Children.- 1 Understanding Middle-Aged Parents and Their Adult Problem Children.- Intergenerational Conflict and You.- How You Can Avoid or Minimize Problems with Adult Children.- How to Tell Whether You Really Have a Problem.- How to Stop Taking the Blame for Your Adult Child's Actions.- How Problems with Adult Children Can Hurt You.- What You Can Do to Meet Problems Coolly and Constructively.- 2 How Did All This Happen ?.- Individual Change and Conflict Between Generations.- Social Change and the Conflict Between Generations.- Technological Change.- Social Factors.- Demographic Factors.- Economic Factors.- Political Factors.- Religious Factors.- Educational Factors.- 3 How Conflict with Their Adult Children Can Harm Middle-Aged Parents.- The Stress of Life.- Stress and Physical and Psychological Illness.- How You Can Manage Stress, Conflict, and Their Consequences.- How You Can Handle Problems That Will Not Go Away.- Two Defining and Locating Your Problem.- 4 Whose Problem? Yours, Mine, or Ours?.- When Is There a Problem?.- What Is the Problem? (Finding the Problem).- What Is the Real Problem? (Consultation).- Whose Problem Is It?.- Deciding on a Problem's Author or Authors.- Visualizing Solutions.- Handling Imaginary Problems.- Aided Solutions.- Three Shared Problems of Parents and Adult Children.- 5 The Unemptied Nest.- How It Used to Be.- Why Adult Children Do Not Leave Home.- Blaming and Fault-Finding.- How to Build a Permanent Dependent.- Working Out a Solution.- When Not to Push.- Getting Help.- 6 Dangling Grandchildren.- Resolving the Responsibility Question.- Getting Help.- 7 Fall Shorts.- Why Children Are Thought to Fall Short.- Putting Ambition in Perspective.- Getting Help.- 8 Meddlesome Grandparents.- Dealing Constructively with Grandparental Conflict.- Getting Help.- 9 Injury and Illness.- Disability in Perspective.- Strategies for Dealing with a Disabled Child.- Do You Want to Get Involved?.- Have You Sought Help and Support for Yourself?.- Independence for Disabled Children.- 10 Stepparents and Stepchildren.- The Authority Problem.- Stepchild-Stepparent Relationships.- Prenuptial Agreements.- Stepchild vs Stepchild.- Getting Help.- 11 Legal, Fiscal, and Other Plights.- Dealing with Scrapes Effectively.- Getting Help.- Four Individual Problems Growing Out of Differing Lifestyles.- 12 Individual Problems of Parents of Adult Children.- Rights of Adults.- Letting Adult Children Be Adults.- 13 Lifestyles and Meaningful Relationships.- Material Values.- Sexual Mores.- The Lifestyle Boom.- Getting Help.- 14 Gay or Lesbian Children.- Treating Homosexuality.- Origins.- Getting Help.- 15 Cult Memberships.- What Forms Do Cults Take?.- Cults, Children, and Parents.- About Alienation, Estrangement, and Ethics.- Getting Help.- 16 Abuse of Substances.- The Consequences of Substance Abuse.- Origins.- Getting Help.- 17 The Ungrateful Child.- Origins.- Dealing with Feelings of Neglect.- Five Coping Strategies.- 18 How to Develop a Rational Solution for Your Parent-Child Problem: Building a Decision-Tree.- Principles of Decision-Making.- Solving Problems Rationally.- Step 1. Defining the Problem.- Step 2. Identifying the 'Ideal Solution'.- Step 3. Deciding Whether the Ideal Solution Is Feasible.- Step 4. Identifying Acceptable Alternative Solutions.- Step 5. Formulating Strategies to Achieve the Ideal Solution.- Step 6. Determining Anticipated Consequences.- Step 7. Making a Tentative Decision.- Step 8. Reviewing the Decision.- Step 9. Taking Action.- Step 10. Developing a Backup Stratagem.- Another Example.- 19 An Exercise in Decision-Making.- Step 1. Defining the Problem.- Step 2. Finding an Ideal Solution.- Step 3. Deciding on the Feasibility of the Ideal Solution.- Step 4. Setting up Alternative Solutions.- Step 5. Developing Strategies Leading to an Ideal or the Best Alternative Decision.- Step 6. Analyzing Consequences of Strategies.- Step 7. Making a Tentative Decision.- Step 8. Reviewing the Tentative Decision.- Step 9. Taking Action.- Step 10. Readying a Backup Step.- 11. Dealing with Insoluble or Imaginary Problems.- Summary.- 20 Finding the Right Kind of Help.- A Word About Conflict.- Deciding When Outside Help Is Needed.- Tactics for Finding and Getting Outside Help.- Defining the Problem.- Building a List of Potential Help Sources.- Canvassing Your List of Possible Help Sources.- Making a Tentative Choice.- Checking Your Decision with a Confidant.- Choosing Your Help Source.- Sources of Help-An Annotated List.- Traditional General Help Sources.- Help Available Through Private Institutions, Agencies, or Groups.- Sources of Help with Specific Problems.- Help with Crises.
