Why are our adult children hostile to us? How do we handle it?

This is our world and while it is not easy to change it, each one of us has the ability to do a little. No we will not stop the wars in the world but we can stop the wars in our family, with our neighbor, in our community. No we will not stop hunger and poverty, but we can give food or items to a local shelter. No we cannot build schools for every one but we can make our local school a little better by giving a little time to it.

I am proud of my grandchild who like monawrites' grandson is overcoming huge difficulties caused by her parents selfishness. I am not proud of the way my son is a temporary father, who is perfectly happy to let me (singly) raise his child. But I accept the responsibility to having created this selfish man. I raised him, and pretty much gave him all I could. I made demands on him but something went wrong somewhere. I gave him values but somewhere they broke down. I am not proud of the mistakes I made, but I did not know at the time that they were mistakes. You only recognize it too late. It's like taking the road, you don't know it is the wrong one until it's too late or you would not have taken it.

You cannot know what the upcoming generations will do, good or bad. Don't be too harsh each and every one of us does the best he/she can with the tools he/she has at the time.

hey when you love your loved ones that are ungrateful it comes with the territory. Sometimes you have to rule with an iron fist (literally) to bring them back to reality! Then again I may not know the entire reason behind their behavior, but children whether young or old sometimes hold grudges due to things that parents have done (if you are a parent you know that which I speak of) that has had a great affect on their lives as well as them mentally. Instead of talking about it they choose to act out as well as use you---which some parents allow due to guilt.

I live in the same world. I am not proud of that, however, I didn't do that, I tried very, very hard to raise 5 decent citizens, I am proud of the efforts that I made, but I am not proud of all of them, it is hard to be proud of them because of their greed, self involvement and hostility.

I am proud of my grandson, Only four years old and already living daily with the legacy of the brain damage he is suffering because of his mother's drug abuse. The realization of how much frustration that little boy must suffer daily is astounding, so I am proud to have been the one who stood up and said we need to do whatever it takes to make this better for him.

I am proud of the personal changes that I have made in my life, my advocacy of different things, my help in the area of missing persons, my work as a NICU nurse practitioner.

BUT I am not proud of some of my children,I do NOT wish to have them become a part of this world's problem and as I see it unless you are capable of giving, rather than complaining, you are a part of the problem.

What I ask is what would YOU DO if you found yourself in the same situation that I am in. What have you done if you;ve been there, what will help to make it change.

What are you proud of and how old are you?

I live in a world where greed, selfishness and profit rule the day. I see wars, famine and disease. I see nuclear aircraft carriers still being built and I wonder why that money was not put into building schools or hospitals. I see religion causing death and Mother Earth is in a state of distress... I see pain and the older generations seem to be proud ... what are you proud of?

I believe that you need to stop allowing your daughter to make you feel bad. I was an addict myself, and I know I prayed on that! She is in a place in her life where only the drugs matter, and nothing else. Even if you did make mistakes in your parenting, aren't we all human? You should refuse to allow her guilt trips to affect you anymore, and as much as it may pain you, you need to tell her there will be no more contact until she stops blaming you and starts taking her own personal ownership of her life and the mess it is in. In no way am I judging her, I was there. It was always poor me, I exhausted my family with my disease and it wasn't until I had enough that I kicked dope and changed. Never give up on her, but never be a victim of her addiction. It is not the way you raised her that caused her to abuse drugs, it is her disease. God Bless you!

A humble opinion. The hostility starts when they are teenagers, going through the pain of leaving childhood. The problem is that we adults forget that we were much the same at their age.

Everyone who has had a teenager in the house will probably agree that they are most unpalatable at this age. Inevitably they start refusing to listen and do exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to, this is supposed to be a normal part of growing up.

Unfortunately parents are only human, and especially when they start getting spiteful and hurtful we tend to, as human beings, retaliate in much the same way. This tension can destroy the normal parent child relationship and sometimes leads to generations never talking to each other for years. I know a few of these cases. Usually you ask what happened, or rather when it happened you find out that it started somewhere in this horrible phase.

The best advice I can think of is to almost make a cold reset. Bury the hatchet and try to have a more mature relationship with them.

I cannot begin to understand the trouble you are going through, but sometimes the root lies in issues you had with them at this age and somehow lost respect for each other.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

I raised two sons and I thank God everyday, they have never felt the need to disrespect me. I think parents should start early in a child's life training them to respect their elders. Sometimes children have serious issues going on that causes them to be hostile for instance drug addiction and mental illness.

          Recently, I answered a question in Hubpages from a woman who is raising her daughter's child because her daughter is addicted to drugs and cannot care for him. The child is ill and has... keep reading →