Many of my clients either have trouble dealing with their children, or adult children have problems with their parents. 

Adult children are left feeling frustrated, 'I love my parents/mother/father, but I wish they wouldn't do/say.......... Parents love their children but wish they would get on with their own lives or feel rejected by them because they have in a sense run away from home and have barely any connection with them. 

Whilst conflict between the generations is as old as mankind, it is important to question why that is and what we can do about this conflict. 

Here again I reach for the Persian mystic, Kahlil Gibran to find out what his advice is on developing a healthy, nurturing and feeing relationship and attitude to being a parent.  When asked on his thoughts about children, he wrote the following:

CHILDREN
 
Your children are not your children.
 
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
 
They come through you but not from you.
 
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
 
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
 
For they have their own thoughts.
 
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
 
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
 
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
 
For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.
 
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
 
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
 
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;
 
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran

On reading these words, some clients become quite emotional, realising that their relationship with their children is more of a controlling nature, placing too high expectations on them and not allowing them to evolve freely. 

How do you see yourself as a parent to your children?

How do you respond to the poem on marriage by Kahlil Gibran?

MARRIAGE

You were born to be together, and together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea  between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from  the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.

Kahlil Gibran

Play together, but let there be space between you.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
i.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the footpath.
I fall in.
I am lost...I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

ii.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the footpath.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't may fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

iii.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the footpath.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

iv.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the footpath.
I walk around it.

v.
I walk down another street.

by Portia Nelson

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT
You have the right to be the judge of what you do and what you think.
You have the right to offer no reasons and excuses for your behaviour.
You have the right not to be responsible for finding solutions to other people's problems.
You have the right to change your mind.
You  have the right to make mistakes.
You have the right to say, "I don't know."
You have the right to make your own decisions.
You have the right to say, "I don't mind."
You have the right to say, "no", without feeling guilty.

'You have the right...' has been reprinted with the kind permission of Leon Phillips