Bea Lewis

Don't Bite Your Tongue.....seems like the WRONG advice for parents who want to get along with their adult children. Not so, according to a dynamic book on how to foster rewarding relationships with your grown kids........

Parents fall into two categories when it comes to speaking their minds - either to follow the mantra of "Keep your lips locked and your pocketbook open'' or to come across to their kids as overbearing, bossy and meddling. Both ways are outdated, writes Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, author or an outstanding guide (the best I've read) for getting along with your adult children. In her new book, "Don't Bite your Tongue: How To Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children,'' published by MacMillan, Nemzoff explains why both these approaches are not in anyone's best interest.

If you are of the lips locked kind, your kids might think you don't care. If you do speak your mind - they think you're controlling and anything you say will certainly fall on deaf ears. Also, by not sharing our ideas and feelings and thoughts with our children (or not listening to theirs) we distance ourselves and miss out on a great opportunity for a positive, close and loving relationship with them as adults. As Nemzoff explains," Not talking about what we care about is a sure way to create barriers.'' The key, then, to good communication with our adult children is to decide what, where, when, how and why - we want to express ourselves to them - more like talking to a peer, less like talking to a little kid. In other words, Nemzoff shows you how to talk so your child so he or she will hear you without shutting the door or hanging up the telephone. (Sound familiar?)

But the book offers lots more than good communication tools. Other chapters include how to discuss financial issues without using money as a form of control, how to offer opinions about their child-rearing practices, how to cope with disappointment if you disagree with your child's decision for choice of mate, religion or career path, or how to connect without control...and more. There is very little written about adult child /parent relationships from the perspective of the aging parents' point of view, and there's hardly anything to serve as a relationship road map for this time in our lives. But it's an important topic because we are living longer and more likely to spend many more years relating to our children as adults than when they were young.

If you are to buy one book, "Don't Bite Your Tongue'' should be it. Althoug Nemzoff is a clinical psychologist and a researcher, her book is easy to read, compassionate and insightful. But keep it on your night table. Just like reading the Torah, each time you go through it, you will learn something more.