Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Parents

This book gives so many examples of different takes on parenting. The "leave your door open, mouth shut " approach really hit home w personal things I've been dealing w in my personal relationship w my mother. The final chapter made me bawl w sadness and excitement. Excellent read if you are dealing w disconnect w family helps you understand different approaches to life! Thank you Jane for writing this book!

Arrived promptly and pleased with my purchase. Reliable seller! Thanks!

I ordered the book on March 31 and received it on April 6, so it arrived in a timely fashion. The book appeared to be brand new from the outside. The dust cover showed no wear and the book felt new. A week or so after receiving the book I finally opened it to read it and discovered green highlighting throughout the book. The highlighting is obviously on passages that spoke to the previous reader, but kind of takes away from the statement that the book was 'new'. Am I upset? No, some of the passages that are highlighted speak to me too. Would I have bought the book if I had known there was highlighting in it beforehand? No, because I wouldn't have known the extent of the highlighting. So I am giving it 4 stars, but I'm not unhappy with the purchase. Responding to the contents of the book: This book is about having a positive relationship with your grown children - say 25 years and older, possibly out of college and living on their own, but possibly still living with you. Jane Isay has compiled a number of stories to illustrate different ways parents of children have coped with their children growing up and 'distancing' themselves from their roots to gain autonomy. It could speak to you as being the 'grown child' if your parents are still living or as being the 'parent' of grown children. For parents who are new to this experience, it is a painful ripping apart of your soul as you try to navigate staying in touch with your children without allowing yourself to be their doormat and disrespected beyond all reason. Hurt feelings, miscommunications, misunderstood motives abound. I'm a fourth of the way through the book. At the end of the chapters the author has summarized the points she is making. So far they are uplifting like her comment that she was surprised to find it just takes little changes to improve the relationship with grown children. (This was one of the green highlighted parts of my book.) The stories illustrate examples of 'little changes.' It's a reasonable read and positive. I was referred to the book by a client of mine who has recognized him and his wife in some of the stories and that is helping them make 'little changes' to have a better relationship with their grown child who lives in another country - the ultimate in distancing.

I had expected this book to be more psychologically oriented, in the psycho-babble sense. As a psychiatrist, I find those books to be annoying and superficial. I picked this book up b/c of its title:”Walking on Eggshells. . . “, which was the way I felt in every exchange w/ my then 29 year old daughter. I couldn’t say anything right, she seemed annoyed w/ me and occasionally would flash into rage. I found this book to be very helpful because it lets no-one off the hook for their perceived or actual mental illnesses, especially if those are used as an excuse for bad behavior. The book didn’t attempt to explain individual behavior much, but rather it examined the flow in families and how that flow can be disrupted. If family members don’t care enough to examine and talk about the disruption in flow, the disruption becomes permanent, distance increases and it becomes very hard if not impossible to talk about problems. A very good book.

I found this book interesting and useful in a "you are not alone" sort of way, but found much of its advice reductive and harmful. When your thesis is "children just want to be treated like adults" and your solution is "never say anything to your adult that might be upsetting to them so they don't hate you" it seems like the author may have identified the right problem, but learned the wrong lesson. I was hoping for more constructive discussion and advice on boundary setting, self awareness, and open and honest communication. I also didn't appreciate the extremely gendered assumptions about the nature of mother/son and mother/daughter relationships (there is very little about father/child relationships). Overall, some good moments, but be ready to take some of the outdated views with a grain of salt.

I remember reading from other reviewers that "if you want to be a doormat then read this book. If you felt that way about this book after reading it, I absolutely feel extremely sorry for your adult children. You are the very reason that this book was written. I confirm with the author, if we want your advise - we will ask for it. If we need your two cents - we'll ask for it. So, if not, SHUT UP and keep it to yourself. We love our parents and want to please our parents. We want to make our own mistakes. We want to raise our kids uniquely and to our liking - and you have no say in it. I wish that every meddling old parent could read this book. I'm not saying that things are fair, or right or even reasonable. I am saying, however, that EVERY adult child resents their parents judgmental and condescending attitudes. I don't have to take my kid to the DR every time he gets a cough. Anyways, to reiterate, this is a great book - and I hope the truths and reality of this book take hold - especially to the low star reviewers.

This wonderful book offers many examples with which to identify the tricky and difficult tasks of generating successful relationships between the generations in a family. As a psychotherapist, I find so many people have problems with parents or with adult children, and this is a book I highly recommend. Issues of boundaries, history, mutual judgments, money, time, holidays, sharing grandchildren, getting along with in-laws and more. Parents want to help when help isn't wanted. And adult children see their offers as attempts to control them. A wise comment by the author is: "Grown children have a hard time telling the difference between an innocent remark and parental control." The author's firm advice to parents is: Don't give advice. Reading this book may not solve problems but sure helps in understanding where relationships break down.

This is a great book for anyone in a normal family trying to navigate kids transitioning to adults. I was disappointed because we have a lot of trauma that’s causing rifts, and I had hoped this book might help, but it does not address the role trauma and abuse can play in families.