Instead of respecting their right to choose, parents try to manipulate their children's choices through guilt. Instead of letting go, they try to clutch and control their children. Their feelings of neediness and entitlement spoil whatever gifts of time and attention their children bring. What the children do is never quite good enough. The last part of successful parenting is letting go.
Parents remain interested in their children's lives.
They continue to be supportive and concerned. They are available for life's emergencies, and generous when they can be with material support as well as approval and encouragement. As their children marry, parents need to respect the primacy of their son's or daughter's allegiance with their spouse and new family as the center of their emotional lives. Family gatherings, holidays and visits are planned with respect for the children's agenda and needs. They take pleasure in their children's successes - even if those successes take their children out of the parental orbit.