9 Things You Should Stop Doing For Your Kids!

There is a point in life when one gets tired, not of one’s children, but of living around them. You realize that you have been giving, sustaining, keeping quiet for years… And yet you still feel invisible. It’s not that you’ve stopped loving, it’s that you started to disappear in the name of that love.

At a certain age it is no longer enough to say “this is the life of parents”. We must also ask ourselves:
Where did I end up in all this?
Who takes care of me?
What place do I give myself in my own story?

This text is not for you to feel guilty, but for you to start looking at yourself with more respect. Loving your children does not mean giving up on yourself. And continuing to do things that hurt you “so as not to lose them” only breaks you inside.

Therefore, here are nine things you need to stop doing for your adult children if you want to live this stage with more peace, dignity and inner freedom.

1. Stop solving their lives as if you didn’t have one

For years you have run after every problem: you lent them money, you took care of grandchildren, you covered debts, you arranged papers, you did urgent favors that were not even yours. They decided… and you paid the emotional, physical and economic cost.

At first it seemed like love. Over time it became routine. And without realizing it, you put your own plans on hold: travel, friendships, hobbies, rest. Everything was left for “later”.

You need to remember something essential:
Your adult children’s problems are their responsibility, not yours.

You can listen, advise, accompany if it is born to you. But you’re not obligated to bail out every time. When you do everything, they don’t grow; they settle in. And you get exhausted.

2. Stop justifying your bad attitudes

“He’s stressed.”
“He’s having a hard time.”
“He doesn’t realize it.”

In order not to face the truth, you have given a thousand excuses for the yelling, the rudeness, the disinterest, the indifference or the lack of respect. But deep down you know when you’re treated badly: you feel it in your chest, in the tears you hide, in that lump in your throat after every conversation.

To justify is not to love.
To justify is to betray yourself.

Being a father or mother does not mean accepting any deal. You have the right to ask for respect. And if your adult children don’t give it to you, that doesn’t make you selfish for setting limits; it makes you worthy.

3. Stop procrastinating your own life

Many elderly parents live waiting for a permit that never comes:
“When my children are well, I will think of myself.”
“When they don’t need me so much anymore, I’m going to rest.”

That day never comes, because there is always a new urgency. And in the meantime, your years go by, your body gets tired, and your dreams cool down in a drawer.

You don’t need anyone to authorize you to live.
If you are alive, you still have time to choose yourself.

Even if you are 60, 70 or 80 years old, you have the right to take up a hobby, take a trip, learn something new, have friends, say “I can’t do it today” and rest without guilt. Your life is not a surplus; it’s your priority.

4. Stop giving away your time as if it were infinite

The time you have left is sacred. You are not anyone’s official chauffeur, babysitter, therapist, or permanent lifeguard. You are a person with limits and needs.

When you give all your weekends, all your afternoons, all your strength to sustain the lives of others, your own time ceases to exist. And the hardest thing is to see that many do not even value that effort because you were always there.

It’s not about stopping helping, but about not giving up your whole life.
You can say:

• “Not today.”
• “This time I can’t.”
• “I need to rest.”

If they love you, they will learn to respect your time. If they only use you, what you do will never be enough.

5. Stop asking for love as if your value depends on it

Not every parent is loved as he deserves.
There are mothers who go to bed every night looking at their phones, waiting for a message that doesn’t arrive. And in silence they ask themselves:
“What else do I have to do to be loved?”

The truth is hard, but necessary:
Your value does not depend on your children’s calls, visits or messages.

You are worth everything you have been and done: for getting up when you couldn’t take it anymore, for supporting your family, for the times you endured without anyone knowing. You don’t have to beg for affection or buy attention with favors, money, or sacrifices.

When you stop begging for love, you regain your inner freedom. You can start to surround yourself with people who do value you, even if they are not of your blood. And most of all, you can start treating yourself with the love you’ve always expected from others.

6. Letting them talk to you “so you don’t lose them”

Disrespect, hurtful tones, mockery, shouting, orders, humiliation… And you keep quiet out of fear: fear that they will move away, that they will not call you again, that they will not see the grandchildren.

But keeping quiet doesn’t protect you: it destroys you inside.

What you are experiencing has a name: emotional abuse. And it is not justified with stress, or with problems, or with “it’s his character”.

You have the right to say:

• “Don’t talk to me like that.”
• “I’m not going to allow you to treat me like this.”
• “If you raise your voice to me, the conversation ends.”

Maybe at first they will get upset. But if you don’t set limits, contempt becomes a habit. Better alone and in peace than accompanied and humiliated.

7. Stop living dependent on their lives and start inhabiting yours

You’ve lived whole years watching their footsteps:
Are they okay?
Did they fight?
Will they call me?
Will they need anything?

Without realizing it, you put your own life on hold to be a spectator of theirs. But your children are already adults, they have their world, their problems, their decisions. You are not the axis of their life… And that’s natural.

What is not healthy is that you continue to live around them.

You did not come into the world to be anyone’s satellite.
You also have the right to be the protagonist of your days.

Start with simple things: go for a walk, have a quiet coffee, recover a hobby, have new friends, organize your house to your liking, enjoy the silence without feeling “useless”.

Loving your children does not mean disappearing yourself.

8. Let them continue to depend on you when they are adults

There are children in their 30s, 40s or 50s who continue to act like teenagers because there was always someone who rescued them in time: you.

You paid them debts, covered up mistakes, hosted them, solved papers, took care of their children, lent your car, your house and your peace. They got used to the fact that “as long as mom or dad is around, nothing is that serious.”

But this unlimited help does not strengthen them, it weakens them.
And it leaves you exhausted.

Letting go is not giving up.
To let go is to say, “I love you, but this is up to you.”

Maybe they’ll get angry, maybe they’ll accuse you of being selfish. But only when they feel the real weight of life will they learn what it meant to always have you there. And you need to rest from that role of eternal lifeguard that no longer corresponds to you.

9. Stop expecting gratitude

Perhaps what hurts the most is not what you did, but what you were never told. You didn’t hear a sincere “thank you,” a “I know what you sacrificed for me,” a “I value you.” And that lack of recognition feels like an open wound.

But there is a reality that is both hard and liberating:
You may never be thanked as you expect.

That doesn’t erase what you did.
It does not erase your sleepless nights, your renunciations, your hidden tears.

You didn’t give for applause, you gave because you felt it, because you believed it was the right thing to do, because you loved. That already has value in itself, even if no one names it.

If one day the gratitude comes, let it be a gift, not a debt collected. In the meantime, work on something more important: your own gratitude to yourself. Acknowledge what you did, honor your own effort, and stop measuring your life by the words you didn’t hear.

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