I'm OK, You're My Parents: How to Overcome Guilt, Let Go of Anger, and Create a Relationship That Works - Softcover

Atkins, Dale; Hass, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805077944 ISBN 13: 9780805077940

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 2005

Synopsis

"Atkins's strength is in suggesting ways to rewire your relationship . . . If your parents drive you up the wall, there's plenty here to help you. And the cost of the book is definitely cheaper than therapy." —The Boston Globe

In a recent study, half of all Americans rated their relationship with at least one parent as either "poor" or "terrible," and more than a third felt this way about both parents. As life expectancy continues to rise and the parent-child relationship extends further and further into adulthood, this problem has reached epidemic proportion.

I'm Ok, You're My Parents offers practical, specific advice on how to
- exorcise the demons of anger and resentment
- untangle financial arrangements that cause stress and feelings of powerlessness
- set limits on parental demands for time and attention
- turn a spouse or friends into a powerful resource
- overcome your own resistance to change
- discover the redemptive power of humor

This will prove invaluable to anyone eager to get off the "treadmill," gain control, and build a life that they and their parents can live with—forever.

About this title

About the Author:

Dale Atkins, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, lecturer, and media commentator who appears regularly on the Today Show. The author of five books, she has been a frequent contributor to Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, and Parents. She lives in Connecticut and has a practice in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From I’m OK, You’re My Parents:
“I’d kill him,” said Luanne, “but that would nullify the will, right?” I told her it was a good sign that she was still able to joke about the situation. At least that meant she hadn’t given up entirely. Her husband, Kurt, though, sat stone-faced.

Luanne was talking about her father, a well-known lawyer. The problem was that he was using his money to manipulate them, and he was doing his usual crackerjack job. Kurt was
struggling in his advertising career and Luanne’s father seemed to be making the most of that.

“He’s fantastically rich and he dangles her inheritance in front of us all the time,” Kurt
sputtered. “Whenever he thinks we aren’t seeing him enough or giving him enough time with the grandchildren or when he feels we haven’t been sufficiently reverential, he drops little hints about adjusting his will. I try not to react, but I feel so humiliated I can’t sleep.”

What they didn’t say until I coaxed it out of them was that they already regularly took money from her father, always let him pick up the tabs at their frequent dinners together (he always chose the place, naturally), and allowed him weekly toy-shopping sprees with the twins. Strange, isn’t it, how money, which is supposed to buy freedom, so often winds up purchasing little more than slavery?

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0805077944
• ISBN 13: 9780805077940
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336