Your daughter mentions on the phone that she’s thinking about leaving her job. Before she’s finished the sentence, you have three opinions and a question about her retirement account.
Giving advice to an adult child is tricky partly because of everything that came before it. For years, your job was to tell them what to do. Now the same words can sound like you still think you’re in charge, even when all you meant was to help.
No phrase can guarantee that advice will be welcome. Timing, tone, and whether they asked usually matter more than the wording. But some ways of saying things leave more room for the other person to stay an adult in the conversation. Here are seven of them.
The Artful Parent
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They aren’t ways to get advice past someone who has already said they don’t want it. What counts is what happens after the phrase.
1. “Would it help to hear what I’d do, or not right now?”
Your son is telling you about the house he and his wife are thinking of buying. You’ve already spotted the problem with the commute.
Asking first gives him a real choice. If he says yes, at least he’s expecting it. That doesn’t mean he’ll agree, but he isn’t being ambushed.
He might also say, “Not right now, I’m still thinking it through.” That’s the hard part. If he says no, you leave it there. He may ask another time, or he may not.
2. “What are you leaning toward?”
Your daughter is choosing between two job offers. You have a clear favorite.
Before you say so, you ask what she’s leaning toward and why. She walks you through it, and it turns out she’s already thought about the things you were going to raise, plus a few you hadn’t.
Sometimes you still have a concern. But now you can attach it to her thinking: “That makes sense. Have you looked at how the health insurance compares?” It sounds like you’re helping her decide, not deciding for her.
Sometimes she hears the concern, thanks you, and takes the other offer anyway. You don’t have to agree with her choice to stop making the case against it.
3. “Here’s what I’d worry about, and tell me if I’m off base”
Your son is planning to quit his job to start a landscaping business, and he asks what you think. You think the timing is risky.
“You’re making a mistake” is a verdict. “Here’s what I’d worry about” is your own reaction, and it’s honest about being one. Adding “tell me if I’m off base” makes it clear you know you might be missing something.
He may still bristle. Worry from a parent can sound like doubt, however carefully it’s phrased. But it gives him something to answer rather than something to defend against, and sometimes he’ll tell you something that changes your mind.
4. “When we were in a similar spot, here’s what happened”
Your daughter and her partner are thinking about lending money to a friend. She asks whether you ever did anything like that. You have a story.
Instead of telling her what to do, you tell her what you did: the loan to your old neighbor, the two years of awkward barbecues, and the fact that you’d probably do it again, just with a written agreement.
A story leaves her free to take what’s useful. It also works better when you include the part you got wrong.
It helps to admit when things were different. “That was 1994, so take it for what it’s worth” lets her weigh the story without feeling she has to argue with it.
5. “You know him better than I do”
Your grandson melts down every time it’s time to leave the park, and you’ve watched it happen three Saturdays in a row. You have an idea ready.
Instead, you ask, “What have you tried when it’s time to leave?”
“We give him a warning,” your daughter says. “Leaving is still hard.”
“Right,” you say. “I was about to suggest something you’re already doing. You know him better than I do.”
She sees him every day, at bedtime and at 6 a.m. Sometimes the most useful thing a question does is show you that your advice wasn’t new.
6. “I’ve told you my concern. I’ll leave it with you”
Some concerns are big enough that staying quiet doesn’t feel right. Your son is about to sign a lease on an apartment that costs more than half his take-home pay.
So you say it, clearly: “I’m worried the rent will leave you stretched.” He tells you he’s done the numbers and wants to live closer to work.
“Okay,” you say. “I’ve told you my concern. I’ll leave it with you.”
Then comes the harder part: you don’t bring it up again. Not at Thanksgiving, not when he mentions a car repair, not in a sideways comment about the price of groceries.
You may not manage it perfectly. But a worry he hears once can still sound like advice. A worry he hears every visit starts to sound like a running complaint.
7. “However it goes, I’d like to hear about it”
Your daughter took the job you had doubts about. Three months in, she calls to say it’s been rougher than she expected.
You feel the “I told you so” coming. You don’t say it. You ask what a normal day there looks like now, and you listen.
Sometimes it goes the other way. The thing you worried about works out well, and you get to say, “I’m glad I was wrong about that.”
Either way, she knows she can tell you how it’s really going, including the parts that didn’t work out.
When it lands badly anyway
Even with careful wording, you’ll sometimes slip. You’ll interrupt, or keep going after they’ve said no. When that happens, naming what you did helps more than explaining what you meant:
“I jumped straight into telling you what to do. You weren’t asking for that. Sorry.”
Or: “You said you didn’t want advice, and I kept going. I’ll stop.”
Next time you feel advice rising up, ask first, then wait for the answer before you say anything else.