ABSTRACT
This chapter has been inspired by an interest to define the parenting relationship with adult children based on clinical practice and in-depth research study. Since the publication of the first edition where the early stages of the work were published (Gower et al. 2005), an in-depth qualitative study using narrative analysis and leading to the first author’s PhD thesis (Gower 2011) has been completed. The study raised theoretical propositions about the relationship between parents and their adult children. In this chapter we will share the subsequent outcomes and theoretical propositions about functional features of adult parenting. At the end of the chapter we will attempt to be purposefully practice-specific in order to encourage the consideration of the applicability of these new ideas to both nonclinical and clinical situations.
