Parenting: Should you give unsolicited advice to your grown children?

Rajen Patel often gives his grown daughter, Mona Patel, unsolicited advice for how to live a balanced life. Based on his own experience, he said, he tells her to carve out time for activities like meditation, community service and exercise.

“I ask her to limit her time watching TV and social media, and to put time into productive” behaviors, said the Port Jefferson Station resident, 64, who manages a motel on Long Island. “Life is all about balancing — you just don’t want to work and not have time for yourself, your community, family and things you like.”

But Mona Patel, 35, a mother and lawyer, is free to choose whether to follow her parent’s advice, Patel said.

“I’m giving my opinion, not commanding,” he said, adding that his daughter seems to appreciate his guidance. As evidence, he said he recently accompanied Mona, at her request, to a car dealership when she leased a car for the first time.

Patel and many other parents on Long Island hold definite views about how their grown children should conduct their daily lives — from the way their offspring maintain their homes to their child-rearing practices. With their years of decision-making experience, these moms and dads believe they know best — even if their adult children don’t necessarily agree.

But unsolicited advice can trigger a backlash, from hurt feelings to anger, and parents have to walk the line between offering guidance and interfering with caution, say some who have been there.

For Massapequa residents and retirees Nathan Garfinkel, 77, and his wife, K.C. Bentley, 75, deciding when to speak up with their son and daughter and their four oldest grandchildren, ages 8 to 23, depends on the issue at hand.

A few years ago, when their granddaughter expressed interest in studying abroad, she didn’t ask Bentley’s opinion. But, her grandmother said, she spoke up anyway, and the young woman, heeding her advice, traveled to Italy.

In instances where Garfinkel, a former Bellmore elementary school teacher, senses that family members are experiencing relationship problems, he said he offers guidance from the heart — “to keep on talking to that friend, partner, spouse, brother-in-law” and “keep the lines of communication open.”

But he views as verboten giving unsought advice to his kids about how they’re bringing up their children, Garfinkel said. “It’s none of my business. It’s their children, and I’m never going to interfere.”

A matter of tone

According to licensed mental health counselor Ron Villano, unsolicited counsel from parents isn’t necessarily something to be frowned upon.

“They’re looking to be involved in their children’s life and helping them have a better life,” said Villano, the owner and director of the Bohemia-based Family and Personal Counseling practice, which has several locations, including in St. James, East Islip and Levittown. “They’re directing their kids not to make the same mistakes they did.”

But depending on its frequency, tone and the adult child’s sensitivity, parents could risk “losing the adult friend connection with their children, which is the next stage in children bringing parents into their world,” Villano said.

Adult children, Villano said, are more likely to welcome guidance from parents if they convey it in “a fun, friendly manner during a conversation.”

Lauretta Silverman said she used to freely give advice to her two daughters — until they got married.

“One of the things I needed to learn was that it was important for the husband and wife to make decisions together,” said Silverman, 68, of Commack. “I know that if they’ve made a decision, they’re not asking for approval, but informing us.”

With that in mind, Silverman carefully chooses when she will speak up and when she will keep her opinion to herself. When she does offer unsolicited counsel, she said, she conveys it as part of a friendly conversation, and she says she tempers the advice to ensure her daughters will take it in the loving spirit that she offered it.

When her daughter Rachel Fisher, 39, and son-in-law Chris, 44, were expecting their third child, Silverman and her husband, Howell, 68, listened to the couple’s ideas about how they would accommodate the new family member in their Commack home and then suggested different approaches, including building an extension, Lauretta Silverman said. Howell, a contractor, explained everything, from building costs to the amount of time such construction could take.

“We had cushioned the conversation by saying that we know it’s their money and their budget, but these are the pros and cons of doing it now rather than later,” Lauretta Silverman said. “How can you tell someone else how to spend their money?”

For her part, Rachel, a special education teacher, said she welcomes her mother’s advice. In fact, she said, she turns to Silverman, as a mother and retired pre-K teacher, for guidance on everything from “the big stuff to the little stuff,” including parenting and professional issues.

Actions instead of words

For the sake of family harmony, Huntington residents Rhonda and Nehemiah Gooden said they let their actions speak for them.

Rather than talk to their daughter, Celina Quiñones, 41, and her husband, Antonio, 46, about their children, Antonio, 6, and Anastacia, 5, turning to iPads for play, the Goodens said they give their grandkids gifts with hands-on learning or creative experiences, such as science, art and building projects.

“We want our grandchildren to think for themselves, which relates to the core values that are important to us,” said Rhonda Gooden, 56, the CEO of Chez Lãa Reine boutique in Huntington Village and the administrator of the Town of Huntington’s School Tax Relief Program. “We want to steer the kids away from mindless programs on the iPad and TV so they don’t become like a zombie. Now we sit down and have them use their brain and mind.”

Celina Quiñones, a stay-at-home mom and former music teacher from Deer Park, said, “I appreciate my parents taking the initiative to create better experiences for our children, especially because our kids have so many toys that whatever they get as gifts needs to be purposeful.”

Cindy Pacini, meanwhile, has no qualms about giving unwelcomed counsel to her daughter — even though Doreen Pacini, 26, will raise her hand to communicate “be quiet” at times.

“I chime in all the time,” said Cindy Pacini, 66, a retired music teacher who lives in West Islip with her husband, Gary, 71, a retired principal. Doreen Pacini, who is the couple’s only child, relocated last year from her parents’ home to San Francisco for a fourth-grade teaching position.

Something that has especially irked Cindy Pacini was her daughter’s annual end-of-summer practice of taping all over her bedroom — including the walls, doors, a mirror and a painting — every photo snapped between September and the following August. Except for last year’s pictures, which are still plastered in her former bedroom, once a year Doreen would remove the previous set of photos and put them in an album, replacing them with a new crop of pictures.

“For two to three years, pictures would be hanging all over and falling down on the bed and the floor,” her mother said. “I always said, ‘This is pretty, but you don’t need to print every picture. [Leave out] half and pick just the best ones and hang those up.’ ”

Much to Cindy Pacini’s astonishment, she said her daughter finally heeded her mother’s advice this year. In her San Francisco bedroom, Cindy Pacini said, “She printed out the best ones and hung them up. . . . I said, ‘Wow, you have space between each photo and [there’s wall] color between them. Doesn’t that look better than just a conglomeration?’ ”

While Cindy wants to reduce the frequency of her unsolicited advice, she said she continues to weigh in on a wide range of issues, including her daughter’s approach to housekeeping.

“I try to mix the positive with the negative,” Cindy Pacini said.

For her part, Doreen Pacini has ready answers to her mom’s mix of praise and criticism. “When she gives me a nice compliment but says the kitchen is a mess, [I tell her] ‘I’m a very busy person and don’t have time to clean every single room every weekend.’ If there are a few dishes in the sink, it’s OK,” Doreen Pacini said. “My parents are neat freaks, and I’m not.”

As she sees it, the parental advice is well-meaning and a family habit — of sorts.

“My parents just want the best for me, and I see in my own life that [my mother] has taken it from her mom, who did the same thing to her,” Doreen Pacini said.