Asha I have just had my grandson Christopher here for four days. He saved up his student money to fly up from Melbourne. I said something to him and he said: "Grandma I'm an adult now." Point taken, he is 23 and doing a Masters in Biomedical Technology. But he is still my grandson and I thought I was guiding him but it was inappropriate. So back off Grandma. 

So it is just little things you say to guide rather than giving them a full on lecture. And laugh and joke and talk about the past and remind yourself that you need to back off to remain friends. And trust they will remember that coming home is about enjoying family not lectures about behaviour.

Asha, too much advice feels like nagging and judgment to the receiver, especially if they have not asked for advice, you can easily push them away by doing this. You need to have faith in them and your parenting, if you’ve done your job right they will have good grounding and knowledge to make their choices. And remember what is right for them is not always what you would like or choose for yourself. Trust them to be their own best self, and make sure that they know you will always be there to help if/when things don’t work out as they hoped or planned.

The old adage is true in this case “if you love something let it go, if it comes back it’s yours, if it doesn’t it never was”