Probably the hardest part of being the parent of adult children is knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Turns out that would be most of the time.

Don’t even begin to tell your kids how to take care of their children, money, home, health, career and relationships. It’s the quickest way to end a conversation. The result can only be strife and resentment.

And yet, the stories we could tell them. The heartache and whopping blunders they would be spared if they would only listen.

But they won’t. Did we?

Start a retirement account! See the dentist at least once a year! Don’t go into debt! Fix that now before the whole thing breaks! Go back to college and get your degree! Find a job with good benefits! Get that thing looked at by a doctor! Pay your bills on time or you’ll ruin your credit! Quit letting your kids walk all over you! What you put in your body today will come back to haunt you later! Change your car oil every three months! (That’s a big one with my husband.)

Maybe if we didn’t say those things with an exclamation point we’d have better success in getting the message across. Except it seems so much more urgent to be heard when you’re rounding the bend of life and your offspring are floundering in the same troubled waters you navigated at their age.

Yes, kids, we do know what you’re going through and can absolutely tell you the best course of action to take. As the great comedian Richard Pryor said in his routine about a wise old man named Mudbone: “You don’t get to be old bein’ no fool.”

Admittedly there is some self-satisfaction to be had when it finally dawns on them that maybe their clueless parents might know a thing or two. This usually happens in stages:

First, when they go to college or start living on their own and realize how easy they had it while under your roof with a never-ending supply of toothpaste and toilet paper.

Then when they have their first child and wonder how you managed, while holding down a job to boot.

And when those babies turn into teenagers.

True wisdom comes only from life experiences, with age.

So the best you can do when a heart gets broken or in the wake of a soul-crushing career or financial misstep is console them and let them know everything will be fine and you got their back. That’s really what they need to hear, that’s why they came to you.

When times get tough for my twentysomethings, I tell them: “I know it hurts, but it’ll be OK. This is just what you have to go through to get to where you’re going.”

But what I really want to say is: Save your money and take care of your teeth!

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by the women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@staradvertiser.com.