Helping Launch Adult Kids Living at Home

While many older adults may be lamenting their empty nest, eagerly awaiting the arrival of grand babies, others are just hoping their adult children will find meaningful employment that allows them to begin their own, independent life.

Call it the Boomerang Generation or Failure to Launch Syndrome, but many parents of adult children are facing retirement still financially and emotionally tied to their kids.  When young adults, sometimes well into their 20s or even 30s continue to live with their parents, it can cause stress for parents who may continue playing traditional roles well past their usefulness.

While a poor economy can be blamed for some unemployment, adult children living at home should be working somewhere while seeking the ideal job and paying for essentials such as food, gas, clothing and of course doing their own laundry and cleaning.

According to the 2011 Canadian Census, 42.3 per cent of young adults between the ages of 20 and 29 still live at home and in Ontario, more than 50 per cent of adults children of this age are living with their parents.  In some cases living at home is a cultural preference in additional to being a financial need while pursuing education or job hunting.

Tips For Parents

• Treat grown children as adults involving them in the management of the home.  How will they contribute, through house work or perhaps rent?
• Collaborate with adult child about goals.
• Do not give money without concrete evidence of efforts towards independence.
• Don’t be chief cook and bottle washer for adult children.  Grown kids should contribute to grocery bill and cook on scheduled days of the week.
• Maintain respect of the home by limiting guests or prohibiting smoking.  Make it clear that to remain, rules must be followed.
• Be calm, supportive, positive and non-controlling in offering guidance or communicating expectation of independence.
• Give yourself time to think over decisions, ask for at least 24 hours before making any big changes.
• Set a time limit for young adult living at home.
• If financially possible, offer to help with renting an apartment, decreasing contributions over time.  Set an end date.
• Do not give money to an adult child with a substance abuse problem.  Seek treatment for drug or alcohol addiction.

Source:  Psychology Today

As 60 becomes the new 40, it seems as though 30 is the new 20 with stay at home sons and daughters remaining in their parents’ home while seeking their dream career or completing their education.   But parents be warned, an extended adolescence can be expected to cost parents up to 10 per cent of their earning each year and could even delay retirement.

While parents always want the best for their children, paying dues and working your way up from nothing also offers youth an opportunity to grow and learn from experience.  Do we really want to deny them that?