Use this 5-Step Approach to Put Him on the Path to Independence.
I recently came across this statistic: Living with a parent is the most common living arrangement for 18-to-34 year olds in the U.S. for the first time on record, according to Pew Research Center’s 2016 report. Does anyone else find this shocking?
I remember when I couldn’t wait to get out on my own. It was the ‘80s. I didn’t have a great relationship with my single mother and moving out with my boyfriend was preferable to living at home, even though my mother offered to pay my college tuition for as long as I was living at home. It’s crazy to think I sacrificed paid college to get out of the house ASAP (especially in light of the fact that it took a long hard decade of night school to earn my B.S. degree.) But in hindsight I would have made the same decision. Independence is the ONLY way to figure out who you really are and I knew I couldn’t do it while living with (in my case) a domineering parent.
Granted, young adults today face steeper economic challenges with the shortage of living wage jobs for non-college graduates, crippling school loan debt, and high rents. But if you’ve been unsuccessful in getting your adult child to (fill in the blank) ___________ go to school, get a job, contribute financially, move out, etc. then it’s time to change your tactics. These five steps will help you transform your parenting style into one that puts your adult child on the path to independence.
Step 1: Understand the consequences of your continued enabling behavior
This may sound harsh…but if you are still doing laundry, cooking meals or giving money (full-time students excepted) to your adult child, then you are unwittingly trapping him on the path of least resistance. Who would resist a deal like that? Unfortunately, you are subconsciously teaching him that he is not capable of being self-sufficient. Worst still, you are withholding life skills that you could be teaching him and, consequently, conditioning him to be dependent on you (or his future life partner).
Side note: the Pew Research Center study found that 35% of young adult males were living at home with their parent(s) compared to 29% of young adult females. It makes me wonder if we tend to do a better job of teaching homemaking skills to our daughters than our sons.
How I evened out the playing field for both genders
First came awareness. I realized it was easier and felt more natural to include my daughter during meal prep, but I literally had to schedule my son to participate. I was also guilty of doling out repair and maintenance tasks to my son and not my daughter. Since I had this realization I’ve relabeled all homemaking tasks as “self-sufficiency skills.” The kids know they are expected to do these regularly before they leave home. It’s so great for me now because we live like three roommates who share in all the cooking, cleaning and maintenance responsibilities, but I am the boss!
Step 2: Take responsibility for changing the dynamic
Key to your approach is creating a supportive environment for mistake-making. If your child is not behaving like an adult, accept responsibility for the fact that your well-meaning doting, protective, or authoritative parenting style conditioned him to be dependent on you for his care, common sense, or direction. Right about this time in your child’s life he is struggling to figure out who he is and what he wants, apart from what you expect. The more pressure you place on him the more paralyzed he can feel. This resistance is actually a positive sign because raising a pleaser would lead to a whole other set of problems for your child in the long run.
Deep inside, your child wants to be confident and independent. It’s human nature to want that. He just doesn’t know how to get there within your current parent-child dynamic. You can definitely help him get there, but it will mean changing your approach from one that possibly coddles, shames, or prods to one that affirms and guides. Key to your approach is creating a supportive environment for mistake-making.
Here’s an example of me withholding judgment of a mistake and putting the responsibility on her to solve her problem
Ely was visiting out of town friends for the summer when she received her first speeding ticket. Following are the high points of our phone conversation.
Me: How are you going to pay it?
Ely: I was hoping you could lend me the money.
Me: You’re 18 now. It’s time to start adulting. I would be doing you a disservice by solving this problem for you.
Ely: But I don’t have the money and I won’t be able to earn enough to pay it by the due date even if I find a job as soon as I get back next month. I promise I’ll pay you back with my first paycheck after I get a job at the end of summer.
Me: That’s still me solving the problem for you. This is a consequence of your actions and therefore your problem to solve. If I lend you the money, I’d be sheltering you like a child. Think about how you would handle it if I didn’t have the money? I’m sure you can come up with a solution if you just spend some time thinking about it.
Ely: (Tears…shaky voice) I understand what you’re saying but I really don’t want to ruin my summer by coming back early and getting a job.
Me: That may or may not be the solution. Why don’t you spend some time thinking about it? I know you’ll be able to figure this out. I love you.
Ely: (Shaky, monotone voice) I love you too, bye.
Next day
Ely: I figured out that I can request a postponement of the court/pay date.
Me: Great! You figured this out completely on your own! Good job adulting!
Ely: Thanks mom. I love you.
Me: I love you, too. Listen, we all make mistakes. That’s how we learn. The important thing is that we LEARN from them and don’t repeat the same mistakes. What did you learn from this?
Ely: To do a better job watching out for cops.
(Big sigh)…so maybe wisdom doesn’t come that quickly to some, but my hope is that repeating this type of problem solving conversation whenever it’s needed will train her to accept the consequences of her actions, forgive herself for making a mistake, find the lesson in that experience, and move forward in life confident that she can tackle whatever comes her way. It’s my hope and I’m sticking to it. (And yes, I should have started talking to her this way many years earlier!)
Step 3: Have a reset conversation
This is where you and your child get on the same page about how you will work together going forward. It could start out something like this:
Parent: “I read something recently and realized that in many ways I’m still treating you like a child. You’re an adult now and I want to start treating you like an adult. I’d like us to have a conversation about how we can make this shift. When would be a good time for you?”
If you have a complicated relationship this could be a shock to your child and he may not be in a state of mind at that moment to jump right into it. It’s important to let him pick the time to have it. You want him to feel safe and not on defense.
Let’s say there is some emotional baggage between the two of you. It’s important to deal with this first so that it doesn’t rear its ugly head later on down the line when you are having an accountability conversation (because those can be uncomfortable for both of you in the beginning).
When trust is missing from your relationship you need to address why. It’s important to let your child freely share any frustration about you as a parent without trying to defend yourself. If he doesn’t feel you are hearing or understanding how he feels, his trust in you will be low and he won’t buy-in to the changes you are trying to make.
If you think this part of the conversation will get confrontational, establish ground rules beforehand and agree to keep insults and judgments out of it. The idea is to clear the air of any mistrust or resentment so you can then discuss how you’ll work together going forward.
Step 4: Set Expectations
Next, get both of yourselves clear on what the new expectations are. Remember how I said I get to be the boss of my “roommates”? Well, here is where I channeled my work persona and approached this step like I would with an employee. This may be the first step in your reset conversation if you don’t need to go through the “clear the air” stage. If you do go through that stage, you may want to wait a few days until both of you have recovered and if you need some time to think about what expectations you want to set.
I had this conversation with my children individually so that each one had my undivided attention. The impetus? They had been responsible for various chores for quite a few years, but I realized I was still reminding them to do many of them. I got sick of it and realized I wasn’t doing a good job of communicating my expectations and holding them accountable.
Here’s an example of how I approached it with my son
Me: Now that you’re an adult and about to start college I realize that I’m still treating you like a child in many ways. I don’t want to do that anymore. Even though you depend on me for food, shelter and expenses, I want you to start thinking and acting like an adult because I want you to be prepared for the real world. I think the best way to do that is to treat you like an employer would, when it comes to your responsibilities. How does that sound?
Alex: Okaaay.
Me: Great! When you start a new job a good boss will set expectations with you. Do you know what that means?
Alex: Tells you what he expects?
Me: Exactly. Setting expectations means you both have the same understanding of what doing a good job looks like and what doing a bad job looks like. And you understand the consequences (good or bad) that they lead to.
Alex: My old boss didn’t do that. He just told me what to do and left me on my own.
Me: When you get a more serious job with more important tasks, a good boss should do this with you. I’m going to treat your responsibilities around the house like job tasks. Okay with you?
Alex: Yeah.
We went over each of his “responsibilities” (I didn’t use the words, “chores” or “household tasks” for obvious reasons). I reviewed my expectations for:
- when each gets completed
- what complete looks like
- completion– if I had to remind him, it would viewed as a poor work ethic and unacceptable
Alex: What do I get if I do everything well without being reminded?
Me: (Deflated that I had raised a 19-year old that asked this question but knowing it’s my own fault for using sticker charts when he was little.) The satisfaction of knowing you are one step closer to feeling like an adult! (In an earlier conversation, Alex had told me that even though he was 19 he didn’t feel like an adult, so my response wasn’t completely facetious.)
Step 5: Mutually agree on the accountability plan
After we agreed on the expectations, I asked Alex for his permission to hold him accountable for responsibilities when he forgot to do them. Holding him accountable would simply be saying, “Alex, you committed to getting this done at this time and in this manner, but you have not done it as promised. What is getting in the way?” When I inevitably, later asked him this his answer was, “Oh, sorry I forgot.” But seriously, it only took me saying this, maybe, twice and I never had to remind him of anything again.
As a tracking tool, we set up a checklist of responsibilities as a shared Note on our iPhones. As he checks them off, I get a notification that he made a change on the Note and I can see what has been completed at any time. I usually only look at the end of each week, then remove the check marks and that’s how he knows I’m monitoring him. In the past I had given the kids paper checklists or posted laminated checklists on the fridge but those tended to get ignored after a while. I suspect the technical aspect this time around felt more mature. Tech savvy families may want to use a free project planning app like Trello or Asana for actual projects, but both Android and IOS have the ability to share Notes, which works fine for simple checklists.
The bottom line
If your adult child is stalled or floundering, this five step approach will help you create a supportive environment where he can shed the role of dependent child and begin to see himself as an independent adult. This may not always look like you want it to. Independence can only be developed when we are allowed to make our own choices and alone deal with the consequences. Sometimes that means your child will make choices you don’t agree with. And you must allow him to make mistakes and help him learn from them.
Let him know that you are approaching this change from:
- a place of love and respect
- a willingness to trust in his abilities
- a desire to support his decisions, whether you think they are right or wrong
This will go a long way in building his trust in you and confidence in himself. The shift you make in your own behavior is the key to providing that environment.