Parenting Your Emerging Adult

by Varda Konstam

The solutions are difficult to find. Parents need to come up with their own answers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

  Let’s look at some ways of thinking about parenting an emerging adult that will help you generate your own answers, suited to your unique situation, and hopefully give you some encouragement and reassurance too.

  The Launching Pad

  As we’ve been discussing, in the past children left home at a younger age and by more predictable routes. If they did stay in the home, the reason for doing so was usually made explicitly clear—perhaps to care for an aging parent or to help with a family business. The phenomenon of in-house parenting of emerging adults, with no firm exit strategy in mind, was not a widespread social reality in the past. It occurred only in isolated cases.

  It seems appropriate to declare that a major new phase of family life has emerged. We will call it the Launching Pad period. The Launching Pad period often stretches on for years and most parents are unprepared for it. They don’t know how to act. There is no historical precedent, so, in a sense, parents must make their own rules.

  Parents’ relationships with their emerging adults may suffer because of the confusion. But parents don’t want that to happen either. They may be troubled by emerging adults’ reluctance to launch, yet parents still want to have healthy, enjoyable relationships with them. Let’s discuss how this can be possible.

  Finding the Right Approach

  For those who are feeling flustered as parents of emerging adult children, here is a reassuring finding: Most relationships between emerging adults and their parents improve over time. Tensions ease, communication improves and awkwardness lessens.1 Hold on to this important finding, particularly in moments of despair. Have faith that your relationship with your emerging adult can and will get better. Research shows that, for the most part, emerging adults do grow to become independent, productive adults. They do launch!

  In the last five chapters we looked at the new realities that emerging adults are facing in their work and personal lives. As we discussed, compared to the twenties of their parents, everything is more uncertain for them, less predictable. Due to the phenomenal speed of social and technological change and the economic downturn, there is less clear sense about where the world is heading. Norms and guidelines have nearly vanished.

  That can be a good or a bad thing, depending upon how you look at it. Parents find themselves proceeding without models and that may feel a bit frightening. However, parents have an unprecedented opportunity for creativity, innovation and crafting their own unique family structures—structures that actually work.

  In the past, social pressure was on parents and children alike to follow predictable patterns: finish high school/college, get a job or get married, move out. Today, no longer bound by social expectations, parents can do things their own way without fear of being judged or condemned. That can be a very freeing idea.

  Parents can choose to form stronger and more satisfying bonds with their emerging adults than ever before. They can create unique households and relationships tailor-made for those involved.

  Let’s proceed with that optimistic goal in mind.

  As we get into the topic of how to be parents in the pre-launch era, here are questions to think about and hopefully boost your confidence level:

  •What other times in your past have you felt new to parenting or unsure about what to do in caring for your child? Perhaps when she or he was a baby and you were a new parent? Or perhaps when your child encountered life obstacles unfamiliar to you?

  •How were you able to overcome your fears of “not knowing” and remind yourself of all you did know?

  •What steps did you take to protect, empower or advocate for your child, even when you were unsure of the best ways to do this?

  •Where did you get the information or support to take such steps?

  •What does it say about you as a parent that you were motivated and able to tackle such difficult parenting challenges?

  •As a parent, have you ever realized that it is better to trust your instincts than any of the advice available from books, friends and experts?

  •Who might have noticed your past parenting successes and would not have been surprised by them? What would that person say to you now as you face your current parenting challenges?

  When you think back on your history as a parent, you will probably realize that, to some extent, you have always had to make your rules and judgments. From the time you first brought your infant home from the hospital, set her in her new crib and said to yourself, “Okay, now what do I do?” to the day you unexpectedly had to teach her about sexuality or personal safety, you have needed to define parenthood your own way. And you have probably been doing a pretty good job of it. You have undoubtedly made some errors, but you have learned from them and you have tried to correct them.

  You have a lot more wisdom than you probably give yourself credit for. That wisdom hasn’t abandoned you now. It’s stronger than ever, because it’s been seasoned by experience. You can trust that wisdom and trust the parenting process, too. You will make some missteps with your emerging adult, but ultimately, as long as you are committed to the process, the process is self-correcting. Whatever is not working can be addressed. Be open to the idea that it is a process and that you and your emerging adult have the resources to figure it out together and self-correct.

  With that in mind, let’s take an honest look at your present parenting approach. Is it working for you? What do you like and dislike about the way you are negotiating your role as a parent? It might be helpful to make a list of pros and cons. What are the things you are doing well and the things you need to improve? Write them down. It’s good to consider them side-by-side. No one else needs to see your list.

  As you look at your cons you are probably feeling pangs of guilt and incompetence. Don’t be too hard on yourself; whatever failings you have identified, millions of other parents are experiencing them too. You are not alone.

  A Common Mistake: Helicopter Parenting

  As we look for fresh approaches to parenting an emerging adult, let’s look more closely at a current parenting trend. The term helicopter parent has been coined to describe it.

  What is helicopter parenting? Many anxious parents, unsure of how to encourage independence, find themselves hovering over their emerging adults. They become over-involved and over-protective. They micromanage their children’s day-to-day lives. Rather than let their emerging adults solve their own problems, they intervene at a moment’s notice to “fix” problems.2

  Helicopter parents seem intent on prolonging the Launching Pad phase, despite protestations to the contrary. They have become such a notable intrusion in emerging adult life that the Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com reported that the University of Vermont hires student “parent bouncers” during registration in order to “redirect” parents and prevent them from attending.3 Other colleges have taken similar steps to prevent such intrusive parents from “helping.”

  Although parents of emerging adults are usually well-intentioned, many of them, especially some with greater financial resources, have become infantilizing, controlling and intrusive. They create family dynamics that are more appropriate for younger children and defeat the goal of independence. Helicopter parents perceive their children as less than fully competent, so they step in and “handle” issues, thereby guaranteeing that their children aren’t afforded a chance to grow up.

  This pattern of parenting is increasingly common and resonates with the anxious, uncertain times in which many find themselves. In their attempts to micromanage, helicopter parents tend to undermine their emerging adults’ confidence and autonomy, setting in motion a cycle of dependency that can be debilitating. Emerging adults who are “hovered over” are often afraid to explore, experiment and risk failure. Instead they look to Mom and Dad for answers, thus continuing the vicious cycle.

  Landing the Helicopter

  All parents want their chi
ldren to be engaged, connected and self-assured. Parents want their emerging adults to be able to navigate the complexity of the modern world and to have the resilience to work through setbacks. None wants to be over-involved, worried and intrusive. They would like to “land the helicopter.” However, their anxiety gets in the way. They worry about their emerging adults’ ability to “get it right,” so they hover over them in a desire to protect. They may even have trouble distinguishing between support and suffocation.

  But why is it that parents fear seeing their emerging adults make mistakes? After all, they should know from their own experience that mistakes are the greatest teachers. Why can’t parents allow their sons and daughters the gift of committing major screwups and solving their own problems?

  There are many reasons for this. The economic downturn informs parenting behavior. The stakes are high and therefore there are real concerns that second and third chances may be in short supply. Parents also value their children’s dependence on them. Many parents enjoy playing the role of indispensable problem-solver. It satisfies parental egos. It makes them feel important and needed.

  However, if parents want their emerging adults to be independent, they need to question whether they are sending mixed messages to their children. One of the most powerful ways parents can move in that direction is to allow their emerging adults to make mistakes without rushing in to fix them. This requires a conscious act of stepping back and disengaging from the fixing process. It may feel painful and unnatural at first, but it is critically important. In the process of solving problems, emerging adults invariably learn about themselves and become more confident in their abilities. Parents need to understand themselves—their own vulnerabilities and strengths—and then proceed accordingly, empowered with the knowledge that in many cases they are likely to err on the side of overprotecting their emerging adult children.

  Their Needs or Your Needs?

  Parents of emerging adults must be clear about their investment in their sons and daughters. How much of your worrying and criticizing is about your own needs and how much of it is about your emerging adult’s needs? Madeline Levine, in her insightful book The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, offers this penetrating observation:

  Well-meaning parents contribute to problems in self-development by pressuring their children, emphasizing external measures of success, being overly critical, and being alternately emotionally unavailable or intrusive. Becoming independent and forging an identity becomes particularly difficult for children under these circumstances…

  [The process is] not aided when kids have to battle against parents who are implanting other, often unrealistic “selves”—stellar student, outstanding athlete, perfect kid—into their [child’s] already crowded psychological landscape.4

  It is hard to parent an emerging adult without the parents feeling they have a major stake in the outcome. But being overly invested in their children is counterproductive in the long run. Parents have to learn to let go of their emerging adults and not to be attached to any particular outcomes. Their lives are their lives. The more parents detach from the results that they want to see, the more freely everyone can breathe—mothers and fathers and their emerging adults.

  Every time parents hear themselves complain about their emerging adults’ overdependence on them, it can be a good opportunity to do a reality check. Are the parents really doing everything they can to let go of their sons and daughters or are mothers and fathers encouraging dependence by intruding, hovering, “fixing” and holding them to parental standards rather than letting emerging adults develop their own?

  Helicopter parenting is not the only way parents keep their emerging adults in developmental limbo. Parents may also use dictatorial, passive-aggressive, indifferent and submissive approaches that similarly fail to strike a balance between encouraging independence and enabling dependence. But let’s shift our focus to what does work.

  Let’s discuss developing a parenting framework that works for you. It is enhanced by the experiences of real parents of emerging adults and incorporates the wisdom they have gained along the way.

  Finding a Framework

  One of the primary tasks of parenthood is to separate or differentiate yourself from your children. But how do parents begin to differentiate when their children are still living in the home and when parents are acting overly involved, intrusive or meddling?

  Let’s look at things from a developmental point of view. William Aquilino, an expert and researcher in the field of parenting, speaks of the parent-child relationship as evolving over time. It is not static.5 Being a parent remains a central part of your identity, no matter how old your children grow, but different skills are called upon at different times, depending on the developmental challenges your child is encountering.

  Your child starts as a helpless being, totally dependent on you. Then slowly she or he transforms into an adult who is capable of having a relationship based on reciprocity, respect and care. Parents have to change in order to support this metamorphosis. Your job is to read the new cues and to adapt to them. This must always remain an active, conscious process. What worked yesterday may no longer work today. Most of the problems that parents create for themselves are due to getting stuck using past models that no longer work. Parents slip into familiar patterns and don’t challenge themselves to change them.

  The most important thing parents can do is remain open-minded, alert for new cues:

  …old patterns of interaction may change when families enter a new life stage…The past influences, but does not determine, the course of future intergenerational relationships.6

  Familiar patterns will continue to be part of your relationship with your emerging adult. Parents can’t reinvent themselves or their relationships overnight. But they can and should look for opportunities to create new patterns of relating that more closely reflect new mutual goals. Taking concrete steps involves:

  •Rescinding old rules regarding things like curfews, dating and room-cleaning;

  •Expecting greater financial contributions to the household;

  •Sharing household chores fairly and developing ways of encouraging this that don’t involve nagging;

  •Spending more time apart and doing fewer mutual activities;

  •Encouraging greater privacy by making changes to the physical layout of the home and to certain family customs;

  •Cutting back on parental services such as cooked meals, laundry and cleaning;

  •Reducing shared resources such as food and toiletries;

  •Encouraging your emerging adult to turn to friends and colleagues (not you) for advice and problem-solving.

  Leaving home has always served as an important milestone, an opportunity for renegotiating the relationship between parent and son or daughter. It is trickier to renegotiate when your emerging adult is still living in the home, but still this renegotiation must occur. Parents must make changes to support the tender new shoots of maturity that appear. Your past relationship cannot dictate the present. You are given many opportunities to rewrite the story and you must seize them.

  Emerging adults, over time, disengage from emotional dependence on their parents. This is natural. They become less interested in meeting parental expectations and better at regulating their own behavior, emotional needs and self-esteem. The more thoroughly they can do that, the better the outcome. Your job as a parent is to allow that change to take place and not to sabotage it by sticking to outworn patterns.

  The final requirement is this: Your emerging adult needs to differentiate himself/herself from you while maintaining loving contact with you. Remaining emotionally available to your emerging adult while he or she is building a separate identity is no easy task. It can be quite a painful process, marked by bruised egos and hurt feelings. However, it is critical to do your best in this regard. The goal is to maintain a loving bond with your child whi
le at the same time relinquishing parental control, “fixing,” judging and directing.

  How Are You Doing?

  How do you view your relationship with your son or daughter? Is there enough room for him or her to differentiate? Remember that, unlike adolescents, most emerging adults are not looking for benign control. They don’t want parents’ help in structuring their day-to-day lives or in accomplishing tasks. What changes have you made in your relationship with your emerging adult that acknowledge this important shift? Can you think of ways you play your parental role differently than you did a few years ago? How is your current role different from the role you played as the parent of an adolescent? Are there further changes you might want to make? What are ways you might surrender control without surrendering support?

  One of the hardest things to figure out as a parent is whether the environment you provide is nurturing and encouraging or whether it is hostile or indulgent. Does it promote the development of a healthy, adult sense of self? Author Madeline Levine offers possibilities for consideration. As you examine your own situation, are you fostering an environment in which your emerging adult is able to:

  •Feel effective in the world?

  •Have a sense of being in control of his or her life?

  •Form deep and enduring relationships with others?

  •Develop his or her own hobbies and interests?

  •Value and accept him or herself?

  •Learn how to take care of him or herself?7

  Sometimes metaphors can help parents visualize the relationship they are aiming for with their emerging adults. In my work with parents and emerging adults, two metaphors come to mind: riding a bicycle and watering house plants. As you read the next sections, do either of these metaphors resonate with you?