Launching Our Young People
5….4….3….
Years of support…countless sleepless nights…fretting over friendships, exam grades, test scores. You are finally ready to see your young adult off into the wide world, be it a graduation, starting college, a first job, or a big move. Parenting a young adult sometime requires you to firmly support and at others to take your own hands off the wheel. It can be scary. You wonder when to hold fast, and when to let go? How to empower rather than enable?
Ensure you consider carefully each domain of your young adult child’s development. You are helping transition them to independence in each of these arenas: emotional, financial, relational, social, and logistical.
Define what you will and will not provide. Limits are crucial - what can you offer, and what is off the table?
With emotional support, is your young adult child asking you to speak to them with urgency all hours of the day and night? As always, context matters. If they have just gone through a breakup this week, you may be able and willing to support them whenever they need you. Six months later, a demand for all hours emotional support suggests the need for additional behavioral health care.
Finances can be challenging to talk about - each family has a different level of comfort discussing money. With that said, if you are providing financial support, clearly define how much, how often, and purpose of this support. Depending on your child, you may also want to provide clear parameters on what if any situations would prompt withdrawal of this support.
You are going to inherently be one of the most important people in your young person’s life. The words you have said, the model you provide, and the guidance you offer are all etched in bold for your child. Even when they do the exact opposite of what you’ve taught them! Still, you want your child to find their own friendships and romantic relationships. In some cases, just watching you is sufficient for their development; other times you may need to offer more nurture in helping them to grow their own social skill and circle. Often your child can tell you what they are struggling with - providing an opening to offer gentle guidance. Keeping regular lines of communication open gives them opportunity - then, they get to choose what do do with that opportunity. You can model relational support by talking with your adult child about your own relationships, what is going well, and what you grapple with.
Many young people are not yet ready to take on all of the tasks of modern adulthood immediately - organizing and paying taxes; obtaining proper insurance; paying premiums; and more. These are more complex and difficult than they may have been in years past, and financial realities of the 21st century are not easy, making keeping all these balls in the air yet tougher. It is tempting to do things for your child to take things off their plate and lighten their burden. While this can be helpful in the short term, over time it can weaken their ability to do for themselves. Finding a transition plan between total dependence and independence is crucial.
Sometimes there is something biochemical at play actively hindering the transition from adolescence to full adulthood. This could be a medical illness, mental health challenges, behavioral factors, or all of the above. Nearly one in five young adults struggles with major depressive disorder and/or anxiety (SAMHSA, 2021; Bie, et al, 2024). Others contend with attention challenges, bipolar disorder, eating disorders or OCD. These each pose their own problems and can make independence yet trickier to navigate. A trained professional who deeply understands the needs of young adults, and, when the young person is open, is able to collaborate with the family, therapist, school, primary care doctor and others, can make a world of difference.
Remember - growth is nonlinear. Growth can be hard, even painful. Challenge does not equate to the effort being without merit. Putting in the work to support your young person in launching gradually and intentionally gives them the strong roots to allow them to bloom.
