PLEASE MOVE OUT! WAIT, DON’T GO!

Parents are sending mixed messages to their young adults about launching into life. If you are a parent with a young adult living at home, listen closely. What you say, and what you don’t say may be sending mixed messages to your loved one. If you are telling them you want them to spread their wings and move out, yet make room for them in the basement of your house and offer for them to live rent free, you are definitely sending conflicting messages. If this is you, make up your mind already!

There is research that states that young adults living at home after 18 years old are more depressed and have lower self-esteem than their peers who have flown the nest. Especially if this is a case of a young adult who left but returned, the inability to launch again without some
serious nudging just won’t happen. You can be friends with your young adult, but not if they are still living at home with you.

The end goal in life for a parent is not just to have their young adult launch into adulthood, but to truly be self-sufficient if anything were to ever happen to the parent(s). If you are unintentionally sabotaging them from moving out again, you are setting them up for failure if anything were to happen to you. That is a very depressing thought. So, make up your mind! Either let them move out and help them do so, or settle in for a long bumpy ride of allowing your child to never grow up.