Leaving the Nest: Advice on Helping Adult Children Move out of the House

One of the more delicate times in a parent's life is delivering the news that it's time for an adult child to move out on his or her own.

In the best of situations — where everyone agrees that leaving home is the best scenario — it can lead to bittersweet feelings of relief and loss. In worst cases, it can scar the parent-child relationship.

Parents first must convince themselves that they are not doing their children any favors by sheltering them from real-world responsibilities. Helping out for a time after college or high school or during a difficult life experience is fine, but giving children carte blanche to squat indefinitely in the family home can be unhealthy for everyone involved.

Vicki Rackner, M.D., a surgeon, author and relationship consultant based in Washington state, says parents of adult children (those who no longer go to school and are 18 or older) have to be crystal clear about what their parental "job description" is.

"I think a lot of people think the description says to keep them from pain — make it stop hurting. Really, [the parent's] job is to launch independent adults," Rackner says.

Learning to fly
"What parents have to realize is that if they want to really look after their children, they have to teach them important learning skills that they're going to require to sustain their own lives and eventually the lives of their own families," says Nicholas Aretakis, author of No More Ramen: The 20-Something's Real World Survival Guide (Next Stage Press, 2006).

An oft-cited reason for moving back home is that children can't afford to pay rent. In some cases, kids also want to maintain their parents' standard of living — one that took decades to achieve, says Jane Adams, Ph.D., author of Boundary Issues (Wiley, 2005) and When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us (Free Press, 2004).

"The reality is that moving out may mean that they might have to double or quadruple up with friends in apartments or houses, and they may have to take a bus before they can buy a car," Adams adds.

"This is a generation of entitled kids, who feel at 21 that they're entitled to the standard of living that it took their parents until 45 or 50 to achieve. If [the children] say it's for financial reasons, [parents] need to sit down and look at the money [the children are] bringing in and look at what it would cost to live somewhere else," says Adams.

Have a plan
If you have children who are about to graduate from high school or college and who don't have living arrangements for the near future, experts advise raising these issues with them now. Moving back home after college or a challenging life experience or not leaving home after high school should, in most cases, be a temporary arrangement.

In order to make the eventual transition more seamless, parents also should consider asking children living at home to pay some rent, contribute to the bills, and perform household chores and other jobs that they'll need to do once they're out on their own.

Parents should be supportive but also have reasonable expectations when working toward the complete independence of their adult children, says Ellen Gibran-Hesse, a San Francisco-based attorney and life coach.

A single mother of 21-year-old and 18-year-old sons, Gibran-Hesse says to devise a plan — such as giving your child six months to find a job. And during that time period, parents can help the child polish up his or her resume, land job interviews and learn about personal money management.

Parents have to accept that the relationship with their children might suffer temporarily from such acts of tough love, says Stephanie Buehler, Psy.D., a relationship specialist and director of the Buehler Institute in Irvine, Calif. But if parents approach these interactions calmly and with good intentions, their relationships with their children should survive this transitional phase, Buehler says.

Stick to your guns
Inevitably, some adult children will want to return home after leaving the nest and finding the struggles of independence too overwhelming.

Gibran-Hesse says that the parents' first reaction should be to help the adult child regroup. Do not present coming home as the first option. Try to solve whatever issues your child is having — for example, by helping him or her look for a less expensive place to live or by going through the budget and advising him or her to make tough (but necessary) spending choices.

In dire situations, parents might take the child back under their roof. But they should do so only with a plan and time limit in mind, she says.

Parents need to communicate clear boundaries. If they agree to help pay for a few designated items once the adult child has moved out, they should do so with the intention that the child will accept more and more responsibilities until he or she pays the whole bill.

If the child oversteps those boundaries, learn to say no — all in the context of love — Rackner says.

Gibran-Hesse agrees. "We've been protecting our children for so long. I think if there's a mistake, it is that we're too afraid to trust. They are programmed to be independent."