Parenting Young Adults and the Empty Nest
See also: Parenting SkillsOver time, as your children grow up, the challenges of parenting change. You navigate from babyhood through the toddler years, then from primary school to secondary school. You weather the storms of toddler tantrums and teenage hormonal changes, and you emerge the other side. However, one of the biggest changes of all in parenting is when your children reach adulthood.
This should be easy, surely? Your job is done once they are launched into the world. However, it doesn’t feel quite like that in practice.
At that point, they face a whole new set of their own challenges. They may leave home and head for college of university—or simply to their own lives. Even if they continue to live at home for some years, they will still need to navigate many of the challenges of adult life, such as finding a job. At the same time, they are no longer children. They might still need your guidance—but as adults. This section of Skills You Need discusses how you might navigate some of the issues that arise in this stage of life.
An Evolving Picture
Parenting does not abruptly make a sudden step-change on your child’s 18th birthday.
Legally, of course, it is true that you are parenting a child one day, then an adult the next.
They can leave home, leave education, get married, get a full-time job—and you are also no longer legally responsible for providing for them. Student loan assessment processes take a slightly different view of that, of course, but fundamentally, they can—if you and they wish it—completely separate their lives from yours.
However, in practice, it doesn’t really work like that for most people.
Psychologically at least, you have been steadily building your child’s independence over many years. This process probably started many years ago, when they were very small, and you first helped them to learn decision-making skills by asking if they wanted an apple or a banana for their snack. It continued during their teenage years, when you negotiated deadlines for their return from parties, or helped them to find information that would enable decisions about college applications.
An 18th birthday is not, however, a definite marker of practical independence. Depending on the timing of your child’s birthday, and their plans for the future, they may not even leave home within a year of turning 18.
In practice, it may be better to consider your child’s 18th birthday as just a point on a long arc of growth and development that started many years before, and will continue for some time afterwards.
Turning 18 does not suddenly mean that your child doesn’t need you anymore, or that they no longer value your opinion or your advice (though it may take them a few years to admit that).
However, it does mean that you need to reconsider your relationship with your child. You now have to build an adult-to-adult relationship within your existing parent–child one. The kind of advice and support that they need will change—and so must your approach to providing it.
Building Financial Independence
Building financial independence is known to be one of the biggest areas where young adults need guidance.
This is perhaps not surprising, given the generally low level of financial literacy in the world. However, hopefully you have been building your children’s financial literacy and understanding of money throughout their lives.
If not, there are likely to be some key areas that you want to consider providing guidance. These include:
General financial literacy, especially budgeting for rent and bills, understanding student loans, and credit card debt.
The financial and legal aspects of having a job, including income tax and other payments out of salary, pensions and employment contracts.
The legal aspects of living independently, including navigating tenancy agreements, dealing with landlords and knowing your rights.
Career and First Job Support
The transition from education to the workplace is a major milestone.
It will happen at different stages for each person. Some will go straight from school, and others via college or university, or even find the ‘halfway house’ of an apprenticeship. Whatever the point, your child may well need some support and encouragement.
When your child starts their first job search, the biggest issue for most parents at this stage is how to help without taking over.
Your child is likely to be struggling with the concept of developing a CV, how to write a cover letter, attending interviews, and even dealing with rejection. If they seek your advice, what should you do? Many parents may find our Coaching at Home page is a very good place to start.
As your child starts to work, you may find that they come to you with questions about what is happening at work. Your role may shift from that of parent to a form of ‘career mentor’, offering advice on how to navigate workplace etiquette, professional relationships, or even asking for a raise. This stage may go on for many years, especially if your own career is in a different organisation, and you are therefore an ‘outsider’.
The Evolving Parent–Child Relationship
Even as your role transitions from parent to career mentor, you will find that your relationship with your adult child changes more generally.
You both need to find new ways to navigate your existing relationships—and these new ways will vary for everyone.
However, there may be some commonalities.
Most of us will find that we are negotiating new boundaries. If your child is still living at home, are they required to be home by a certain time? How informed do you expect to be if they decide to stay over with a friend?
If your child is living away from home, how reasonable is it for them to call you in a panic every time something goes wrong? Should you expect to be able to drop in on them—and they on you—at any time without warning? These are things that you will need to discuss and agree, and that in itself will alter your relationship.
There are three other major issues that may concern parents:
Supporting your child when they leave home. When your child is ready to leave home, you may think that your parenting job is done. However, this is the moment at which they are likely to need help navigating practical issues that they have never previously considered, such as where they are going to live, and how they will afford to do so.
Supporting your child’s mental health from a distance. When your child moves out, they are moving away from a familiar and hopefully supportive environment into the unknown. You will want to think about how you can ‘check in’ regularly with your child, and offer support. You will also want to know how to spot warning signs without being intrusive—because after all, this is now their life.
Welcoming your child’s partner. At some point, or possibly several points, your adult child will probably bring home a partner to meet you. That person may be someone they plan to marry, or just a casual relationship. You will want to consider how you will behave, and the ‘rules’ that are reasonable to set in your house, but with visiting adults.
You and the Empty Nest
There is one final aspect of your children growing up that is worth discussing, and that is you.
For the last two decades or more, you have built your life, and in many cases your identity, around being a parent. You have fed them, loved them, taken them to after-school activities and on holiday—and suddenly you are on your own. It can be very disconcerting to make a change from ‘family at home’ to ‘just us’ or ‘just me’. This is known as ‘empty nest’ syndrome.
It is worth considering how you will cope.
Our page on coping when your children leave home provides some advice.
One particular aspect of coping with an empty nest is managing your relationship with your partner, now that you are primarily partners and not parents. Even if you have made time to maintain your relationship, and particularly to communicate about things other than your children over the intervening years, you may still need to find new ways to reconnect.
Our page on reconnecting as empty nesters provides advice.
In Conclusion
Every stage of parenting has its challenges.
However, parenting young adults, and particularly coping with the ‘empty nest’, is perhaps unique for the scale of the changes. The timing can also feel very abrupt when your child moves out, unlike other transitions that may be more gradual.
Like other stages, seeking out other people who have been or are going through this can help. There is perhaps some comfort in knowing that you are not the first—and you will not be the last.