It’s common for young adult children to live with their parents…
Even when not living at home, many young adults still need their parents’ support. How can you support your young adult as in healthy and positive ways? Dulce Torres, LPC-S, BCC, ACC, offers some tips for helping families during this stage of life.
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ADHD Awareness Month
Reframing ADHD
Discovering New Perspectives
So one of the tips – and I’m going to address this again a little bit more direct to that [parent of] emerging adults. And I call the emerging adults those individuals 18 to 30 years of age that are still at home, depending a lot on the parents, which is very normal and nothing wrong with that. I will say: identify how am I supporting my child? Am I being an enabler? Am I enabling my child, or am I being really a support for my child?
I think in today’s world it is – I consider it now normal – for an 18 to a 30 year old to be in and out of the home and needing support from their parents. What I will say for that age group is for parents to really evaluate how much I’m supporting them? And if you can assess that I’m supporting them kind of like more than 50% of the time. You know, today research is telling us that parents are supporting their kids financially around almost 60-70% of the time and emotionally over 75% of the time. That is going into the enabling area.
So I will invite them to assess how much am I doing for my child and for that young adult? And if I can keep it at 49% – whatever that 49% will be for you. Every family is different. So I really want to invite them to assess that to determine how much am I doing?
And I really want them to, you know, I talk about the relationship – so to really start saying how can I build this relationship? How can I – how can it – be different? And I will invite it to be more of a consulting coach kind of relationship where I ask questions, where I brainstorm with you, but I allow you to make a decision to solve your own challenges.
And to know exactly how you need me to support you and to know where there’s going to be my boundaries – what I’m not going to be doing for you – and that you’re clear on that. Because I think that we need to develop those executive skills that we constantly are talking about ADHD and executive functions in our young adults.
It’s like to develop those, I need to provide you with the opportunity to practice, to make your own decisions. So I want parents to build that in their young adults and I want them to know that true independence comes in the form of when your child knows when and how to ask for help.
That is key in the process of building that relationship, especially when you’re working with your young adults.
About the Speaker
Dulce Torres, LPC-S, BCC, ACC, and Founder of Avant-Garde Center
Dulce Torres is a licensed professional counselor-supervisor and a board certified coach and associate certified coach specializing in ADHD, anxiety, and depression. She believes everyone has a right to live a life beyond limitation.
Ms. Torres has been a featured columnist for Spanish-language newspapers and contributed to several English-language books on ADD/ADHD.