Failure to launch: Adult children living at home and how to help them

MAIN LINE HEALTH MAY 9, 2017 WELLNESS ARTICLES BY PAULA DURLOFSKY, PHD

According to the most recent US Census Bureau report, 24 million adults ages 18–34 are still living at home with their parents. This could be for a variety of reasons—economic hardship, a difficult housing market, a competitive career landscape—but, whatever the reason, the truth is clear: it’s becoming more commonplace and acceptable to call your parents roommates.

While it may be more acceptable, this trend can lead to some unhealthy behavior. For some adult children living at home, the duration of their stay can be considered emotionally unhealthy and mean they have a “failure to launch.”

This term, failure to launch, describes the phenomenon of adult children remaining highly dependent upon their parents after college and beyond. The psychological and systematic factors underlying the failure to launch are complex and multifaceted.

It’s not uncommon for young adults navigating adult responsibilities to suffer from depression, anxiety, substance abuse and deep-seated feelings of isolation. Emotional issues often do not express themselves until late adolescence or young adulthood. Additionally, learning issues that were not detected earlier can also contribute to the underlying causes of an adult child’s struggle with functioning independently and autonomously.

But, at its core, failure to launch signifies a young adult’s struggle with his or her ability to be autonomous and to function independently from his/her parents.

Dr. Eli R. Lebowitz, a psychologist at the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University recommends the following strategies for parents of adult children who find themselves in a failure to launch situation to steer their child toward autonomy and independence:

Don’t be judgmental of yourself or your dependent adult child

Too often, parents and/or their overly dependent adult children are labeled as being lazy, selfish or overly indulgent. These types of remarks and criticism only bring about deeper feelings of shame, depression, isolation and anxiety for parents and children. In actuality, failure to launch is a multi-faceted and complicated situation.

Be compassionate with your child

It’s important to recognize that your dependent adult child likely is not enjoying their lack of autonomy independence. Ultimately, it is painful for anyone to watch their peers move on with their lives by starting careers, being in mature relationships and living independently. Understand that your child is likely not happy to be living at home, either.

Decrease accommodating behaviors that enable your child’s dependence

Some parents of dependent children continue to do all their laundry, cook their meals and clean their bedrooms. These behaviors may actually enable your child’s dependency upon you. Set up small goals aimed at helping your dependent child take on more personal responsibility for themselves. For example, expect them to prepare their own dinner, keep their room clean and pay a household utility bill if possible.

Don’t keep it secret

Keeping your and your child’s living situation a secret may intensify feelings of shame and failure. At some point in our lives, we all struggle. It’s important to appreciate our difficult times, not view them as something we are ashamed of. Seek support from family and friends about your situation

Get a mental health evaluation, for issues like depression and anxiety

It’s not uncommon for mental health issues to exhibit themselves in late adolescence or young adulthood. Some learning issues are not detected during a child’s high school years because of parental involvement and teacher supervision. So, it’s not uncommon for learning issues to become more apparent in situations where there are significant academic and organizational demands and little supervision.

Five Tips For Breaking Old Habits

     Whether you want to stop biting your nails, quit smoking or even just start showing up early to events instead of late, the willingness to break ‘bad’ habits is admirable. But, as so many of us know too well, it can also be difficult.

     For most of us, the idea of changing old habits feels impossible because they often feel beyond our control. That’s because habits are formed by a set of behaviors that are repeated over and over again. Once a habit is formed—whether it is good or bad—it can be hard to break because the behaviors that we repeat the most are ingrained into our neural pathways. Deeply ingrained behaviors (habits) are formed early in our life and are influenced by our early childhood experiences and environments.

     But the good news is that—with repetition, practice, focus and commitment—new habits can be formed and maintained.

     To form these new habits, you first need an understanding and awareness of the habit you want to break. This allows us to make lasting change, and can lead to insights about what emotional impact our habits have on ourselves and others, as well as in what environments we are most likely to practice these habits.

     Once you have an understanding and awareness of these factors, here are some other tips to help you break old habits and develop new ones:

Start small

Habits are complex behaviors and require complex solutions, so focus on changing them one at a time.

For example, rather than saying, “Starting tomorrow, I’ll start exercising every day,” say “I’ll go to an exercise class on Wednesday.”

As you find success with each small goal, gradually increase them in an effort to meet your ultimate goal.

Seek to understand your habit

People want to change habits that are damaging—either emotionally or physically—to themselves or others. But these patterns persist, in part, because harmful behavior is rewarded in some way.

For example, procrastinating—in the short term—wards off the anxiety related to a task that requires your attention. Our brain immediately processes that reward of not feeling anxious. In order to break this habit, it requires the individual to develop the capacity to tolerate feeling a manageable amount of anxiety in order to learn that procrastinating actually causes a greater degree of anxiety in the long term.

Examine the context of your habit

Identify the situational and emotional triggers associated with the habit you want to change. This will help you with understanding the goal of your habit.

For example, many habits are formed as a means of coping with anxiety, anger or even boredom. Once you’re able to accurately identify the emotional needs the habit is trying to satisfy, you can then work on developing ways to satisfy your emotional needs with adaptive and healthy behaviors.

Regression is normal

It’s common to return to our old habits even when we’re working hard to change them. Learn to be compassionate with yourself when you make a mistake.

Seek professional help

Change is hard, especially when you’re working to change behaviors that have been a part of you for a long time.

Getting assistance from a professional can help with gaining a deeper understanding of the behavior you want to change and why the behavior originally developed.

Put self-love first this February

MAIN LINE HEALTH JANUARY 27, 2016 WELLNESS ARTICLES BY PAULA DURLOFSKY, PHD

February is a month to celebrate one of our most treasured relationships: our romantic one. Most psychologists will agree that being loved and being able to love is crucial to our happiness. A famous quote by Sigmund Freud states: “Love and work…work and love. That’s all there is.”

But for many, the finding love causes a great deal of frustration and unhappiness. And what about self-love and its significance to our happiness?  Whether you’re single, happily in a relationship, or in a complicated one, it’s a loving relationship with ourselves that sets the foundation for all of our other relationships and is the secret to having fulfilling ones, too.

What is self-love?

Self-love is not the same as being narcissistic or selfish. Rather, it means having a positive regard for your own well-being and happiness. When we adopt an attitude of self-love we have higher levels of self-esteem, we’re less critical and harsh with ourselves when we make mistakes, and we’re able to celebrate our positive qualities and accept our negative ones.  In addition, a major benefit to learning to loving ourselves is that we are more likely to have fulfilling and healthy intimate relationships.

During the month of February, and on Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to celebrate loving yourself. Below are a few suggestions for making February the month for cultivating self-love:

• Learn to be compassionate with yourself.  For many, it’s more natural to be compassionate towards friends and family than it is towards ourselves. Work on eliminating critical and harsh self-talk. Imagining what you would say to a friend in the same situation should help with developing skills for positive self-talk.
• Enjoy time alone. Whether it be taking a walk in the park, going out for a nice meal, or seeing a great movie, learning to enjoy your own company and doing activities you enjoy when you're alone is crucial for cultivating self-love.
• Make a list of the characteristics you like about yourself. Too often, we get caught up with only thinking about what it is we don’t like about ourselves and what we wish we could change. For most of us, recognizing and appreciating our positive qualities takes effort and practice. Set aside time to read this list daily.
• Celebrate your accomplishments. No matter how big or small our successes or accomplishments are, it’s important to feel worthy of celebrating them. Celebrating our accomplishments reinforces our acknowledgement and integration of our positive qualities.
• Allow yourself to ask for help when needed. We all need help when life gets challenging and when we feel overwhelmed. Most of life’s challenges can’t be tackled alone. Allowing yourself to seek help from a trusted friend or professional reflects self-love. Asking for help is an important way to take care of ourselves.

Dr. Paula Durlofsky is a psychologist in private practice in Bryn Mawr, whose practice focuses on psychological issues affecting individuals, couples, and families. She is affiliated with Bryn Mawr Hospital and Lankenau Medical Center.