Studies show that today, roughly 45% of people ages 18-29 live at home with their families, the highest number since the 1940s. The top reason these Gen Zers and young Millenials live at home is to save money (40%), while 30% say they can’t afford to live independently and 19% are recovering from emergency costs.
By comparison, in 1970, just 7% of adults ages 25 to 35 lived at home with their parents .
There are bound to be some struggles when young adults live at home as parents try to understand how to navigate life with their grown children. When you’re raising teenagers, it’s a lot easier to draw the line when it comes to house rules, but how should parents treat their kids when they are grown adults?
Mom and parent coach Kim Muench shared some practical advice recently on Instagram for parents who aren’t sure how to create healthy boundaries with their college-age kids. Muench is the mother of 5 adult children and coaches parents of adults to become the “clear, confident, and consistent guide that’s needed in this stage of parenting.”
In her video, Muench says parents need to give their children more freedom while expecting them to be more responsible.
“Your 20-year-old daughter, who's living at home, does not need a curfew. She does need to communicate whether or not she's going to be home that night,” Muench said in an Instagram video. “Your 24-year-old son needs to do his own laundry. He also needs to move it from the washer to the dryer and back to his room in a timely manner,” she continued.
She adds that parents should stop monitoring the daily activities of their adult children.
"Your college kid does not need to be tracked. Unless, it's part of an agreement that everyone in the family has, for safety purposes. You don't need to be counting the amount of alcohol or the number of beers in the refrigerator after your son has been home for the weekend. Your son does need to buy his own alcohol and drink responsibly."
Parents should also have open lines of communication with their adult children so everyone knows what’s expected of them. “If you're not coming to an agreement on what should be done or what is happening or not happening yet that's supposed to be happening, then you need to sit down together and talk about how you can solve the problem together,” she said.
Most of the younger commenters thought this was the exact message their parents needed to hear. “People will freakishly control their kids all their lives into their 20s and be confused as to why their children are still continuing to live at home. It's creating an unhealthy view of boundaries and fear of being on their own,” Ppris0nwifee wrote in the comments.
A young adult who lives with her parents praised Muench’s approach because it works in her home.
“My parents are this way with me and it makes living here and having a social life so easy with no conflict. I can go out whenever I feel like it for however long. I just have to communicate where i'm going and if I'll be back. other than that they mind their business, it makes living at home really easy,” Strangelydeceased wrote. “Props to the parents who have boundaries but let their adult children live like adults when living at home.”
Having a young adult in the house can be hard for parents because they have to break many of the habits they developed while parenting over the past 18-plus years. That’s why it’s great that parenting coaches like Muench are here to help them navigate this tricky stage of life in a way that supports both parent and child’s needs.
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