Hi, 20 something year olds live here! Living at home has a bad rap, but it has its upsides. To me, it’s not about paying rent or forcing my parents to watch Bachelor weekly. For my parents, they get to hang out with their adorable daughter all the time. We both are so lucky!
While it’s a sweet deal, having a soon-to-be adult child living at home can come with its share of growing pains. Whether your children have moved away and back, or are back home for college breaks, they are used to a level of freedom that you likely didn’t give them when they were teenagers. If they haven’t experienced this freedom yet, they are at the age where they want to.
Treating your baby as an adult can be difficult, especially when it feels like they’re back under your roof. you may not even know how Go treat a grown child! It doesn’t matter! Thankfully, mom and parent coach Kim Muench has some guidance for living with growing adults.
“Your 20-year-old daughter lives at home No A curfew is needed,” Muench said in a video posted on Instagram Reels. “she Do Communication needs to be made as to whether she will be home that night.
“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.
Muench went on to explain that there is no need to track your college student unless the entire family agrees to tracking for security purposes. You also don’t need to count the number of beers in the refrigerator, but your adult children should buy their own alcoholic beverages and drink responsibly.
Her emphasis is on mutual respect: Yes, you do have to give your adult children their freedom. But with great power comes great responsibility, and if you treat your children like adults, they have to behave like adults.
So no, you have no responsibility for their clothes, and yes, they should go to the grocery store sometimes.
Muench also noted the importance of communicating with adult children.
“If you don’t agree on what should be happening, what is happening or not happening, then you need to sit down and talk about how to solve the problem together.”
This situation is new territory for everyone, so making sure you’re on the same page is crucial to avoiding frustration on both sides.
“We in our 20s don’t always know what they need to do or the steps to take, and they don’t really want to ask for help,” Muench continued. “If you’re not approachable. You’re just going to continue to have conflicts.
It can be awkward to have these conversations—it’s a weird dynamic. I have no doubt that watching your children grow up is difficult, and being asked to give them a little space can be difficult to hear.
But no matter how uncomfortable the conversation is, it’s necessary. How do you raise an independent adult if they can’t exercise their independence?
So parents, the chicks may still be in the nest, but maybe it’s time to let them fly on their own.
