How to prevent lazy adult child from living with parents indefinitely?

[Anonymous]

He gets two options - Full time work or full time school. I wouldn’t push college but perhaps a trade school or certificate program. He needs to be busy since he won’t do it himself yet

[Anonymous]

I have two young adult sons who live with us. One has low IQ. The other has mental health issues. The first went to trade school and got into a dead end job. It took quite awhile and a lot of encouragement and assistance, but this spring (five years out of HS), he was finally ready to try something new. I helped him get a government job and I worked with him to secure the credentials he needed to onboard. Now I’m working with him to move out.

In the meantime, he has had to pay his portion of car insurance and he’s had to pay substantial rent. He also had to buy his own car (or take the bus becaise we stopped loaning him ours). We don’t need the money so he will have tens of thousands of dollars when he goes.

The other thing we did/do is to make him contribute to the functioning of the household. He takes care of the outside, changes the oil in our cars, drives around younger siblings, and sometimes other things. He’s an adult and should be contributing, not taken care of.

With my second, Who is two years out of HS, I actually filled out the job applications and scheduled the interviews. He works part time - 30ish hours a week. He’s had the job since summer after 11th grade. Now I’m working with him on applying to community college where he’ll try a class if he can pull it together. I actually am not sure it’s possible. He too had to buy his own vehicle and pay car insurance. He elected to use public transportation because he doesn’t feel capable of working more and with his current situation, insurance takes more than he feels he can pay. He knows that when our kids all finish HS, we will be selling our house and he will have to move- whether with us or elsewhere.

At one point his therapist said we might have to set him up for six months and let him figure it out. Get the apartment, move him in, or at all of the rent, etc. i am hoping it does t get to that, but who knows.

I think the thing is is that some kids take more time and that for some of us, parenting doesn’t easily transform from caring for our kids to just paying college bills for a few years before they’re on their own. And for some kids, it’s tough moving into adulthood. I happen to have two with very different reasons for their delay. I think things like charging rent are good. But I don’t approach that punitively. I don’t charge it because they didn’t launch as early as possible or didn’t choose the path I wanted for them. I charge and require participation in running the household because that’s what adults do.

[Anonymous]

Peace Corps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would demand mine go to college

Same. You’re 18 you’re done living with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a child exactly like yours. He had no motivation to do anything with his life, did the bare minimum to graduate high school and did not go to college after graduation. I was about to give up on him until a coworker of mine gave me this idea. His daughter is the same age as my son and she is absolutely beautiful and a college student. She sent my son IG's account with several of her beautiful pictures and pretended that they weren't meant for another IG account. That's how they met and hung out for a couple of months. She was definitely out of my son's league. After two months, she told him that she couldn't be his GF because he wasn't in college and had no ambition. If he wanted to be with someone like her, he needed to go to college and do something with his life, and she just dumped him. That was the motivation he needed. He just finished his 2nd year at NVCC and is now a Jr. at UVA. Btw, I ended up paying my coworker's daughter 15K for playing this role. It is worth every penny.

The heck?

[Anonymous]

Took my BIL nearly 15 years to move out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a child exactly like yours. He had no motivation to do anything with his life, did the bare minimum to graduate high school and did not go to college after graduation. I was about to give up on him until a coworker of mine gave me this idea. His daughter is the same age as my son and she is absolutely beautiful and a college student. She sent my son IG's account with several of her beautiful pictures and pretended that they weren't meant for another IG account. That's how they met and hung out for a couple of months. She was definitely out of my son's league. After two months, she told him that she couldn't be his GF because he wasn't in college and had no ambition. If he wanted to be with someone like her, he needed to go to college and do something with his life, and she just dumped him. That was the motivation he needed. He just finished his 2nd year at NVCC and is now a Jr. at UVA. Btw, I ended up paying my coworker's daughter 15K for playing this role. It is worth every penny.

The heck?

Doesn’t every dad low grade pimp his daughter out? You man that isn’t a thing?

[Anonymous]

Gap year at Calleva?

Some sort of technical schooling?

What extracurriculars did he do up until now? Sports? Clubs? Interests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would demand mine go to college

Same. You’re 18 you’re done living with us.

This is cruel. You need to set up your child for success. Not everyone wants or needs college and that’s okay. But you need to have a reason to want to get out of bed in the morning. Help your child find his passion. Something he’s naturally good at, that he enjoys, that he can make money doing. Hopefully with that will come friends/relationships and a desire to be independent.

[Anonymous]

Patience. Support. Time. You are the only people in the world who lives them unconditionally and at this phase of life, such support is needed as much as it was when they were learning to walk.

[Anonymous]

Your kid does not fail in a vacuum. Parents are a major reason for their failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid does not fail in a vacuum. Parents are a major reason for their failure.

How is this helpful?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Child has never had much motivation or aspirations. Doesn’t care about money or partnering with anyone. He’s kind of a loner. Quiet. Harmless. Respects house rules. He’s not interested in pursuing college. Likes the idea of traveling, but isn’t a planner and lacks initiative. Bouts of depression as a teen.

He graduates this spring and has no plan, aside from keeping a part time job at a restaurant that he sometimes enjoys. He’s not cut for the military and probably won’t finish college. Earning potential isn’t promising.

Is there a program or opportunity we can look into to at least get him out of the house after he graduates? If we don’t have some sort of plan in place getting him to move out will get harder and harder as time passes.

Run the vacuum at 6:00 am outside of his room for about 45 minutes. Do this daily. If you have to start this at 5:00 am. De-activate wifi inside your house unless he is actively applying for jobs then you can turn it on briefly. He needs to start paying rent to you.

Push for the military. Take him to talk to all 4 branches of the service. Even if he does not go in it will push him to get employment.

[Anonymous]

Set up appointments at the community college and drive him over to the appointments to learn about welding training, hvac training, plumbing training and electrical training. If you think his academics are strong enough set up an appointment for xray tech training at community college.

Set up appointments with the army, marine, air force and coast guard recruiters and drive him over to these appointments.

The military is actively recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Welding is paying big money. My CPA is married to a welder. I think he makes around double what she makes.