Yearly Archives: 2012

The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home by Christina Newberry

There’s been a flurry of media attention today for my book, The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home (by Christina Newberry), so I thought I would add a quick post with some details about the book. It’s packed with great information for families with adult children living at home or planning to move home. It’s available in an eBook format that you can read on your computer, iPad, or other device at www.adultchildrenlivingathome.com. If you prefer a hard copy book that you can put on your bookshelf, you can buy a copy though book supplier createspace here. The book includes a couple of key documents all families need when adult children move home: a family budget template and calculator, and a family contract template. Here’s all the key info:

The Hands-On GuiThe Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home by Christina Newberryde to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home by Christina Newberry
Second Edition published June 2012 by Nuru Guides
Available at www.adultchildrenlivingathome.com

 

 

 

Thanks for your interest!

Signature of Christina Newberry, author of The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Childen Living at Home

Christina Newberry
Author, The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home

Adult Children in the News

AdultChildrenLivingatHome.com has been featured in a  number of news stories lately — further evidence that multi-generational living is a growing trend. You can find information about all of my work with the media on the Media page, but here are my three favorite recent articles:

Rules for When the Chicks Return to the Nest
By Alina Tugend, The New York Times

When Adult Kids Move Back Home: 8 rules to preserve your health, savings and peace of mind
by Stacy Julien, AARP

Being grown up about moving back home
by Andrea Pyros, The Vancouver Province

 


Are your adult children appearing in your dreams?

Here’s something a little different: Carolyn Plath, a dream analyzer with Examiner.com, recently analyzed a dream that involved a run-down nag rummaging in the dreamer’s refrigerator. The dreamer gives the horse a swift kick, but it falls into the fridge and clumsily tries to make its way out. Plath’s analysis? The horse represents the dreamer’s adult child living at home, and the imagery symbolizes her difficulty getting that child motivated. You can see the full description of the dream and Plath’s full analysis here.

Reporter looking for families with adult children living at home in New York

A reporter is currently working on a story for the New York Daily News about adults living at home again with their parents and is looking for families to speak to. If you live in the New York area and have adult children living at home (or are an adult child living with your parents), please get in touch with the reporter directly at w.tripp@att.net

Cities with the most adult children living at home

Business Insider has created a great post with a list of the 10 cities in the United States with the highest percentage of adult children aged 20 – 34 living at home. Their post provides great insight into what might be happening in each city, including the median income for young adults, youth employment rate, and percentage of this age group that remains unmarried. It’s definitely worth a read. Here’s their list of the top 10 cities. Is yours here?

1. Bridgeport, CT
2. Honolulu, HI
3. McAllen, TX
4. Miami, FL
5. New York, NY
6. Oxnard, CA
7. Los Angeles, CA
8. El Paso, TX
9. Scranton, PA
10. Riverside, CA

Adult kids who have never left home

Because the trend is so visible, we often end up focusing on boomerang kids — adult children who have moved away from their parents’ home and moved back in as adults, often after college, the loss of a job, or the end of a marriage or live-in relationship. But there’s another group of adult children living at home, of course — those who never left. Maybe they went to a local college, or lived at home while going through an apprenticeship or training program. Or maybe they’ve just become a bit stuck because they don’t quite know what to do with their lives, and they have a comfortable nest in which to linger. How do parents help these adult kids get on the path to independence?

In some ways this is harder that dealing with boomerang kids, since there is no clear moment at which to have a family meeting that sets out the rules/expectations for the adult child and develop a timeline for their stay at home. But in some ways it’s easier, since the relationship will have evolved slowly rather than been faced with the shock of an adult child returning home who has developed habits and become used to the patterns and behaviors associated with living independently.

Ideally the family should still have this kind of meeting — the challenge is figuring out when it is appropriate. For some families it may be as soon as the child graduates from high school, while for others it may be after college graduation. But other than the timing of the meeting, all the strategies stay the same: Figure out the adult child’s financial impact  on the household, figure out ways to mitigate that, assign the child a financial responsibility, discuss acceptable behaviors and expectations, and determine an acceptable length of time for the adult child to stay at home. Then, work on developing a reasonable timeline with some meaningful goals and milestones along the way to help the adult child
achieve independence by that timeline.

Remember: The parents’ main job in parenting any adult child is to help the adult child get to the point where he or she doesn’t need to depend on the parents any more and can live
independently.

The video below talks about dealing with adult kids moving home after college, but I’ve set it to start part-way through so you can get straight to some tips that also apply to setting expectations for adult kids who have never left the nest.

New Book: How NOT to Move in with Your Parents

If you follow my blog, you know I provide advice for parents with adult children living at home or thinking about moving home. Now, there’s a new book by Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick that offers advice to young people on how not to get stuck moving home in the first place.

Is the book a worthwhile read? The good news is you can get a risk-free sample by downloading the first chapter of the Kindle edition for free on Amazon.com, where you can also buy the full Kindle book.The hardcopy is available only on Amazon.ca.