Parenting pre-teens to young adults who are slow to launch

You may have heard this story but here goes.

One day a boy sees the caterpillar struggle to get out of the cocoon so he “helps” by cutting it open and the almost-butterfly emerges– wet, gooey, and unable to fly. Unfortunately, never able to fly. Because that struggle to free itself from the cocoon was the step that was needed to clean the gook that would free the wings and allow it to fly.

In the case of humans, your child can learn to fly or rather, be an adult.

Maybe you were the parent who checked the online system a little too much to see what was due just for that kid because he needed the help. Some might have labeled you as a helicopter parent or snowplow parent. And for a lot of you, that is an unfair label from someone who didn’t have your kid or live in your situation. One thing is for sure, it’s not helpful.

Some kids need more help when they are younger to keep up and move forward. And so you helped. It was out of love that you did so because are a parent who cares.

Parenting is hard and some kids are harder than others

Let’s say a kid had some kind of disability like ADHD, for example. This came with some mental health challenges for which there is little support or help, especially for parents and what to do. This was the kid who struggled with anxiety and organization. There were constant calls from teachers making you feel inadequate and your kid couldn’t complete whatever. There may have been other challenges.

Shouldn’t you be helping your child? Advocating for him? How much is too much? It’s not like there is a system of checks and balances for this kind of kid that tells you when or how much to intervene and when to let them fail or how much.

Little by little your child has ended up at a place where you are doing more than you want to do, not ever having planned it that way, and now, a decade or more later, you’re tired of it.

When does this parenting gig end? How come it’s harder now? When do you get to live for yourself?

Now there is a lot of scaffolding under them and we are tempted to just let go….

Surely, it’s about time and they’ll learn how to move forward, right?

Not exactly.

The truth is, they haven’t learned from failure. They haven’t learned any of the steps you’ve done for them. They have no idea what to do so it’s about including them in the process and sort of weaning them slowly.

Despite what you’ve done to help, it’s likely you’d have an extended-stay child anyway, so don’t beat yourself up.

So how to fix this?

Patience. Think of it this way. If you play a game of Jenga, you pull out one “brick” at a time. If you remove all of the bricks or just the wrong one, what happens? It tumbles.

So if the child has a lot of support underneath him, then there has to be some careful pulling away so they can stand on their own two feet or at least stand without your holding them up completely. And maybe there will always have to be some level of support but you can get to a place where they are more independent. Removing a safety net is scary and hard. And sometimes you might need to rescue and figuring out when is not easy.

Now I don’t know which steps for your child because it’s specific to each case. But in general, with a process you’d normally do for him, you do with him and you explain why and leave steps of that process for him to complete. Or agree on who does what. Or how you can support without intervening.

Might he do the wrong step or fail?

Sure. Might he drop the ball or not do what he’s supposed to? Yes. That’s where people learn.

It’s uber painful to watch but that learning process has to happen now. Unfortunately, the price tag might be a little higher than it was years ago. Failing first grade is gotten over more quickly. What needs to happen is a partnership of sorts, one that the child doesn’t resent which is hard and you’ll need to figure out. I know by now the kid has pride and you may be getting pushback. A lot of it.

It will require listening more and lecturing less.

You just have to take it one piece at a time like the Jenga game. They may need household responsibilities and even a bill or bills to pay. They need to contribute at a certain age. It’s time to start teaching that life is not free even if they do have a disability.

That doesn’t mean lecturing or yelling because both of those are ineffective and what’s worse, those behaviors impede your goal and shame the child, making them feel more like a failure. And they do feel that even if it looks like “lazy” to you.

You simply ask that they take one step forward for their independence. What will that step be?

Is all this your fault?

No! As far as the self-blame, you may be telling yourself the whole reason they are stuck, can’t find purpose, or move forward, is all your fault since you intervened too much when they were younger.

Not true.

It was only a contributing factor but there are a lot of other factors outside your control such as personality, level of disability, mental health, the evolution of the digital age, and all its intricacies. Teachers and administrators also likely called and pressured you the way they did me, too, wanting me to do more to put my square peg kid in their round holes. And I’m sure if you have a spouse or parenting partner, you were not on the same page about this. No two married or divorced humans ever are.

All those factors make a huge difference and ones you cannot control. Watching your child fail multiple times before learning a single lesson is not easy. Most kids learn after one mistake or at least two, and yours is one of those making the process that much more unbearable. How much to intervene and how much to stand aside is a constantly shifting line that’s very challenging to navigate.

As conscious as I was of not putting too much of a safety net under my own son, Charles, I saw that I had some work to do to help him transition to adulting. Had he lived, he would have taken longer and I always knew that he would. All of this bubbled up as self-blame after his suicide at age 20. I struggled with whether did I do too much or not enough or let go too soon. We all do.

I know you might have a kid that thinks the regimen of pot smoking will resolve all their issues. They might just be plain stuck and look unmotivated when they really feel overwhelmed and depressed over their own lack of purpose. They might be stuck in a frustrating holding pattern.

All is not lost and all-or-nothing thinking will not help you

Give yourself some grace.

The answers are not simple but there are always things you can do but the one thing you can’t do is control another human.

You can only control how you react. And that’s where you may need to find support so you know how to provide the environment that is best suited to inspire change and evolution. It exists.

AnneMoss Rogers

AnneMoss Rogers is a leading wellness and suicide education expert and one of the top mental health speakers and suicide prevention speakers. Known for her powerful, motivational keynotes, AnneMoss combines her personal story of loss with proven strategies to help organizations build a wellness culture that drives results and saves lives.  She speaks at conferences, workplaces, K-12 schools, and universities, delivering impactful presentations that inspire change and promote mental health awareness.
AnneMoss does this work in memory of her son, Charles, who struggled with anxiety, depression, and addiction, and died by suicide at age 20 in 2015.