When is it appropriate for your kids to move out?
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Nowadays kids are doing a combination of two things, rushing out of the house as soon as they move eighteen, or living at home until age thirty. A more common situation many parents are dealing with now is that their kids rush out of their house either into their first apartment with a fulltime job, or into college and then return after a failure to find a job or sustain themselves, and stay until their thirties. So when is it appropriate to tell your kids it’s time to go?
The answer varies of course by situation, but there are a few things you can keep in mind to figure out what is best for your child, so that when they move out, they are stable enough to stay out. It’s not that you don’t love your children enough to keep them at home, but once they reach adulthood you want them to be a fully functional responsible adult, and let’s face it, that’s never going to happen while mom can still do their laundry for free. And pick it off the floor for them. And return it to their drawers cleaned and ironed for them.
Parents should weigh rather their children are ready to move out based on two principles, maturity and money. First of all, if a child does not have the financial means to move out, forcing their child out is just going to mean getting their kid back later with a lot more debt under his name. A child living at home past the age if eighteen is permissible if his parent’s make him realize he is now an adult, and that means even at home.
If money is not an issue, as in your child has finished school and/or is not going but steadily works, than the other consideration is maturity. This one is a lot harder to judge, as it cannot be measured by a bank account, but maturity has a lot do with surviving in the real world. If your child works but never seems to have anything to show for it but toys, they probably need to grow up some. Chances are you do everything around the home for him or her, so stop.
If your child lacks the money or maturity, there are things you can do to get your child ready to move out. Once he or she enters their twenties, (18/19 is now an acceptable period to be at home) treat them as you would any renter in your house. This means they now do their own laundry, cook their own food, and are responsible for keeping their rooms clean and respectable. Don’t budge on these; threaten them with taking away the car or their room or expulsion from the home. Yes they may be your children, but if you don’t start teaching them to take care of themselves who will when you are unable to in the future?
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23 August 2008, 5:54 am
Treating them like a renter is a good idea. When I lived at home briefly, I bought my own food and tried to make up for my parents expenses by having a winning personality : )
28 August 2008, 7:39 pm
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