We have seen an increasing number of parents coming to our office asking for assistance with deteriorating circumstances in their own homes. These are cases which involve adult sons or daughters with significant mental health challenges who continue to live at home without employment or consistent therapeutic services. These parents are at an age when they may hope for eventual retirement, but instead are caught in a worsening cycle of trying to encourage resistant adult children to become independent and fearing that sending a mentally ill young adult into the community is a set up for potentially dangerous consequences. For many, it is literally a living nightmare.
There are no easy answers to this difficult and often complex dilemma, but in our work with parents and mental health professionals we have seen some basic strategies that can help.
- Parents are often divided among themselves about feelings and strategies to force their adult child to get treatment as a condition of living in the home. Regular mental health and/ or substance abuse treatment should be a non-negotiable requirement to live at home. Doctor visits and adherence to medication requirements can be verified with proper releases. Sobriety can be demonstrated by regular urine screens.
- Parents should set clear boundaries regarding safety inside the house. All household members should know that if an unsafe circumstance arises (including threats of self injury) – the police will be called.
- Adult children with mental health challenges and/or substance abuse problems need treatment – forming an appropriate information sharing relationship between the treatment providers and the parents should be a condition of remaining at home. Also, adult children need to contribute financially to the household.
- For adult children, living at home with parents should be a temporary condition. To learn the art of how to stop enabling dependency and safely move adult children out the door, I recommend that the parents seek separate advice from a mental health professional that can teach strategies and techniques. I call this therapeutic coaching.
- Parents of mentally ill adult children should seek support networks in their churches, the community and through mental health service agencies. The more support the better.
