You're Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty

by B. Janet Hibbs, Anthony Rostain

[Uncorrected proof/galley/ARC]
A clear-eyed, optimistic guide for parents with adult children who need help navigating the challenges to launching an independent life.

Times were already tough for young adults looking for ways to start living independent lives after high school and college: rents were up, wages were down, then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and a generation of young people were forced out of classrooms and routines, and back home living with their parents. Now many of those young adults can’t figure out how to re-start their lives, and if they are suffering from mental health or addiction issues the challenge is even greater. For parents watching their children struggle, the need to respect their child’s independence can clash with a parent’s instinct to instruct and support.

In You’re Not Done Yet, two leading adolescent mental health experts provide a path to optimistic parenting, combating the frustrating isolation and anxiety many feel when dealing with their twenty-something children. Hibbs and Rostain explain why the times really are unprecedented, and how parents need to change their way of thinking in order to support their children without driving them away. Chapters cover topics such as addressing internal bias on what your child is “supposed” to do, learning how to talk less and listen more, and how to get your child the help they need when addiction and mental illness are factors. Packed with helpful information and step-by-step guides to specific situations, this book will be an invaluable resource for struggling parents and their twentysomething children.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Self Help

Paperback

Published March 1, 2024

Reviews

[m · Rating 5 out of 5]

This timely and important book will resonate with the many parents concerned about their twentysomething child’s struggle to “launch.” Record numbers of young adults are living at home, un- or underemployed, without having completed their educational programs, and/or struggling with mental health issues. Parental efforts to help, however well-intended, can compound the problem, shutting down communication between parent and child and adding to the frustration, anxiety, and depression both may be feeling.

Therapists Hibbs and Rostain do an excellent job of describing the challenges faced by today’s “emerging adults” and putting them into historical context (although political context is only mentioned in passing - a not entirely helpful choice, given that the deepening ideological divide has added to family conflict). Contrasting the world in which the baby boomers and Gen X came of age with the world today, the authors clearly show that “the likelihood that most twentysomethings will have a predictable, undeviating path to adulthood is inconsistent with current economic and social realities.”

This is much needed reassurance for parents who have been barraged with negative messaging that blames “helicopter parents” and their “snowflakes” for this generation’s struggles. Hibbs and Rostain urge their readers to “rethink the stereotype of parents as neurotic enablers from whom young adults must recover; and to reconsider the bias that delayed young adult milestones reflect a generational character flaw.” They encourage readers to proactively participate in a “new era of parenting: parents as collaborative partners to their young adults.” The first part of the book gives concrete strategies and examples of how that can be accomplished, with re-set communication and listening techniques being the key.

The second part of the book discusses specific behavioral and mental health concerns, such as online gaming, depression, and substance use, with suggestions on how to address them and an appendix with many resources. This will surely be valuable to many families, though it struck me that the ability to gain timely and repeated access to some of these resources, in particular to mental health professionals, can be frustratingly difficult or simply not possible.

Overall, I found this guide for today's parents to be insightful, readable, and very useful. I plan to re-read it and highly recommend it to others. 4.5 stars.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this nonfiction title. Unfortunately, what I was expecting it be, it was not. As a parent of an 18 year old son, I was hoping for solid advice and guidance on how to help him navigate the next five years of his life. Entering into adulthood is scary; he's unsure what he wants to be when he grows up. So I was expecting this book to be about just that - how to parent him and help him get through the challenges he will face as a young adult. What I listened too was not helpful at all. If you're looking for a sampling of therapy sessions (and a mentality that everyone should be in therapy), this is the book for you. I found it very repetative and unhelpful. The title to me was very misleading as this book was not about how to parent your child through adulthood, but rather about how to fix all of the issues said child might have. I guess I am fortunate that my son is not struggling in the ways the children in this book are...

[Karel Baloun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally helpful book on modern parenting, concisely written and full of memorable examples and actionable lists of steps towards success. Especially Chapter 7 on digital screens is the most helpful writing I've encountered on this essential topic, and also covers executive function challenges including ADHD. I found this even more helpful for myself than as a parent. The authors comfortably span compulsiveness, abuse, anxiety, depression.. many common and interconnected maladies. The writing is also full of healthy empathy, which I found reassuring and satisfying, and empowering with hope.

Tightly edited and professionally crafted, this is actual literature and not just some dry psychological manual. I expect this to age well into a classic, and I will likely refer to it over time. They do not shy away from difficult situations and clinically extreme cases. "You can't meditate your way out of their problems (p240). I have a psych masters degree, yet this was refreshing and eminently valuable!

[Bonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a new parent, I read lots of parenting books in an effort to be the best parent possible while also searching for those elusive ideas that would help me to better understand my particular children. Now that my kids are 30 and 32 years old, my days of hands-on parenting are over, but they will never not be my children. There are very few books written about parenting young adults, so You're Not Done Yet is a welcome addition. The subtitle Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty is equally important. The world is drastically different than when I was a young adult, and the simplistic advice I heard of "work hard and you'll be successful" is no longer useful. The authors detail how the world is different for today's young adults along with the challenges and "poor coping" they face because of it. It was illustrative for me, along with the practical ideas that the authors give for better coping, for both parents and children, including mental health concerns. I have tried to use many of the steps given (including preparation, checking my defensiveness, and having to be right) and will continue to try and put these useful ideas into practice.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don’t understand why « kids today » aren’t doing young adulthood like you did, read this book.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it as a preview of my future...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is just what the doctor ordered. There are so many parenting books on raising kids but I've found very little about how to parent adult children. I can't go by how I was parented. The world has changed dramatically since I was a young adult over 30 years ago. Back then I would call my parents every Sunday to chat and that was considered frequent contact. Texting is such a different ballgame. Rents were cheaper, colleges cheaper and easier to get into, people weren't so connected by the internet.

If you have what my therapist call "shake & bake" kids - the ones that got into a good college, graduated in 4 years, immediately found a well paying job in their career and can afford to rent or buy and live on their own while being in successful long term romantic relationships and with a variety of supportive friendships - then this book is not for you. Congratulations! You won the life lottery and got an easy to raise kid. For those of us with more spicy kids, you want to read this book. Trust me.

I did find it odd that the authors never mentioned autism when several examples they gave seemed to be about young adults on the spectrum.
Long Quote: It's spooky how much I relate to this.

Amy's parents were extremely worried about her failure to form meaningful attachments outside the family. From all outward appearances, she was accepting of her solitary life and didn't seem concerned with finding a romantic partner. They didn't understand why she wasn't bothered by not having friends.Their efforts to get her to talk about it had never gotten very far. Amy always found it hard to express her feelings and even harder to explain them. She readily acknowledged she was nervous talking in front of other people, but she also explained that she was used to feeling anxious and didn't really let it bother her that much. When asked if she was at all concerned with her current level of social interaction with people her own age, Amy paused for a long while before answering. " know I should have more friends," she said, "but I'm not as worried about it as my mom and dad are...Here was the crux of this family's problem: Amy wasn't taking ownership of a vital developmental task of young adulthood -forming friendships, or becoming relational. She was too comfortable with the status quo, partly because trying to find close friendships risked her reexperiencing the hurtful interactions she experienced in middle school. Because social avoidance is negatively reinforcing, it is a difficult habit to break. Negative reinforcement is at the root of most avoidant behavior. A person minimizes the stress of encounters by avoiding them, and the feeling of relief maintains the behavior. Keeping a safe distance had become a way of life for Amy. We noted her difficulties with fitting in with the college social scene and her cautious approach to meeting new people her own age, especially when she readily enjoyed being with her family and spending time alone.

I highlighted this book up the wazoo. It really spoke to me and I found it very helpful. For instance - Stop giving unsolicited advice! That's a tough one for me. I excel at telling people what to do, especially my kids haha. I'm trying to change now.

Setting the stage/why are more people struggling:
Sociologists have defined 5 markers of adulthood - completing education, obtaining a job/settling into a career, living independently, finding a partner & becoming a parent. Parents second-guess their child-rearing practices when their young adults have not hit the big 5 adulthood markers. Or they might fault their kids.

From the late 1940s through the 1980s, between 65 and 70 percent of young adults reached the five adult milestones in their late teens/early twenties. In 2020, only 24 percent of young adults, by age thirty-four, had completed them.

After WWIl, the United States reigned as the world's dominant manufacturer and political superpower. Living wages and middle-class jobs were plentiful, most requiring no college degree. For many young adults, an early marriage and parenthood were the norm and the ticket for leaving home. Although this 35 year period of exceptional economic boom is an extreme historical outlier, that era continues to influence our current beliefs.

Both parents and emerging adults agree that the younger generation will have a harder time affording an education, a home, and other necessities of adult life and will not be better off financially than the generation that came of age in the 1980s.

the stressors on young adults and their parents only intensified after college graduation.
Though better educated than any prior generation, they were also under-employed, if employed at all. So many U.S. college grads returned home to live with their families that by 2014, they had acquired the nickname boomerang kids. An economic tsunami had been forming since the late 1980s. Invisible for decades, slowly creating for all but the very wealthiest, a true earnings nosedive. The downturn encompassed globalization, the loss of manufacturing jobs, debts incurred by lengthy foreign wars, the housing bubble, the global financial crisis of 2008-2011, rising student debt, and an ever-shrinking middle class. Time-honored blue-collar jobs no longer meant a living wage.

Parents' caregiving roles included mental health assistance to both older and younger generations. Their individual heroic efforts occurred while most of them continued full-time jobs. The worsening mental health trend among the parent generations has multiple causes brought on by two core challenges: changing intergenerational dynamics and financial vulnerabilities. Along with heightened caregiving demands and financial liabilities, parents had fewer social and healthcare safety nets. The insidious creep of all these factors landed most heavily on parents born in the late 1960s and 1970s and then on their children, today's twentysomethings. The long-playing impact of these socioeconomic and health threats have converged with mental health concerns. The kids are not all right. Neither are their parents. UGH, that is exactly us.

The Some College, No Credential (SCNC) population reached thirty-nine million as of July 2020.

Generational Issues
Each generation holds stereotypes of "What's wrong with kids today?" (the parents ask) and "You've ruined everything; we inherited your mess" (the kids assert). Because cross-blaming increases in times of large-scale social change, today's families need to do even more to improve communication.

Common to developmental growth, there is a loss and a gain for both generations. The young adult loses a familiar dependency, which may feel both scary and exhilarating as they gain in autonomy. Parents lose a sense of control when they let go of the familiar authoritative role.

Today's parents can expect one or more of their children to be living with them for several years beyond the completion of college or other postsecondary education. The dual challenge parents face in such instances is learning how to coexist with their young adult "roommate" and figuring out how to provide support when they perceive their child is having trouble moving ahead in the quest to separate and individuate from the family.

Tyler's story is of outdated expectations and broken promises for achieving adulthood;
Elaine's story is of a worried mother, her son's source of emotional support, who questions their parenting; Scott's story is one of a father who provided more for his son than he ever got and who faults Tyler for not "growing up."

Parent Quotes:
Parents who have relied on formal and informal guidance to boost their child's outcomes now wonder how to thread the needle between just enough but not too much help and for how long.

While we can certainly empathize with their difficulties with envisioning their future selves or defining their life goals, we must not overidentify with our children. Doing so risks our ability to stay as objective and as nonintrusive as possible.

mothers often feel at fault and develop low self-esteem when their children or young adults have problems

however hard we try to do what's best for a child, there is no guaranteed outcome

To develop mature parent-young adult relationships, parents can initiate change and relate more collaboratively by moving from correcting to responding, from talking to listening, and from offering unsolicited advice to becoming a safe sounding board.

(dealing with a adult child with a mental illness) Parents must cope with negative stigma and self-blame; remain open-minded and flexible in their approach; and learn specific nuances of how to relate, listen, and talk collaboratively to support their young adult, whose very recovery may depend on parental dedication to their well-being.

It's tricky to know what to do or say when you see signs of poor coping in your adult child. Before a problem can be solved, it must be talked about in a constructive manner. A child's mental illness attacks a parent's very sense of self and creates fears that a child or young adult is not normal a

One mom fretted, "I was looking forward to being an empty nester. But we didn't even get five years between their college graduations and needing to help my elderly parents." Parents might also resent the unexpected extension of the two-decades-long tour of duty. A young adult's delayed independence translates into an individually borne emotional and financial burden for their parents, whose own tasks of middle age are deferred.

Prevention skills rely on respectful, open-ended questions that show curiosity rather than judgment. Repair skills include naming feelings, asking for time to calm down, and owning up to blaming or critical responses.

You may feel embarrassed or ashamed when your friends' kids are doing great. Remind yourself that your child's situation is temporary and not a reflection on either them or you. Think of a compassionate narrative you may feel comfortable sharing.

The earlier parental command "Get out of the street!" alerts a child to a real danger of an oncoming car. Yet this same tendency toward protectiveness can later morph into unsolicited parental advice. Parents must manage their anxiety and resist bright-sided reassurance whose underlying message is: "I can't handle this."

When a young adult turns to a parent, parents are well advised to listen to understand rather than jump in to advise and convince.

a common parental delusion that our children will and should be like us.

positive parenting combines high warmth and low psychological control while incorporating rules with reasonable expectations. THE IDEAL

When does support create a dependency trap? When should parents hold firm or pull back in order to meet their own midlife needs? When does setting firm limits inadequately protect young adults at a vulnerable period of their lives?"

Young Adult issues:
Like many struggling young adults, he resorted to age-typical coping behaviors: overconsumption of junk food, poor sleep patterns, procrastination, avoidance of challenges such as job searching, and increased screen time and substance use.

There are 5 defining features of emerging adulthood: identity exploration, feelings of instability, self-preoccupation, feeling oneself in between life stages, and a sense of possibilities/general optimism about the future. Successful resolution of the crisis posed by this stage of life requires young people to explore multiple social roles without committing to any one of them until they have achieved what they believe to be an authentic self-identity. Parents may unwittingly cause confusion by insisting that their young adults choose a career path by the time they declare a major in college. Most experts agree that it's extremely hard to find a firm career path by age twenty.

Emerging adults must formulate a vision of the future, come up with a life plan, design a method for implementing it, find the means to carry it out, and engage their significant others in this journey. A prime challenge for youth is to become the author of their own life story. They must construct a narrative identity that defines both who they are and how they got to be themselves.This extremely complicated task is subject to the interplay of a person's temperament, early life experiences, family relationships, character strengths and vulnerabilities, and socioeconomic and cultural influences.

As young people transform into adults, they must learn how to balance independence with inter-dependence, develop greater self-reliance, master new technologies, manage their time, develop organizational skills, and find motivation and persistence. They'll also need to practice decision-making, handle risk. face uncertainty, cultivate self-awareness, and find a sense of direction or purpose.

Flourishing or floundering? The floundering group has grown from 1/3 to roughly 1/2 of college students. Given the complexity of today's world, along with the seismic changes in society, many young people are struggling to come up with viable strategies that will guide them toward their goals and help them resolve their most difficult challenges.

When a young adult turns to a parent, parents are well advised to listen to understand rather than jump in to advise and convince.

When we're stressed, what most of us want is for someone to care about us and "be there." Among the many definitions of parental love, a lifelong constant for a child is the experience of feeling known and understood. Feeling known begins with a sense of being truly heard.

There might be times when her mother couldn't be her sounding board. Her mother could still catch her if she was falling, but young adulthood also means accepting a parent's limits.

What does he want for his future? How could his parents help? Conversations like these are oriented toward behavioral activation-starting small by finding an activity that a disengaged young adult wants to do to replace a default activity...the goal for a young person is to engage in an activity that mines past interests to build a healthier lifestyle. It's a low-dopamine repertoire that creates daily routines for better mood and sleep.

Despite the occasional dismissal of the importance of a college degree, in today's market, a college education is often necessary for a middle-class job and life. Less than 1/3 of U.S. young adults ages 25-29 hold a bachelor's degree. Although 2/3s of students who enroll in college graduate within 6 years of enrollment, most of the completers come from relatively well-resourced families.

As recently as 2018, 40 percent of all college students were 25 or older

Recent economic changes demonstrate how little we know about the future of jobs; nor can we predict the necessary credentials that our children entering young adulthood will need to obtain a good job. We cannot see what the future holds.

Parents can reassure young adults that life is curvy, not linear-there will be starts and stumbles along the way.

People guide their career searches based on interests, best grades, and expected college majors.
This approach is the most common mistake in early career guidance. People's interests are inherently unstable; they are learned, feelings-based, and changeable... Aptitudes are the best predictors of a successful college major and a gratifying future career. ..An aptitude is the potential for learning to do something quickly or easily...aptitudes differ from skills: A skill is a learned or acquired ability (not inherent)...Not having an aptitude doesn't mean you can't do a job. It's just that you'll have to work hard at it and probably won't enjoy it very much...individuals may do informational interviewing, internships, volunteer work, and try jobs related to their future goals. Regarding online aptitude testing, Greene cautioned that many rely on self-reporting, which is similar to asking, "What are your interests?"

In the twenty-first century, it's unlikely that you'll have the same job across your entire career. It's important to be flexible.

there's good news for college grads. Employers still frequently prefer or require four-year college degrees, and college graduates have held on to the economic ladder, even when they weren't climbing it.

Executive functioning is how efficiently do we do what we set out to do. This is based on five highly interrelated areas of daily functioning: time management, self-organization, problem-solving, self restraint, self motivation and emotional regulation.

People with good executive functions are more likely to have a better quality of life - greater independence, good physical/mental health, success in school and at work, better family and intimate relationships. Impairments in executive functions are linked to several mental disorders, including
ADHD & autism.

People with ADHD don't lack the knowledge of what needs to be done. Nor do they lack the skills to get things done. They have trouble turning their intentions into actions. These implementation problems arise from chronic developmental difficulties related to impaired self-regulation. Without self-regulation, it difficult for a person to organize, initiate, and sustain actions over time to achieve something that they know will be important to them in the future.

Difficulty with future-oriented actions is tied to the tendency to favor immediate rewards over delayed ones.

It's hard to know what to do when the support being provided isn't helping the young person move forward toward self-sufficiency. Most advice books encourage parents to facilitate independence by stepping back and giving their kids space to figure things out for themselves. This "less is more" advice only goes so far

where do we draw the line between reward-driven pleasure-seeking behaviors and compulsive ones?...if you share with your kid your own attempts to limit your device habits, you'll be modeling positive behavior rather than acting as a nagging parent.(about internet use)

The most that parents can do is provide practical constructive messages, tangible rewards or inducements, and concrete examples of positive change in their own lives

Unrealistic expectations and lack of social support are major sources of anxiety for young adults and their parents.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly frustrating... Not at all what the title & subtitle suggest. It's mostly recapping experiences from successful clients from her therapy sessions. So, if your adult child happens to be having the same or similar experiences to one of those examples, perfect!! If not, there's really nothing useful here for you to help your struggling 20-something.

Also, we have already thrown out the "typical" expectations of "normal"... There is no "normal", especially not anymore, normal is a setting on a dryer. We could honestly care less if our kids go to college, get the typical 9-5 job, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, etc. We also would rather they not work themselves to death at some pointless just another "cog in the machine" BS job, making some rich tax-dodging @$$hole richer; we'd rather they find what they love & we don't care how often they change paths... Or, at the very least, we'd rather they move forward in an area where they feel good about what they're doing, most of the time. (So, like, be a starving artist & a barista or work for those less fortunate & foster dogs if that's your jam even if it doesn't make a ton of money; don't be a drug dealer or run a cobalt mine in the DRC, even if it does make a lot of money.) However, even tho it's stated so many times in the book to let go of your expectations of college & "normal" for your kids, THE WHOLE BOOK is basically getting those kids back into college & accumulating massive amounts of unnecessary debt they will never be able to pay off... 🤦‍♀️ If there was even one example of a young adult who didn't go back to college & was still deemed "successful," I cannot recall. Talk about a bait & switch.

So yeah, back at the beginning. Super. 👎🏼 If your kid had super obvious issues that need addressing like an LD or addiction or mental health issues, or you were always the parents to swoop in & save them or plan their life so they never learned responsibility & accountability, maybe there's something helpful in here for you. If your kid, in high school, was respectful & responsible & a self-starter & never had any issues & you're completely baffled as to why they choose to do nothing & go nowhere now, this is not the book for you. It's a waste of time.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave a realistic account of the generational divide between GenX parents and their GenZ offspring. It shares the importance of setting aside biases and stereotypes to leverage separate realities.

Providing support to twenty-something emerging adults trying to cross the chasm to gain independence is more about listening than interjecting unsolicited parental advice or providing solutions. It suggested attempting the “less is more” approach, to avoid micromanaging and erecting too much scaffolding in the growing up and getting out process.

This can be a tumultuous time for both sides and this book included many vignettes that shared family viewpoints during discussions with therapists and checked back in later to gauge if they had made progress or experienced further setbacks.

Psychologists refer to this stage of life as individuation, when young adults are trying to assert their own identity, but in today’s economy it is difficult even with a college degree to easily separate from parental support upon graduation. Struggles with mental health issues, substance addictions, and obsession with electronic devices contribute to the strife of breaking free into a stable sense of self.

This book gave me a lot to ponder, but in my personal unique situation, it is hard to obtain specific answers from this general exploration of the topic. The book mentions that there are pdf resources available for further information, but I didn’t have access to that from the audio version I reviewed.
Thank you @NetGalley and @Macmillan.Audio for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

[Nel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, so this book will be living rent-free inside my head for a good, long time. What a wonderful surprise to receive this book from partner St. Martin's Press . How did you know I needed this treasure trove of useful information so desperately???!!!

What a wealth of knowledge for those of us wading through the waters of adult parenting. No one ever told me this would be harder than parenting my little people!!! The separation and letting go is enough to kill me😭😭😭! How will my babies never live in my household again😮‍💨?! But I digress...

This is a small but mighty reference book filled with anecdotes, case studies, and step-by-step guides about letting go and giving your children wings to fly, while still offering the nurturing support they so desperately need. I love how the authors address the very real changes that Covid introduced, along with a no-nonsense approach to parenting adult kids and learning to guide them without alienating them. There's no judgment, no harsh criticism, just a sure-fire way to develop a strong bond with your newly formed adult.

So, if like me, you're looking for a beacon in the perilous waters of parenting your 20-something, RUN to the bookstore and grab yourself a copy! You won't regret it!

For more of my reviews, please check out my blog at www.mamasgottaread.blogspot.com or follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/mamasgottaread.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

You're Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty, Dr. B. Janet Hibbs and Dr. Anthony Rostain, is an outstanding resource for parents of older and adult "kids." No matter how old they are, they are always our kids and we are always their parents. The real question is how we communicate so that we hear each other as a loving adult family. A few themes really resonated. First, the differences in generational experiences and how they impact both expectations and current realities. Second, although he or she is your "kid," they are an adult or an "emerging adult." As a parent, you want to nurture their process of maturing, rather than your own ideal of adulthood. Just as whatever baby/toddler books were on the parental nightstand or bookcase, this book should have a special place in the home for parents of older "kids" It is filled with insight, conversational tips, and backed by exhaustive research. Thanks so much to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and the authors for the opportunity to read a digital ARC.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A timely parenting book that fills a gap in the category. It is just as the title says... and as parents are we ever really done? My own kids are older than the target group of this book, but I enjoyed reading it just to be able to understand this particular generation a little bit better and to understand the impact that our world has on a particular generation. It would behoove all of us older folks to know more about the unique difficulties faced by this generation.
The books is thorough, well-organized, gives relatable examples and episodes, and is quite readable. Recommended for everyone that cares about a generation other than their own.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I am glad it will be out there in the world.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for parents of teens-early 20's. Using real life examples, the author guides the reader in how to relate to what their children are going through. She teaches the reader how to communicate with their new adult children more effectively, resulting in greater outcomes for both the child and the child/parent relationship.

I am a library associate and received an advance copy from #NetGalley.

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very practical and useful, with great tips and suggested conversation prompts and questions alongside deeper dives into the literature grounding the method being presented. My kids aren’t quite in the age group focused on here (18-30), but I definitely plan to revisit this in a few years--and a number of these tips work great for teens, too!

[Cheri Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the right book for me at the right time. It’s for anyone that has an adult child who just needs the right kind of support and it’s very helpful to understand how different this generation is in all that’s been thrown at them. It also it’s helpful to open upconversation in a positive way.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. I needed this read.

[Michelle Pulignani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information. Definitely loved this book.

[Minnikin]

I had to abandon this book because it is printed in the lightest, smallest, most uncomfortable, unreadable font I have ever had the discomfort of experiencing. Maybe I can find it on Kindle.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skimmed some of this but there were also some good insights.

[Lawrence Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a great deal about a brand new subject: parenting 18-25 year olds. Few can offer advice, because prior generations did not have to do it. The author explains that positive parenting combines high warmth and low psychological control while incorporating rules with reasonable expectations. In helping emerging adults, parents should LISTEN TO LEARN. Ask another question before offering “fast thinking” advice. Understand how your son/daughter assesses the problem? Do they want assistance, or just to be heard? What type of assistance? Ask if you might offer some advice, after understanding their goal.

The author offers a number of acronyms for both recognizing psychological problems: FEAR

Fusion with your thoughts
Evaluation of experience (judging everything)
Avoidance of your experience
Reason giving for your behavior (rationalizing)

AND reducing anxiety: FACE COVID

Focus on what’s in your control
Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings
Come back into and connect with you body
Engage in what you are doing
Commit to positive action
Open up to accepting your difficult feelings and being kind to yourself
Value what matter and act on those values (every day)
Identify resources that can help you
Disinfect your physical environment (cleanliness is next to godliness)

[Christine Hiester · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, with good data and solid examples, but really focused more on kids who are having a specific problem like failure to launch or addictions, rather than a guide for parents who just want ton stay involved in their child’s life and help guide them as they navigate adulthood.
There was some good helpful information on job searching for young adults and a lot of insight into the challenges younger generations face.

[Pam Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very basic and not very helpful. I was expecting more based on the descriptions and reviews. I bought this for myself and daughter to read but will not share it with her now.

[Laura M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It gave me a lot of information to think about. New ways of engaging with my twenty-something daughter. Also new information regarding some mental health crises.

[Laurie Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really useful and comprehensive guide to parenting through the emerging adult years, during these complicated times.

[Debbie Dickinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so useful in helping me understand not only what my child but also my students are going through. I think it will make me a better teacher as well as a parent. Highly recommended.

[Ruby Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an affirming book and valuable resource! I read plenty of parenting books for raising young children but not many good ones for parenting older adults. This book is the exception. I appreciated the information and research on how unprecedented the times are that our adult kids are living in.

I also loved a parenting description as being "open nesters" compared to "empty nesters," who let kids come and go, and that young adulthood today is called "emergency adulthood," flexible and dynamic.

Included is a resource called the CRAFT module for positive communication which I plan to keep at hand. It offers steps to keep in mind for engaging with your twentysomething. I found most useful the steps to take in preparation before conversations, such as checking your defensiveness level, pausing or slowing down, and trying to see things from your young adult's perspective.

I will be using this as a resource and sharing with friends. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Nathaniel Geyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best self help books. Although, the target audience is parents of tweens. I see great potential to use the tips in the book to improve my relationships with others including my parents, extended family, and friends.