In today’s day and age, going to college is almost a requirement to go far in the work place. Having a degree from a college or university not only gives you the education you need to gain employment but it also gives you another way to market yourself for that job you are striving for. A college degree is most often expensive but there are ways to handle that cost all on your own.

Getting a Job

To pay for college requires money and the easiest way to make money is to have a job. This job does not have to be anything fancy and can even be part time. Depending on the type of school that is being attended, studies may need to be done part-time and work done full time to earn enough money to pay for school. Money made from this job can be put towards tuition bills and no student loans will need to be taken out.

Work – Study Program

Most colleges offer work – study opportunities or internships. These are jobs you get part-time on campus working for professors or in the office buildings. You can either be paid in cash and apply this money to your tuition or you can work for the school and money will be deducted off of your tuition cost.

Grants

Grants are monies that are applied for through the government. Certain requirements and specifications need to be met but if approved, the money is given and is then applied towards tuition and does not need to be paid back. Depending on the type of grant, it can be renewed annually until graduation or a one-time thing.

Scholarships

Scholarships work in the same way grants do but are given out by different agencies and groups. These need to be applied for like grants do and certain requirements and specifications need to be met as well. The amount of each scholarship will vary from organization to organization and the renewability of the scholarship will vary as well. When scholarship money is given, the giver sends the money straight to the college or university and the amount is applied to the tuition bill.

Community College

Community colleges are a great way to cut down on the expense of college and ease the burden of tuition costs. In addition to being cost effective, after completing the two years a community college requires, an Associate’s degree can be achieved. Then a transfer to a 4-year university can be done and the rest of the work towards a 4-year degree can be completed.

A college degree takes work and can be costly. Being determined and doing some extra work can leave a college graduate debt free as they enter the work force.

Louise Baker is a freelance blogger and journalist who writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning, and online degrees. She most recently wrote about where to get the best criminal justice degrees.

Similar Posts:

• Paying For College – College Financial Aid and Student Loans
• Paying For College – Should Parents Pay For College Tuition?
• 10 Mistakes College Students Make When Going to College
• Getting Into College After College Placement Exams
• Graduation Gift Ideas: High School Graduation, College Graduation Gifts Ideas

Every family has its struggles. Siblings bicker, teenagers butt heads with their parents, and parents are faced with their own conflicts. Fortunately, most of these problems can be resolved, if not avoided entirely, when taking the time to understand the psychology behind the issues.

While this may sound complex, in actuality it is fairly simple, as you don’t even have to have a psychology degree to learn the basics. Simply learning the reasons behind conflicts will give family members a better understanding of each other, as well as themselves, and allow them to work through the issues as a team.

1. Lack of communication between family members:
Many problems arise simply because family members fail to effectively communicate with one another. Adults and children must learn how to calmly and patiently explain their expectations and needs to other members of the family. Instead of playing games and waiting for someone to read their mind, each member of the family must take the time to communicate with one another. If every member of the family agrees to try to calmly express their thoughts and feelings, a great deal of conflict can be avoided.

2. Disagreements over money:
According to therapist Olivia Mellan, in an article released by MSN, money represents dependency, freedom, and most importantly, control. As a result, family disputes about money are rarely actually about money, but are about power. However, arguments over finances can be greatly mitigated if spouses agree to make financial decisions together. By doing so the couple is ultimately agreeing to share control, which will cause them to view each other as equals.

3. Meddling or overly nosy relatives:
According to the Family Education Network, experiencing conflict over in-laws and other relatives that frequently try to dictate how a family should be run is a common problem that many families face. In order to solve this problem, it is important for both spouses to take turns explaining how the situation makes them feel. Then, if necessary, the couple should calmly and respectfully approach the family member to resolve the issue.

4. Disputes over career direction:
Families may experience this problem in a variety of ways. Some parents may try to dictate the career path of their child, while other couples may find that one spouse attempts to control their partner’s choice of career. This need to control a family member usually comes from a person’s desire to see the individual succeed. However, all involved parties must understand that the only adult life they have the right to control is their own.

5. Disagreements on raising children:
Most adults have strong opinions about how they want to raise their children. These opinions arise from each parent’s upbringing and past experiences. Unfortunately, varying past experiences between a couple can cause each person to have different opinions on how a child should be raised, which often results in conflict. To get past these differences, both parents will need to look past their own experiences and focus on the current situation. Focusing on the situation at hand will help both parents see the all the issues clearly and allow them to compromise on a solution.

6. A child or teenager acting out:
Nearly all children and teenagers will go through phases of “acting out” or asserting their independence. The key to working through these phases is to try to understand why a child is behaving this way. Refrain from getting angry or threatening children who are misbehaving. In an article for Psychology Today, Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D., claims threatening children, instead of guiding and disciplining them with a level head, will only escalate the situation.

7. Frequent disputes among siblings:
When raising two or more children, arguments are bound to arise. Frequent disputes and/or competitiveness among siblings tend to be a manifestation of jealously. When handling these situations, parents must be careful to treat both children fairly and avoid favoring one child. Unless the dispute is completely one-sided, both children will need to be disciplined equally.

8. Holiday disagreements among relatives:
One of the most common fights among relatives is whose turn it is to visit whom, especially around the holidays. This can be a tricky dispute to navigate, as these problems usually arise from one relative feeling taken advantage of or neglected. To diffuse the problem, let relatives know the truth why the trip can’t be made, whether it is due to a lack of money or a scheduling problem, and listen to suggestions as to how to rectify the situation.

9. Disagreements on how to handle chores:
Generally speaking, most children don’t exactly get excited about having to clean their room or help out with the dishes. However these are important duties that teach children a sense of responsibility. If a child refuses to do certain chores, calmly take away favored activities. This will help children understand that their responsibility to their family takes precedence over video games or other sources of entertainment.

10. Children showing disrespect towards members of the family:
Yelling, name-calling and acts of violence should never be tolerated. Before these behaviors worsen, children need to be disciplined and taught to understand that their behavior is unacceptable. If ignored, most children will begin to believe that treating others with disrespect is a normal way to react to unpleasant circumstances.

When solving family disputes, the most important thing is that all problems are approached with love. Each member of the family should be treated with understanding and compassion, instead of made to feel stupid or inadequate. Conflict and behavioral issues are usually due to hidden emotions and/or insecurities that need to be addressed before the problems can be diffused. When digging into the psychology of the issues, family members can gain the upper hand and help steer conflict into calmer and easier waters.

This guest article was written and submitted by Allison Gamble, a psychologydegree.net content writer. If you would like to write and submit an article to be published on Telling It Like It Is, please email me through the “contact” link at the top of the page.

Similar Posts:

• How to Get Along With the In-Laws: Dealing With In-Laws and Extended Family
• Letting Go of Our Grown Adult Children, When What We Do is Never Enough
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• How to Be a Good Mother-In-Law
• How to Fight Fair in Marriage

Christian parenting of adult children, and step-parenting grown adult children in Christian families, has lead to several questions from readers on the matter of helping vs. enabling adult children. The questions came from numerous parenting articles here, where I discuss the problems many parents and step-parents are having with grown children, especially in regards to the adult children asking for money or needing some kind of monetary “help” on a regular basis.

Mothers, fathers, step-mothers and step-fathers, have emailed me asking for tips and advice on how to handle their parenting problems with their adult children, from a Christian perspective. Some parents even asked for Bible scripture quotes and biblical principles for them to share with their grown kids, to help explain why the parents should not, could not and will not give the grown children money and/or pay their bills. Trust me, if there were ever public speaking opportunities for me to discuss parents enabling adult children, I would not have to be asked twice.

The answers to the questions involve many aspects of parenting adult children and married life, not only for Christians, but for any parent who may be enabling their grown children without realizing the harm done by this behavior. The Christian responsibility of fathers and mothers; the husband’s role in marriage and the wife’s role; the subject of leaving and cleaving; what “giving away the bride” means in Christian wedding ceremonies; traditional wedding vows brides and grooms make to each other, are all involved in these problems. Christian parents of adult children, are you helping or enabling your grown kids?

It came as no surprise that the subject of step-parenting adult children, children who are full-grown married adults with or without kids of their own, challenged parenting skills to the max and were creating marriage problems between the enabling parent and his/her spouse. To me, parenting is parenting, regardless of whether the parents or family are Christian or church-going families or not. There are, of course, scriptures and Bible principles for Christian parents of adult children that offer assistance in these difficult, often emotionally-charged, sensitive matters.

Christian Parenting – Parenting Adult Children

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6

From infancy to adulthood, Solomon instructs Christian parents of the importance and God-appointed parental responsibility of teaching, training and disciplining children to love and fear God; to obey their parents; to learn how to be a responsible adult in society; and to live a clean, righteous and moral life, to name a few. Parents, Christian believers or not, have an enormous challenge training children in today’s society, with the prevalent attitude of “it’s all about me” often shown in young children, teenagers and grown adult children.

We live in a generation of entitlement, where kids of all ages are growing up as selfish, arrogant, ignorant, rebellious, lazy, immature, disrespectful, profane, foolish, wasteful children, believing the world and parents owe them everything they want. Financially irresponsible adult children and adult step-children continue to drain their parents bank accounts and retirement accounts due to their own poor judgment, poor money-management skills, and an ever-growing want list because the kids refuse to grow up and won’t tell themselves No.

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.” – 1 Timothy 5:8

Husband Role in Christian Marriage

One Christian father emailed me saying his son-in-law would not work, preferring to play video games all day, while the father’s daughter struggled to provide for and feed her family with two young children, which included regularly asking the father for money to pay bills and cover their basic needs. Apparently, no one taught or explained to this young man the husband’s role in the Bible, or about Christian marriage roles and responsibilities for husbands and wives.

Men, when you get married, you immediately become duty-bound in God’s eyes to fulfill the roles and responsibilities of providing for and caring for the needs of your wife and children, something that your wife’s father and/or mother is no longer responsible for. Whether brides and grooms recite the traditional Christian wedding vows or not, before God and witnesses the man and woman getting married promise to “have and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live.”

Giving Away the Bride

For Christians, marriage is a covenant relationship, not a simple contract. Some Christian wedding traditions and customs, like the father giving away the bride, cause some people to cringe or wince at the mere mention of this custom. Modern brides and grooms may not like nor allow the traditional words “who gives this woman in marriage to this man?” to be included in their wedding ceremony, because of the historical origin those words came from.

The words “Who gives this bride away?“ or some alternative wording are considered to be so controversial, if not abhorrent, that anyone attending a wedding officiated by a justice of the peace may find those words excluded from the ceremony altogether. For Christian wedding ceremonies, the act of the father walking his daughter down the aisle and “giving the bride away” to the groom, is a very important part of a wedding ceremony for many parents.

The father, as head of the house, is not just presenting his daughter in marriage to a man he approves of. By giving away his daughter in marriage, and placing her hand into the groom’s hand during the ceremony, the bride’s parents are thereby demonstrating their blessing on the marital union AND are symbolizing the transferal of responsibility and care onto the husband. Saying the words “I Do”, right before repeating wedding vows to each other, the bride and the groom thus express their willing acceptance of all responsibilities marriage brings and are duty-bound before God to fulfill them to the best of their ability.

Cutting the Apron Strings

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24

The scripture quote found above, located at Genesis 2:24, is repeated at Ephesians 5:31, showing God’s pattern for marriage to include a “leaving” of one’s parents and a “cleaving” to one’s spouse. Leaving and cleaving is a shifting of allegiance from the parents before marriage, to a marriage allegiance between husband and wife alone. Psychologists call this “cutting the psychological apron strings”, which requires a letting go of responsibilities, financial support and control that parents previously had with their children.

Single or married adult children living with parents, in-laws or grandparents, cannot develop full independence and adult responsibility that being an adult requires while living with their parents. Dependence on parents or others to give support financially stops when couples marry or move out to live on their own as full grown adults, and parents should help encourage and promote such independence and responsibility.

Mental, emotional and spiritual support, guidance and encouragement for married children need not stop, and occasional financial help when truly needed. God requires parents to “let go” of their adult children, to allow their grown kids the room and space needed to live their lives as adults, to make their mistakes and to find ways to fix their own self-made problems, rather than running to rescue their children from each and every poor decision made. How else will grown kids learn how to be an adult, independent and responsible, except by their own diligent efforts?

How to Be a Good Christian Husband

In the Bible, the Christian husband’s role in marriage to his wife begins with the announcement by the minister or church Pastor that the couple is now pronounced “husband and wife“, during the Christian wedding ceremony. Christian husbands not only assume the primary leadership role in their marriage as “head of the house”, but Ephesians 5: 28-29 tells husbands to love their wives in the same way that they love their own bodies, including feeding and caring for their wives, as good Christian husbands do.

“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” – NIV

Good husbands, especially Christian believers, happily comply with biblical principles to work and make enough money to sufficiently provide for all of life’s basic necessities for his wife and children. A fundamental failure as a husband in marriage is when Christian husbands neglect their God-given responsibility as provider of their family’s needs, leaving their wives to take on the husband role as head of the household, rather than her wifely role as helper or helpmate.

Unfortunately, some Christian ministers fail to discuss in detail the husband’s role and wife’s role in marriage prior to the hectic wedding ceremony, leaving those fine Scriptural principals about marital roles and responsibilities to go unheard. Dating and engaged couples who are considering marriage, or couples already planning their wedding, should carefully ask themselves and each other if they are really ready to be married, before getting married. You’ll be glad you did, and so will your Christian parents who want you to be happy in your marriage, and your mom and dad’s bank account to be left intact.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• What Grown Children Owe Their Parents
• “What does it mean to “leave and cleave” in traditional wedding vows? How do you balance “leave and cleave” with honoring your parents?”
• How to Be a Good Son-In-Law: Building a Great Son-In-Law Relationship With Your In-Laws
• Should We Get Married? Questions to Ask Before Getting Married

“Letting go of adult children. It’s something parents do all the time. At least we’re told that’s what parents are supposed to do about the time their children turn eighteen”, says author Arlene Harder in her book on dealing with grown children who haven’t turned out the way parents hoped and expected. Whether our grown “adult children stayed living under our roof longer than we want, or strike out into the world earlier than anticipated, parents are told they need to cut the apron strings that have kept us focused on our child.”

In other words, says Harder, “when our children reach the age of maturity, we are expected to make a major change in our relationship with them- to transfer responsibility for decisions concerning their lives from us to them. If we successfully complete this transition, we will, says conventional wisdom, accept our children as independent individuals just as they are, including imperfections, values that conflict with ours, and different needs and desires. And they will accept us in return. We will communicate openly and share our values and experiences with one another without believing we have the right, or the power, to change the other person.”

Sound easy? Not if you’re the parent of a grown child who marches to a drum very different from the one you played for your child when he or she was young. You know it would be better for both of you if you could let go. But you can’t. You remain uncomfortably, perhaps painfully, “stuck” because things haven’t turned out the way you expected.

Parenting Adult Children

Letting go of grown adult children can be especially difficult for parents with adult children who have serious problems with drug addiction, alcohol abuse, mental illness, and/or choose to break societal laws and perhaps go to jail or prison for crimes committed. Many such parents have discovered that there are no guarantees that children will turn out the way they were raised, or how the parents expected, hoped and prayed their children would become as adults.

Arlene Harder’s book, “Letting Go of Our Adult Children, When What We Do is Never Enough”, is a FREE online book parents and families struggling to let go can read and receive helpful tips and advice on letting go with love. Having been granted permission to reprint the intro of the free book, parents who enable their grown children, or parents who can’t or won’t let go of their adult kids for various reasons may relate to many of the personal experiences discussed in the book and find the encouragement and support needed. The Introduction to the nine-chapter book, published in 1994, continues with the author saying:

Parents may unintentionally fail their children in some fundamental way so they aren’t really able to meet the standards we hold for them. Even more, because they have minds of their own, they can choose a lifestyle that we don’t approve of or that we feel is less than they are capable of achieving. Being stuck and unable to let go can arise from minor, irritating differences between you and your child or major obstacles that appear to be intractable. For example, you may be unable to get past frequent arguments over relatively unimportant issues that both of you always seem to turn into contests of who is right. Or while you and your daughter don’t often disagree, you can’t shake the disappointment you feel when she loses yet another job.

You want to accept the fact that how well she does at work is her problem. But you know she doesn’t demonstrate the commitment to work that employers want. How can you let go when you blame yourself for not teaching her responsibility? Or perhaps you need the money from the sale of a family house your thirty-eight year old son has been living in rent-free for Fifteen years. The only “problem” is that he doesn’t have money to move else- where; forcing him out would make you feel like Simon Legree.

Or, while you may realize that there is probably nothing you can do to prevent your son’s divorce, you remain entangled in accusations and defenses with your son’s in-laws because you’re afraid you will lose contact with a precious grandchild. And sticky in-law problems are legion in complicated step-family configurations.

Even if your children are happily married, however, you may have a hard time understanding and accepting in-laws who are of a different race, religion, or social group. You hadn’t thought of yourself as prejudiced, but you are having a hard time adjusting. And what if your child is single and living with a member of the opposite sex; or has chosen a member of his or her same sex as a life partner? With less than 25 percent of families made up of father, mother, and dependent children, family constellations aren’t what they used to be.

Letting go may be particularly difficult if the problems you face seem highly resistant to change. This is especially true when your child is mentally ill or is in serious trouble with the law. And if your child is like my son, whose difficulties in relationships and jobs have been compounded by drug and alcohol abuse, the road to letting go can be extremely long and trying. Yet your situation may be even more painful if your child died before you were able to work out the issues that kept you from letting go; all that unfinished business leaves you with pain you are sure will never go away.

You may be a parent who claims you have no choice but to let go when your child refuses to have any contact, or has extremely minimal contact, with you. Don’t kid yourself. On the surface you may look as though you have let go, but anyone probing a centimeter deep can see that your hurt in being excluded from your child’s life penetrates deep into your heart. This may be especially difficult if you are at a loss to understand what went wrong.

Yet the situation isn’t any easier if you recognize all too clearly how you contributed to the rift that has torn the family fabric in half. For example, perhaps you abused alcohol or drugs when your children were small. Today, although you are now clean and sober, your child is unwilling to forgive you, despite your apologies. In that case you may be paralyzed by guilt; concluding that you have permanently injured your child and that the gap between you can never be bridged.

On the other hand, you may be a parent who is perfectly satisfied with how your child has turned out and who thought you had a good relationship with her. Recently, however, she has accused you and her father of being “dysfunctional” and perhaps even “abusive.” Even though you realize you weren’t perfect parents, you are saddened by alienation created by her anger and your hurt.

If you see yourself in any of these situations (or ones uncomfortably similar), you realize that you’ve been unable to let go no matter how hard you try. This is what is meant by the subtitle of this book, “When What We Do Is Never Enough.” No matter what we say, think or do — no matter how hard we try — until we let go with love we remain uncomfortably bound to a child who is legally old enough to make his decisions without parental interference or approval.

As parents of children whose values and lifestyles are in conflict with ours — whether we experience a fairly small amount or a great deal of disappointment in that fact — we have probably already discovered that heavy-handed bullying and significant bribes cannot make our child become what we had hoped he would become. Money may work in the short run, of course, but in the long haul it can’t buy the integrity, honesty, determination, and responsibility we desire for our child.

Yet masking our attempts to change our child through less obvious measures is not unlike trying to run him over with a fuzzy bulldozer; it only leaves him, and us, bruised. Let’s face it — as long as we keep trying to get our child to live according to our values, we don’t stand much chance of having the kind of adult-to-adult relationship we all deserve with our children when they grow up.

The first part of the book, “Getting Caught up in Our Expectations,” deals with what happens when parents discover their child is marching to a different drummer. In it I offer a path to letting go with love and to forming a more positive relationship with your adult child, a path involving five stages of healing. In these chapters you will see that your disappointment and pain are not unique; nor is it unusual for you to keep trying to get your child to change. Most important of all, you will realize why it is essential for you to shift your attention from your adult child to yourself.

If you already know you must change your focus away from whatever stands between you and your child, you may want to go directly to the second part of the book, “Finding Peace by Letting Go.” These five chapters offer suggestions for healing the pain caused by the realization that your child does not share your values or cannot live up to the expectations you once had for him or her. Here you will find motivation to explore the issues that keep you pulling on your end of the rope in the family tug-of-war, to grieve your unfulfilled expectations, to forgive yourself and your child and, finally, to let go with love. And if differences between you and your child are still irreconcilable, you can learn how to bring closure and healing to that situation as well.

The concept of a path of healing for parents first arose for me during the painful years when I struggled with great disappointment in a child who was not living the kind of life I envisioned for him. Gradually I realized that I was moving through a series of stages and turned my attention from my son’s problems to those which I needed to address in my own life. I continued to observe this process and to further develop my theory in working with disappointed parents as part of my practice as a licensed family therapist.

Later these ideas were reinforced in interviews with over seventy-five parents, both those who were disappointed in how things have turned out and those who were very satisfied. To protect confidentiality in sharing the stories of others, I have changed names and identifying characteristics. In a few instances I have combined several elements from more than one situation to emphasize a particular point.

Letting go can be difficult for parents whether they are married, divorced, or widowed; adoptive or biological parents; single or step-parents. Since the specific circumstances in everyone’s life are different, and since we all have somewhat different expectations for our children, we will each experience different reactions to our adult children if those expectations are not met.

Consequently, the act of letting go with love will be easier and go more quickly for some and be more difficult and take longer for others. Yet this book offers to every parent the evidence that it is possible to let go and find peace even in the most difficult of circumstances.

It is my hope that this book will guide you in moving past your disappointment and pain into peace, healing, and acceptance of your child, even if he or she continues to make choices that have, until now, driven you up a wall. We cannot change our grown children. But dealing honestly and openly with our disappointment creates an opportunity to change ourselves — and in the process to let go with love so that our disappointment no longer causes us pain.

Parents, you can begin reading the free online book by Arlene Harder on letting go of grown adult children at Support4Change.com.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• Book Giveaway: Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children
• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers

How do you kick grown adult children out of the house when they refuse to find work, keep a job, pay their own bills/rent, constantly ask for money, won’t help around the house doing chores, won’t stick to the contract agreement rules, and are disrespectful and verbally abusive towards their parents? Parents, do you have “yuckies” living in your house? Kick ‘em out of the house with a steel toe boot. Enroll in Tough Love 101.

In the U.S., grown adult children living at home with their parents well into their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s are typically called “Millennials” or “boomerang kids” from the Boomerang Generation (also known as the Peter Pan Generation). Problem is, they’re not kids, but full grown adults fully capable of working and taking care of themselves and living on their own.

Reasons to Kick Adult Children Out of the Parents Home

“Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Learning how to be an adult does not include believing in the mythical story of Neverland, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, where kids don’t want to grow up and face the reality of becoming mature, self-supporting adults. These are often entitled grown “kidults” who refuse to grow up, unwilling to take on the adult responsibility of being independent and self-sufficient, without regular and routine financial help from their parents. Let the pixie dust twinkle in your grown children’s eyes, but it’s time to wipe it from your own and begin to see clearly what you’ve been dealing with for far too long.

Italians call these grown kids “mammon”, or “mama’s boys”. The Japanese call them “parasaito shinguru”, or “parasite singles”. In the U.K, these grown adults are called “kids in parent’s pockets eroding retirement savings”, which is short for “kippers”. The latest acronym used to describe boomerang kids returning to the family nest is “yuckie”, which stands for “Young Unwitting Costly Kid”, while the newest nickname for the parents is “baby gloomers” instead of baby boomers.

Note: This is not about grown children whose parents are helping without enabling, who allow their adult kids to live in their house temporarily, perhaps right after college graduation, while the kids do everything possible to find some kind of gainful employment to pay their own bills and make ends meet. Temporarily allowing adult kids to move back home, pay rent and help out around the house with clearly established boundaries, can be advantageous for the parents and the kids on a verrry short-term basis.

“If you want your children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” -Abigail Van Buren

The problem of adult children moving back home with parents, and staying at home longer than absolutely necessary, was the focus of a 60 Minutes segment called “The Millennials Are Coming” (referring to the “Millennium generation,” or those born between 1980-1995). Addressing the growing problems associated with adults who have a sense of entitlement in our society, many young adults believe they have the right to quit their jobs for frivolous reasons and job-hop to their hearts content. On their parents dime.

“Today more than half of college seniors move home after graduation. It’s a safety net, or safety diaper, that allows many kids to quickly opt out of a job they don’t like.”

What’s not to like? Someone else pays the bills, worries about paying the mortgage and taxes, takes care of the yard work, free cooking and maid services – some parents actually doing their grown kids laundry! It’s like these “kids” have a personal butler, housekeeper and a super-rich uncle all rolled into one – you, dear ‘ol mom and dad.

Christine says this about the 60 Minutes episode:

“Living at home gives these kids an opportunity to be choosy about their job choices. If they don’t like the way their boss treats them, they have the luxury of quitting and living with parents until they find their next job. Kids no longer have to settle on a job. It’s no longer uncommon to have several jobs on your resume.

But is that all bad? [...] The Millennials are pushing for change in the workplace. Change I like. Companies are now offering fun and flexibility to attract and keep workers.”

Having been overly-praised and coddled throughout their childhood and teenage years, many young people believe they deserve and fully expect to be rewarded for four years of college education (of course paid for in full by their parents – plus spending money) with a job paying $50,000 immediately after slipping off their graduation cap and gown. Besides the unrealistic expectation of being very well paid right off the bat, the job has to be “fun” and offer a “flexible” schedule too. Or not.

Perhaps these twentysomethings, thirtysomethings and older adult kids have been spending too much time reading and perpetuating Ryan’s Easy Entitlement Excuses for Slackers and moochers advice about adult responsibility and independence, which brought on lots of negative, but well-deserved comments and reactions.

“By moving home after graduation, you have little or no rent which allows for more freedom when searching for a job. There is no need to sell out to an investment bank if your real goal is to work with underprivileged children. Depending on where your parents are located, you are probably missing out on the big city night life and social scene, but you have lots of opportunities to find the perfect job, regardless of pay. If ditching the social scene for career sake doesn’t demonstrate responsibility and independence, I don’t know what does.

Moving home with mom and dad will immediately save you about $700 a month in housing costs. At least there is some extra cash flow. In two years, you can save up enough to move out on your own without worrying about going into credit card debt for basic necessities like fixing your car or buying groceries.”

Read those two paragraphs again, slowly. The first mistake many well-intentioned parents make when grown children move back home is not requiring the kids to pay rent, and I’m not talking about a measly hundred bucks a month either. If your adult children have the idea that living with you in your house means they have lots of time and opportunity “to find the perfect job”, including their numerous excuses, excuses to the contrary, you’re in deep trouble.

“Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” -Roger Lewin

Parents, if you need good reasons why you should kick out your grown adult children, or your kids are lazy slackers who treat your home like a free bed-and-breakfast or hotel, read Ryan’s ridiculous article and the comments for a real eye-opener. Kick ‘em out. Drop the guilt complex too. You are not a people pleasing doormat for your adult kids to wipe their dirty feet on. If you don’t let go of the guilt nonsense, your grown kids are going to try and use it against you. They know your emotional hot buttons and kids push those buttons until parents give in, or until parents use tough love and make it perfectly clear the manipulation attempts and guilt-tripping won’t work.

Just like this story about Mike and his mom’s attempts to move him out of the house, kids will pull every trick in the book including, ambivalence, dismissal, out of hand rejection of the whole idea, yelling and swearing, anger, declaring that his parents have given up on him or hate him, announcing they will never see him again, enlist the “help” of relatives, etc. Kick ‘em out anyway.

How to Kick Grown Children Out

If your grown kids have basically become a permanent fixture on your couch, or are not fulfilling their part of the contracted arrangement by putting in the time and effort to find a job and move out on their own, the freeloading and mooching stops now. If you have been spending months or years trying your darndest to get a lazy, unmotivated, abusive, disrespectful adult child to move out on their own, implement Tough Love 101.

“In the final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” Ann Landers

Close your wallet or checkbook and put up a handmade sign over “their” bedroom door saying the bank of mom and dad is hereby closed for business, effective immediately. Parents should not enable their grown children, keeping them from growing up and becoming independent, by giving them money when they are old enough to earn it for themselves. Doing so deprives and cripples them of the opportunity and need to grow into mentally, emotionally and spiritually mature human beings providing for their own needs and wants. Encourage and motivate, yes. Enable, no.

Decide on a move-out date and circle it in red on the calendar, then place it in a location in plain sight and mark off each day that passes towards the final move date. Have a formal, sit-down conversation with your adult child(ren) and explain the move-out date and that it is nonnegotiable. No extensions are allowed. Whether it’s 30 days, 60 days or 90 days is up to you parents, but the maximum number of days is ninety. Moving out sooner is fine (and preferred), but no compromises to the set date may be made that extends their stay.

Greatly reduce the comfort level of your grown kids home environment in order to force them to leave home, finally. That means stop cooking for them; stop cleaning up after them; stop doing their laundry; stop being their taxi service or chauffeur; stop giving them money for any reason; stop paying their bills; stop buying their favorite foods, drinks, alcohol, snacks and cigarettes on your dime. Do not give handouts of money for food, clothing or entertainment either. Parents are also under no obligation to include adult children to tag along, and pay for expenses, when mom and dad go out for an evening of fun.

Remove the TV and remote from their bedroom, along with other electronic devices and unnecessary luxury items, and implement a “no friends over” rule. Put a padded lock on your bathroom and bedroom doors and hang onto the key, where you can hide or lockup items your grown kids should not have free access to. Shut off and discontinue service to all non-essentials: internet, cable and mobile cell phone services. By this point, your kids will likely have gotten a clue that you mean business and they need to move out. No if, and’s or but’s about it.

If not, then some tough love advocates advise making things disappear around the house. Things like toilet paper in bathrooms other than your own, paper towels, napkins, use of the microwave (hide it away), closet hangars etc. Before I would go so far as to start dismantling beds and hiding away stuff these kids leave around, I would be more inclined to simply ask for the house key, open the front door and escort the kid outside and close the door and lock it. Then change the locks or have a locksmith come and do it.

Understand that many of these suggestions and ideas are intended as a last resort, when you’ve tried everything else to motivate, help without enabling and encourage your grown kids to move out on their own. Where they belong. This is not about being a control freak or controlling the lives of your grown children.

The question of how to throw grown children out of the house is, by far, one of the most frequent questions I have received by parents to date. This is about restoring the peace and tranquility to your home and marriage, and your own financial stability and wellness before you parents and/or grandparents lose your entire savings or retirement accounts to unmotivated, lazy, entitled slackers and moochers who have overstayed their welcome in your house. No more free rides in life. Kick ‘em out once and for all. It’s for their own good, and yours.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers
• Parenting Tips-Raising Children With Tough Love

Are parents obligated to pay college tuition for their kids to attend college? Should parents pay for college or should college students be responsible for paying college related expenses including tuition, with or without their parents help? The question of who pays for college continues to be a controversial (sometimes heated) debate between kids planning to attend college, and their parents.

Parents, are you responsible for paying your kids college education or not? If parents are supposed to pay for college, how much should parents pay towards tuition, books, housing costs, transportation, gas, insurance, food, clothing, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses for college? Where do parents draw the line between helping kids attend college and not jeopardizing their savings and retirement accounts? To say that your retirement plans are more important than your children’s college funds is putting it mildly.

The all too common belief some people have that it is somehow a parents obligation to pay for college, as if parents “owe” their kids a paid-for college education, reeks of unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement in today’s society. Parents who cannot afford to pay for their kids to attend college, or choose not to pay some or all college expenses for their own personal or financial reasons, are almost made out to be bad parents.

These parents are accused of not loving their kids, not wanting their children to be successful in life, and not worthy of being called parents amongst other things. Loving your children has nothing to do with who is going to pay for college, or a parent’s desire for their kids to become successful, independent adults. In an article entitled “don’t pay your children’s college education”, the writer aptly points out that paying for college is not about love, sacrifice or devotion towards kids. There is much more to it than that.

So, parents have to pay for college if they have the money, right? Wrong. “How am I going to pay for my college education if my parents won’t pay, can’t afford to help, or refuse to fill out the FAFSA?” is a common question.

Who Pays For College?

Opinions on why parents should pay for college vs. parents who should not pay for college vary, as expected. Even “personal finance experts” can’t seem to agree. Words like should, must, have to, obligation, responsibility and similar terms used by college-aged kids expecting their parents to pay for all college expenses with little or no “skin in the game” themselves is ludicrous. I have yet to find a parenting manual that states parents must pay for their child’s college education, whether parents can afford the costs or not.

Don’t get me wrong, education is important. Many parents already do what they can to ensure their kids get a great education until high school graduation. But, parents do not owe their children a college education. Parents paying for college is not a kids “right” to a free ride through college, but is a parents choice to decide whether to pay or not pay for any part of their kids higher education, how much, and on what terms.

You can take loans for college but not for retirement. Even financial expert Suze Orman says it is financially irresponsible and downright dangerous for parents to basically write a blank check from the bank of mom and dad to pay for their kids college education, or take out a second mortgage to pay for college. IF parents can afford to pay for college and choose to do so, then by all means pay for your child to go to college to whatever degree you are financially able to do so, without sacrificing your savings account or retirement account.

How to Pay For College

Planning ahead towards college costs with money set aside in a 529 plan for your kids education is a smart option for parents, if they choose to and can afford it. Parents can also help their children look for scholarships, federal grants, student loans and sources of “free money” for college. For those in Canada, similar to a 529 plan is an RESP, or Registered Education Savings Plan. It’s a tax-free savings account you can open up for your child and contribute money to until he or she attends post-secondary. Anyone can contribute; the lifetime limit is $50,000 per beneficiary.

Do not allow your children, or society in general, to guilt-trip or demand that you pay for your child’s college education if you cannot afford to pay or choose not to pay for your kids to go to college. It is entirely up to you, the parents.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this article suggesting the “federal government and the schools consider it the family’s primary responsibility to pay for the child’s education”, wrongly implying that parents are legally required to pay for college. Let the whining and moaning commence. Parents who have college-aged kids have already fulfilled their responsibility to their kids education throughout elementary, middle/intermediate and high school. The article about the federal government even suggests kids who have Christian or religious parents should hurl scripture quotes from the Bible at parents in order to manipulate or coerce parents into paying for college.

Should parents pay for college or should parents make kids find a job and work through college to help themselves get a great education? A parents legal and moral obligation to care and provide for their children ends when kids reach the age of 18 and they are considered to be adults in the U.S. While parents have an obligation to care for minor children and provide them the best education possible, parents are not obligated or responsible for adult children. Unfortunately, many parents continue to pay for and enable their grown kids anyway.

If you are a parent researching information on the advantages and disadvantages of paying for all or some of your kids college education, carefully consider and bookmark these devil’s advocate articles on who should pay for college, and who should not pay and how helping pay for college can lead to trouble. The decision is ultimately yours, so choose wisely, unless you don’t mind eating cat food in your elderly years. The book The Best Way to Save for College-A Complete Guide to 529 Plans by Joseph Hurley comes highly recommended by finance expert Suze Orman.

Similar Posts:

• What Parents Owe Their Children
• Who Pays for What? Who Pays When Planning a Wedding on a Budget
• Modern Weddings Who Pays For What – Who Pays For Wedding Costs?
• Paying For College – College Financial Aid and Student Loans
• Mayor Bloomberg – Paying Poor To Do The Right Thing