The Parent’s Launch Code: Loving and Letting Go of Our Adult Children

Join us as we sit down with Psychologist, Dr. Jack Stoltzfus, to talk about launching your child into adult life, ranging from whose responsibility it is, to the characteristics of a successfully launched child.

Dr. Stoltzfus shares his expertise on navigating the delicate balance between supporting adult children and encouraging their self-sufficiency, while maintaining caring connections. The conversation covers the growing issue of estrangement between parents and young adults, the impact of divorce on launching, and practical strategies for parents to help their children achieve the four developmental goals: identity, independence, intimacy, and intention. Dr.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about how Jack and how he can help you, check out his website at: https://parentslettinggo.com/

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Speaker 0  00:00:35

Hi everyone. I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Legal, and today we have Dr. Jack Stoltzfus to talk about the Parents' launch code and letting your children go. Jack, fascinating, and I really, really wanna get into this, but before we start, can you just sort of talk a little bit about yourself and how you got to be in this, what you're doing and, and why you think this is so important? 

Speaker 3  00:01:10

Yeah, sure. Happy to do that. I, the kind of backstory to this is really back to my young adult years and some challenges in my relationship with my father, which I would've described at the time as est strange, not, not that we were not talking at all, but there was a lot of distance, a lot of in on my part, questions about whether this guy really cared about me or loved me or whatever. And so I was struggling with that and had a certain amount of anxiety, anger, resentment going on, which led me to my dissertation work around defining healthy separation of adolescents for the parents. And then fast forward, I have three young adult kids about 10 or 15 years ago. And so now I've got the story from the parents' side and started to see more and more parents contacting me because they were concerned about their kids stuck in the basement or, you know, watching video games or, or baby vaping, using pot too much or whatever, and not moving forward, not, not seeming to have a path forward.

Speaker 3  00:02:19

So I began to work with that particular group. So that's my specialty. Helping parents let go of the young adults, help them launch into self, self-sufficient, responsible adulthood while maintaining a caring connection with the kids. And that last part's really important. Yeah. Right now, one out of four young adults is estranged during the young adult period from their parents. So they've cut off their communications with their parents. Good news is, most of 'em reconnect at some point, but some just never, never again communicate with their parents. And it's really heartbreaking for a lot of parents who experienced this type of thing.

Speaker 0  00:03:02

Is, is the, is there like a particular responsibility on the kids, on the parents? I mean, who, who initiates, you know, the, the launch, I guess for a better word?

Speaker 3  00:03:19

Well, I think it could be either party. You know, we, you have some adolescents that are ready to get out of the house at 15 and making plans and they're ready to go maybe before the parents are comfortable with the launchpad being ready to, to help them with that process. And then there are others that are 23, 24, 25, and they're just stuck. They don't seem to know kind of what, where they should go, what they should be doing, who they are. And they're struggling with this. And in that sense, the parents may have to do more of a push, more of a effort to kind of help them move forward and get some kind of path and direction for themselves. So, you know, it's, it's a, it's a collaborative process between parents and the young adult to get to this healthy launch place.

Speaker 0  00:04:12

So do you get, in your practice, do you see both the adult children and the parents? Or do you focus one on more? Or are they both sort of in need of some help?

Speaker 3  00:04:27

Oh yeah. I, in most cases they both are. But the, the initial interest comes from the parents for the most part. I've had a couple young adults call me and say, Hey, I need some help with my relationship with my parents. But mainly it's the worried concerned parent that calls me. And then what I do is, I, I, I challenge the parents to work with me and the, their young adult son or daughter on developing a path toward the future. And I, I interview the young adult and I set that up by

just saying, Hey, I, I'm working with your parents as a parent coach, I need to understand, you know, where you're going, what your plans are, what kind of support you need from your parents, so I can tell your parents that. And then they can figure out how they can support you going forward.

Speaker 3  00:05:18

And I've had good buy-in from that in terms of that approach. I'm not their therapist for the young adult. I'm just there to get information to help me coach the parents. And then we bring them together. So the parents, then their response is what they'll do to help the young adult on the, on this journey that they've laid out the path forward. And then they'll also define what they won't do. These are things we're not gonna do for you. 'cause you have to step up and do these things for yourself. And if they're living at home, there would be some expectations. Okay, if you're gonna continue to live at home, we have some expectations. Typically, one of them is, you're gonna either go be going to school or working or part-time school, and we're at part-time work, but doing nothing is not, is not gonna be not gonna work for us as parents. So that's, that's basically the model. And I have described that in my book, the Parents Launch code, how parents can kind of shift from the day-to-day skirmishes on, you know, you're, you're up too late playing video games. You're not busting your dishes back from your room, you're leaving your clothes all over the place into a future framework where we're working now together rather than, you know, in a contentious type relationship.

Speaker 0  00:06:35

Yeah, I was wondering about that. It, you know, there are a lot of, of times where the kids are, are practically estranged from their parents, but still living in the house and, and getting that, that sort of, you know, bringing them together again, just, you know, so you can launch them. Mm-hmm

Speaker 3  00:06:57

<affirmative>. Yeah, absolutely. There. I mean, you know, a typical pattern is a late teen, young adult spending a lot of time in their room, sometimes not even coming out for dinner. They may get their food later on, you know, maybe they've got a little job DoorDash or delivering some pizzas, but they're not, they don't have a plan forward. They're just, they're, they're staying up late. They're gaming and they're not, they're not really, there's not a lot of dialogue going on between the parents and them. So I try to facilitate that connection by the interview of the young adult, get that information, get the parents to respond to that interview information, and then bring them together. And, and I, and one of the things I say to 'em, you know, when we're, we're together is, look, both you and your parents, you love your parents, they love you, your parents, and you want you to be happy and successful in your future. And thirdly, your parents, and you want this transition period to go smoothly. And everybody agrees on that. The young adult agrees. Yeah, that's true, that's true. So let's work together, let's be partners in this process and help you move forward on your path toward this independence And self-sufficiency

Speaker 0  00:08:16

Is, is is the launch the end, oh, okay, they're outta the house now, now, now we, now we're done with it. Or does there need to be some follow up to, to, to keep that relationship? Because a lot of times I know the kids can move away and then, you know, you hardly ever talk to them.

Speaker 3  00:08:38

Yeah, it's, so the most important thing is to have this positive connection, this caring connection continued, but then the level of interaction, the level of connection with the young adult can vary quite a bit. A lot of times just moms and daughters are connecting almost daily, you know, sons and mothers and sons and fathers less so male, young adults seem to not

<laugh> have that much desire to kind of text or call. Although, you know, some research has shown that nowadays parents, mothers and fathers connect with their kids, about 50% connect with their kids almost daily. So it's a text message or you know, a phone call or whatever. But they're in touch with 'em pretty much on a daily basis. At least half of the mothers and fathers do that. So

Speaker 0  00:09:36

Is there, this is kind of a weird question, is there some sort of a, of a similar thing if, let's say they've actually moved out, they're actually not in your house, but you're, you're having no real connection. You're not, you're not, there's, there's like anger brewing, maybe they, they, there was a divorce. I mean, can these sort of things be sort of helped as well? Yeah,

Speaker 3  00:10:08

It's, so there's a author and colleague of mine called, his name is Josh Coleman, who's written a book called Rules of Estrangement. So he does a lot of work with parents who have estranged relationships with their kids. And again, mostly it's parents contacting him. He indicates that in his research, over 70% of the cases where there's an estranged young adult from a parent, there's a divorce in the background. And right now the research shows that one in four young adults are estranged from their father and 6% are estranged from their mother. But a lot of times what happens is that what, particularly in any contentious divorce situation, the kids as teenagers or young adults may side with one parent against the other parent as, and then it's kind of in terms of almost being loyal, I'm not gonna have anything to do with that other parent.

Speaker 3  00:11:14

So, so it, it unfortunately is, is not a, not a good, it's not a good thing for the kids when that happens, you know? And it puts a strain on that relationship with, with both parents for that matter, because the, the parent who's the kid that's loyal to the parent feels this strain of, well, I can't talk to my dad or my mom or something because, you know, that would upset the parent I'm loyal to. So it's uncomfortable for the kids and it's not a, it's not a good thing to do to your kids. I think you should encourage them to make those contacts and figure out their relationship with that estranged parent, you know? Yeah. See what, see if you can work it out, you know,

Speaker 0  00:12:00

What, if speak back to divorce a little bit, maybe the kid's not, you know, angry, but they're living in two separate households now. And, and that, does that add anything or is there to, to making it difficult? If I came into you and said, you know, I, I wanna, you know, work with you to kind of make this, this, this, this leap for my kid, and, but I don't talk a lot with my ex. What should I, I mean, should I start doing that? I mean, do we do this together or separately?

Speaker 3  00:12:37

Well, I have several situations that I worked with over time where there are divorced parents and, and fortunately in a number of these situations that divorced parents are communicating and are collaborating. And that makes it a lot easier, even though there might be some distinctions there where I have a case right now with a 26, 20 7-year-old who's living with a father and, and the father and mother are divorced, and he is working on a software project. And he, he, he's, and the mother's saying, Hey, you need to get a job. And the father's saying, well, give him some time to see if he can, you know, monetize this and, and make this a marketable kind of software piece. And the mother's kinda, okay, well he's living with you, so it's, it's your choice on that. And so they still work together, even though there may be some difference of opinion on how, what the best approach is. But even where, where there's not a divorce, you can still have the problem. Uh, often that occurs where one parent is more the good cop and the other parents that bad cop. Yep. I wrote a blog entitled, good Cop, bad Cop, bad Idea, <laugh>. So parents need to need to work together, find some common ground in this. So if, you know in service of the kids for the best interest of the kids,

Speaker 0  00:14:03

Well, uh, yeah, that seems to be the whole gist of what you're getting at is maybe they don't know it, maybe they, they bite it, but this is in the best interest of the children. I mean, this is, that's sort of the, the starting point it feels like. So how would you, you know, another kind of interesting thing is, you know, there's a launch, do they go up and out, but there's a landing and you talked a little bit about what a successful one was, but, but are there like characteristics you encourage or you want to see or help them see, you know, to, to kind of launch and land the young adult man?

Speaker 3  00:14:55

Well, I think that, you know, certain dev over the years, there's this research on development of different ages. So development task for young adults, basically, I, I call 'em the four i's identity development. So parents can help the young adult, you know, in a supportive way find out who they are and what they wanna be and what they wanna do in their life. That's their identity issues. Secondly is the independence. And that's financial, but also emotional independence either in terms of having a, a good caring relationship, but not one that's dependent. They can't make decisions because without asking mom or dad or being in a negative relationship with the parents, that's not, that's, that to me is not being independent at that point or launched. And then the third thing is intimacy. And it's, it's not just about significant other relationship, it's having close friends.

Speaker 3  00:15:56

And that's, that's been a, a growing problem because it's been a drop off and, and just friendships drop off by particularly gen, uh, gen Zs now who are of all the generations, the loneliest generation at this point in time. And so they've, so they've lost some friendships and that's all part of the development. The last thing I, I include the fourth eye is intention. And that is having some sense of purpose, some sense of, you know, what I wanna do with my life, what's important to me, how I can make a difference. That's not always considered. The first three are pretty much everybody agrees on the last one, I think can be really helpful if a young adult gets a cla gets clear about, you know, what they wanna do to, to make their market life and that that's really important. So Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:16:45

Yeah. Is everybody, you know, can you be in a situation where the kids are ready, you know, wanna, wanna do this, parents wanna do this, but you know, you look at your kid, you go, you just, I don't know if you're quite ready. I don't know if you know where the dishwasher, I mean kind of a, in, in like, again, space launches, they do a lot of training. I mean, is is there some sort of training that can go on while you're still in the house with your adult child to help?

Speaker 3  00:17:21

Yeah, I mean, I think it's gotta start early on to teach kids about being responsible and about cause and effect and their consequences to the choices that you make. And, and I think too often over time, I think our parents have become more and more invested in the happiness and success of their kids. And so if they're unhappy, may they intervene to, to soften the consequence. You know, you got a speeding ticket. Well, you know, I guess, well, I'll take care of it this time. You know, because everybody makes a mistake or no, you should pay for the speeding ticket. You, you know, you now enter block the, a good, uh, lesson to be learned in that. As, as an example. So I talk about when pe when parents need to make a decision about, you know, how to balance this love and backbone. 'cause that's really kind of what I call it.

Speaker 3  00:18:22

The, the tough love and the caring, unconditional love. Put those two things together. Parents should ask themselves, you know, is this decision or action based on love or is it fear or anxiety or resentment, or, you know, some other emotion like that. And the second question is this decision or action consistent with my principles, my values, being responsible, keeping your promises, telling the truth, those types of things. And then thirdly, is this decision or action that I'm gonna take likely to increase their independence or increase their dependence, right? Parents can look at, ask those three questions, they can make a pretty good decision, I think, at that point.

Speaker 0  00:19:10

But it doesn't mean you don't help when they're, when they, after they've left. I mean, it's, it, this isn't like a cutoff, you know, now you're totally on your own

Speaker 3  00:19:21

Right now. I mean, 60% of parents these days are continuing to fund their young adults in, you know, one way or another may be things that, that are kind of traditional, like, um, helping with the wedding costs or helping with maybe a down payment in a house, which, which for a lot of Gen Zs and even millennials right now is kind of outta reach, right? So those are ways that parents can, you know, during their independent young adult years with their kids, still be helpful to 'em. But I think beyond that, I think it's important that parents, you know, have some kind of, you know, ask your kids to have some skin in the game. Okay, I need money for this. Well, what can you do to get the money? And then maybe I can, will have a matching grant or something. You know, when my two, when my oldest daughter and son had twins, they ended up with three kids in daycare, and the daycare costs were 2,500 a month, which is, which is a significant mortgage payment.

Speaker 3  00:20:26

Yeah. And my wife and I just thought, should we be helping out? We could help 'em out. We could have bailed and said, we'll cover your childcare costs. But we thought, now let 'em struggle with this because it's important for them to figure out how to get through this. And, you know, when, when the kids finally went to school, it was the biggest raise they've ever, they'll ever get in their life, you know, 2,500 bucks now available to 'em. And now the feeling that they have of, we got through that, we were able to struggle and we made it through that. I don't wanna take, take that away from 'em, but it

doesn't mean you never help either. So

Speaker 0  00:21:04

Some of the, we've talked about about the good, some of the, how, what could be a bad launch, I guess I should say is like, because I know people, I know people who are, you know, maybe in their thirties even getting their forties and they're, they're like estranged from their parents because they're still mad at them. Yeah. For something that happened years and years ago.

Speaker 3  00:21:31

Oh yeah. I mean, and this is, this is this, uh, population of es strange young adults and they, they are young adults or middle aged adults or whatever. And I've seen some people in older years that are still mad at their parents or not to their parents. It's not something that necessarily just goes away. And, you know, and I would say a lot of therapy offices are dealing with those family of origin problems and issues, you know, and my bias is to try to help that adult child rebuild a relationship with a parent, because I think that's, that's normal. That's what there should be that natural connection with the parents. Now, there, there are exceptions. If there's been abuse, sexual abuse, toxic relationship, a drug, parents with drug issues, and you just say, I can't, I can't be involved in their lives. Okay, that's an exception.

Speaker 3  00:22:25

But from the parent side, I think parents can do things to reach out to that estranged young adult and ask, is there something that I've done that that has hurt our relationship, you know, that, that, could you help me understand that and then be willing to apologize to that young adult for that action. I mean, I think Steve parents are the guiltiest segment of our society. I mean, we're obviously, oh, I wish I had done this, or I could have done this better, whatever. So I think that all parents probably have some opportunity to apologize un unless they're perfect parents, you know, and that helps with the, the guilt part for the parent, but it also helps to soften maybe that resent resentment or that anger that may still be there with that adult child. So

Speaker 0  00:23:16

Yeah, it, it, it feels like, you know, a parent who isn't, you know, doesn't know if they can do this, you know, how am I gonna do this and comes to you and you help them. This feels like a legacy thing almost. Because the kids who have a successful launch, it feels to me like when they have kids, they're gonna be more likely to have, have their kids have a successful lunch. You're sort of cutting off the, the, the throw 'em out of the cave, you know, legacy mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Speaker 3  00:23:56

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, modeling's is one of the strongest, uh, methods of learning. And so if you're seeing your parents figuring out how to be, how to let go, how to support your identity development, your independence, which is the shift that parents need to make from being focused on control and direction to consulting and coaching in the, in the late teen and young adult years, you know, and they experienced that. Then they've interjected that, taken that into themselves, and now they have that, that capacity or that legacy experience that they can then use to, to successfully launch their own kits, then that too. Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:24:41

I saw something on your website and I just need to wanna comment about, we're getting close to the end, we just blown to time. But you, you, you know, you talk about whether a child can actually have a successful launch, even if they were remain living with their parents, because that, that's happening more nowadays.

Speaker 3  00:25:04

Oh, absolutely. You know, so I I tell parents that, that, you know, where they live is not the litmus test of whether they're launched or not, but obviously the stereo typical view in our society is, well, they gotta be out of the house. They're, they're not launched if they're still living at home. But my argument is, if they're living at home, they've got a job, they're paying rent, they're helping around the family, they're doing their laundry, they're cleaning their room, they're cooking meals, participating in a kinda roommate type manner, I think they're launched. Why would you not? You know, they're self-sufficient, they're independent, they're taking care of their expenses and responsibilities, then they're launched. Doesn't matter where they're living, just, you know, on the other hand, if somebody's in an apartment, but the parents are paying the

rent and giving them money for expend expenditures on, they're, they're not launched, in my opinion, even though they physically may be out of the home.

Speaker 0  00:26:02

Right. So, so this is, this is a little more complex than just, you know, what it originally kinda looked like, getting the kid, you know, outta the house and with the job.

Speaker 3 00:26:16 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:26:18

I like that. I like that. Wow. Wow. We have just run through our time, and so unfortunately we have run out. Dr. Jack, I wanna thank you so much today for being here to talk about this. But before we leave, for anyone who's listening and they maybe feel like, Hey, I'd like some help on this, how can they get ahold of you?

Speaker 3  00:26:39

Okay. There's a couple things I'd recommend. One is my website, which is called Parents Letting go.com. So you can contact me through that. There's a place there where you can request a consultation. And I'm doing more parent consultations across the country at this point as a, as a parent coach, you know, and also I, and most of the time when people will call me and say they'd like to, you know, have a consultation with me, I will say, why don't you get ahold of my book first? Yeah. You know, the parents launch code loving and letting go of our adult children. See if that helps you figure this out. If it doesn't, then contact me. I kind of, I wrote that in a way to, as a self-help book to parents to, to give them the, you know, the roadmap for this launch process. But sometimes it just, it's not working, you know? Well, I've read it, I've tried, but it's just not working very well at this point. And so, so the book, they may need more of that consultation. And I typically, my consultations don't end up being much more than five sessions, you know, so it's not like it's an extended period of time. I'm coaching them, so they're gonna run the show, they're doing the work. This is not a therapy experience where I take over and start doing some kind of long-term therapy with people that's not, that's not the focus of this. So,

Speaker 0  00:28:05

And, and I'm assuming we, we can call you if our launch code is stuck. Maybe, maybe they actually did get outta the house, but they're at our house for dinner every night and, and we're doing their laundry and, and, and so this is sort of an ongoing thing you can help people with.

Speaker 3  00:28:27

Yeah, I mean, I, I have a, it's basically an answering service and I encourage people to contact me at Dr jack sto@gmail.com, you know, and then just tell me what's up. I need some help with this, and then I can get back to 'em right away. Sometimes the phone will end up in telephone tag tag, and I'm trying to get ahold of, they're trying to get ahold of me. And so I encourage people to just email me, Dr. Jack, D-R-J-A-C-K, and then my last name, S-T-O-L-T-Z-F-U-S, at gmail.com, and then I can get right back, tell me what's going on, what, what help you might need. And I'll get back to you at least with some suggestions or maybe, you know, an offering of some consultation, uh, to the parents around, uh, the launch process. So

Speaker 0  00:29:20

I love it. I love it. Well, like I said, unfortunately it's time is up. But again, thank you so much for being here to talk about it and, and, and in, not in in doctor speech as much as just in common sense and things to do. And that's, that's really helpful because then people like me, me can understand it. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So not a problem. Everyone else, thank you also for joining us today. If anyone has any further questions on today's topic, well, you can post it here.