More and more young adults facing tough emotional issues are stranded on the road to adulthood. Each young adult’s journey toward independence is different; while some make the journey independently, others may need a helping hand, guidance, and even a gentle nudge. If you are reading this, your young adult may need the empowering benefits of our failure to launch programs.
What is Failure to Launch?
As a parent, we aim to raise healthy children who become well-adjusted, independent adults. But what do we do when our adult children are not moving forward with their lives? This is commonly referred to as “failure to launch.” Even with the term utilizing the word failure, that can confuse the topic. Adult children struggling to move forward in life is a common social problem facing many families nationwide. So what exactly is “failure to launch”?
Before we discuss what it is, let’s clear up what it’s not. According to Resources to Recover:
- Failure to launch is not a diagnosis
- Failure to launch is not a failure
- Failure to launch is not the result of bad parenting
- Failure to launch is not just a problem for millennials
Failure to launch is a situation that needs to be worked through. One could find themselves in such a situation for various reasons, including other diagnosed issues such as anxiety or depression, or underlying issues like family dynamics, over-reliance on technology, financial stress, or even trauma.
Research shows how prevalent failure to launch is in our society–and it’s only getting worse. A 2020 Pew Research study found that over 50% of young adults, ages 18-29, were still living at home with their parents–the highest percentage since the Great Depression! While the Wall Street Journal recently wrote a fascinating article on what happens to society if an entire generation never grows up, leaving a large chunk of America’s up-and-coming adults in a “state of arrested development.”
These studies underscore the growing prevalence of “failure to launch” while highlighting the complex interconnectedness of economic, social, and cultural factors that prevent many young adults from transitioning seamlessly to adulthood.
Often, when working through a failure to launch program, the young adult may need to address any mental health issues affecting their ability to move forward. It could also be the need to help them focus on desires, needs, and goals. Our failure-to-launch program builds your child’s confidence, allowing them the strength and energy to create a life plan. Not knowing where to begin can be incredibly overwhelming, but that’s why we are here.
Signs Your Young Adult Might Be Experiencing Failure to Launch
Young adulthood is a pivotal time in one’s life; there are often important decisions to make, which can increase the pressure young adults face. When young adults face challenges, such as trauma, family conflict, depression, anxiety, or substance abuse, getting lost on the road to independence can be easy. While “failure to launch” is not an accurate diagnostic category, many young adults live back home, stuck in a rut.
You may see signs of a failure to launch situation when your young adult is reluctant to move forward with any of the following life steps:
- Moving out of the family home
- Learning to self-monitor or self-regulate
- Working towards a long-term career choice or simply finding a job
- Continuing their education through college, vocational training, or additional training
- Not meeting or acting out age-appropriate life tasks (paying their bills, showing interest in independent life, etc.)
In addition to these more overt behaviors, you may also notice more subtle behavior like withdrawal from friends and family, changes in eating and sleeping habits (too little or too much), excessive gaming or screen time as a way to resist engagement in life, or lack of motivation or interest in hobbies or activities your child once enjoyed. Of course, everyone gets sad or feels blocked every once in a while, or may have an emotional reaction to a particular event, but if you see any of the above-mentioned signs that persist for over 2 weeks and start to impair your child’s ability to function, please seek professional support.
The first steps in helping your loved one achieve independence are recognizing that he or she needs help and recognizing the differences between helping, empowering, and enabling. If you are here today, you are already making the best possible step toward helping your young adult.
Addressing mental health challenges with your young adult can be a tricky and uncomfortable conversation. Follow these quick tips to launch that sensitive conversation on the right foot:
- Start with no judgment. Criticism, even if justified, often thwarts open communication.
- Focus on the future. Help them identify what they want and break larger goals into smaller, actionable steps.
- Acknowledge economic and societal challenges. Your young adult is facing some serious headwinds. Life is exponentially more complicated than when you were a child. Validating your child’s feelings will go a long way toward building a sense of rapport.
- Offer support. Resist the desire to offer solutions. Ask open-ended questions, but let them take ownership of their progress.
Common Mistakes Parents Make When Dealing With Failure to Launch
Below are some common mistakes parents make when confronted with failure to launch:
1. Overprotecting or Enabling
The difference between enabling and empowering lies in the way a person is supported. Coming from a place of love, parents will often do things for their children that they can and should do for themselves–this is enabling behavior and it creates dependence.
Empowering behavior is the opposite–providing support and guidance and allowing your child to take action and make decisions for themselves, creating independence. For example, you continue to do the laundry for your child because they are busy with school and extracurriculars–after all, you’re just trying to be helpful. This is an example of an enabling behavior. Your child can do laundry–it’s a valuable life skill that will only be learned if the child is directly responsible for doing their laundry. The unintended consequences of enabling behavior are weak life skills and low confidence.
2. Avoiding Difficult Conversations
Fearing they will make the situation worse, upset their child, or be overwhelmed with how to broach the subject, parents will sometimes avoid discussing the failure to launch. Open communication is necessary if your child wants to set and achieve goals with your guidance and support.
3. Offering Solutions Instead of Guidance
This is again an enabling, not empowering, behavior. You want to reinforce self-reliance, not dependence. Your child must learn by doing, so resist the urge to present solutions. Instead, ask open-ended questions and give your child the space and support to work through and find solutions.
Why Traditional Treatments Sometimes Fail for Failure to Launch
There is a place for traditional therapy, and this type of therapy has helped many; however, parents are sometimes frustrated when treatments like medication or talk therapy sometimes fall short. If you’re wondering why, here are three common reasons why traditional treatments may sometimes fail to resolve the failure-to-launch phenomenon.
- Limited focus on action and experience: Traditional talk does not provide the experiential learning that leads to change. Young adults need hands-on learning to feel capable of handling real-world challenges.
- Lack of social and environmental context: Traditional therapy can often not lead to lasting change without a more holistic approach to address the broader social and environmental factors your child is facing, such as financial challenges or societal expectations.
- Overemphasis on mediation: Medication and talking through emotions can be helpful, but they may not expose and develop the underlying skills or life experiences needed to transition into adulthood.
Adventure-based approaches may lead to greater long-term success because they are holistic, employ experiential learning, and develop transferable skills. Confidence comes from doing, and the development of resilience, confidence, and life skills needed to launch successfully into adulthood often requires interactive therapies.
Why Adventure Therapy is Effective for Failure to Launch
Experiential learning is considered one of the most powerful strategies used in adventure therapy. The underlying mental health issues of anxiety, resilience, and low self-confidence all stem from a feeling of powerlessness.
Adventure therapy gets your child out of their comfort zone and immerses them in the restorative world of nature and outdoor activities that bring the mind and body humming with life. We learn best when we are engaged in doing. Practice makes perfect, which applies to life skills just as equally as playing the piano or mastering any other skill. Adventure therapy gets your child out and on their way to practicing life skills that will increase their communication, emotional regulation, and goal-setting skills.
Characteristics of a Credible Adventure Therapy Program
With the overwhelming variety of treatment programs available, some characteristics make an adventure therapy program truly effective at helping young adults get through a failure to launch. So many options can leave you wondering if the program you are choosing is the right one for your child, and there are certainly some that have caused harm and hurt the young adults entrusted to these programs.
We stand firmly against any version of treatment that harms clients, and we focus explicitly on holistic, healthy, research-backed modalities to help our clients. We are not a wilderness/survival-style program, we use the healing features of nature, adventure, group and individual therapy, and community immersion to build confidence and self-reliance in the young adults who come into our program. In fact, many people looking for programs for gap year students would benefit from sending their children to adventure therapy.
To find a credible, safe program for your young adult child, you’ll need to consider a few important details about the program. We’ve outlined several characteristics and processes that a credible adventure therapy program should implement to ensure they follow best practices within the industry.
Formal Evaluation
A reputable adventure therapy program should evaluate young adults upon admission to craft an individualized treatment plan. In addition, routine, formal evaluations should be conducted periodically to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment path.
Expertise in Their Field
A credible treatment program should have expertise in its field of specialty. If you are considering treatment for yourself or a loved one, it is vital to determine whether the program specializes in working with young adults and how they will help facilitate the transition through a failure to launch.
It is also important to find out whether the treatment program has experience dealing with your loved one’s particular challenge, whether low motivation, depression, anxiety, or a lack of social skills holding him or her back.
Specialized Training
Licensed therapists should lead the program curriculum at a reputable adventure therapy program. Field guides should receive specialized training and certification in CPR and first aid, wilderness first aid, and first responder training. Field guides should also obtain additional certifications for their adventure activities, such as technical ropes rescue, open water scuba diving certification, swift water rescue, and lifeguarding certification.
Individualized Treatment Plans
No two individuals are alike, and neither are their struggles; a credible adventure therapy program should provide an individualized treatment plan for each young adult who comes through the program. The individualized plans should be based on each young adult’s personal issues, needs, and goals; progress should be monitored closely by therapists and field staff.
After Care
The healing and growing process doesn’t stop on the client’s last day of treatment, and neither should the care that the client receives. A credible adventure therapy program will work to ensure that the young adults have the support they need to have a smooth transition through a failure to launch and back into the “real world.”
Research-Based Clinical Model
While each young adult should receive an individualized treatment plan, a reputable adventure therapy program should have a clearly defined clinical model based on best practices in mental health.
Stuck In A Rut?
Young adults facing difficult life challenges are finding themselves stuck in a rut. Each individual’s journey toward independence is different; while some will make the journey seamlessly, others may need a helping hand, some guidance, and even a gentle nudge. Recognizing that your loved one needs help transitioning to adulthood is the first step to getting him or her through a failure to launch and back on the road to independence.
To find out more about helping young adults living at home achieve their independence, including more information about wilderness adventure gap year programs, download our FREE, 12-page white paper, The Road to Independence Can Be Rough: It’s Okay to Ask for Help
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