Take a second to think back to your 18th birthday. Maybe you celebrated with a dinner and the people you love or doing something you enjoy. No matter how you celebrated, can you remember: did you wake up knowing everything about what it means to be an adult? With all of the freedom and responsibilities that come with that title? Of course not! No one wakes up and knows everything one day. You are where you are based on the experiences and choices that you’ve made based on the guidance you received (or didn’t receive) along your journey. As you move into a new type of support role to help your young person figure out how to be an adult, here are some of the best ways to support them in their pursuit of “adulting.”
Begin often and early.
We set ourselves up for failure if we decide that we will wake up tomorrow adopting behavioral practices that are completely different than the routines that we have relied on in the past. Sometimes becoming an adult is stressful because our young people have been in exhaustively controlled environments and are then thrown into situations where they can do whatever they want. It can almost feel like a freedom overload. The best way to ensure that they are mindful of the incoming increase in responsibilities is to provide them gradually increasing responsibility in their lives. Some examples of this include:
- Having them do their own laundry Assigning chores around the house
- Giving them the responsibility of cooking dinner on a somewhat regular basis. Encourage the use of technology like TikTok, Instagram, etc. to find recipes to make, and get the groceries together.
- Using MyChart and scheduling their own doctor’s appointments (sit down with them while they do this to ensure they have transportation).
- Keeping a shared calendar to remind them of upcoming appointments and using phone reminders.
Relationships don’t happen without regularity.
Does your family have a standing weekly routine? Or other family traditions? While it may not be in your family’s style to have weekly traditions, reach out and invite the youth to participate in new ones. Be willing to speak their “language.” Send memes and use social media. Your willingness to seek out and do things the youth likes is even better. For example, if they really like anime, suggest volunteering together at the local comic event. Remember, if you are around when things are going well, you are more likely to be one of the first calls when something goes wrong.
Empower them.
J. Warren Welch says it well: “Loving someone doesn’t always mean trying to fight every battle for them. Sometimes love means trusting someone to handle their own stuff and showing them you believe they are strong enough to do so.” It may seem easier to schedule appointments, finish paperwork, or complete other tasks FOR our young people. However, it is most beneficial to show them the trust that you believe they can either handle it themselves or seek guidance from someone they trust. They may not solve problems the way that you do, and that is okay. It may feel frustrating to allow them the space to watch them struggle. That is okay too! Acknowledge that feeling and sit with it. Allow your discomfort in watching them struggle and build their belief that they can solve problems in the future because they know they’ve been able to do it in the past.
Consider starting with the “negative space.”
For some young people, thinking beyond tomorrow has not been an option, as they were focused on surviving the present. When working with young people, asking them what their goals are may be too broad of a question for them to consider. Perhaps their experience has shown that what they want doesn’t matter, or well-intended others will tell them what their goals are. If asking them is proving to be unfruitful in moving the conversation forward, ask them what they don’t want instead. What parts of life do they know about? Do they see themselves living with a dog? Living in the same town, or somewhere else? How would they feel if they were living with you when they were 21 or up until 25? Do they see themselves in a job where they don’t interact with people often, or one where they move around a lot? Identifying where NOT to go leads to the exploration of the possibilities that remain.
Baking a cake doesn’t start with cake – it starts with ingredients.
Some of our young people struggle with executive functioning. Even if they know what their end
goal is, breaking down all the steps like the planning, multi-tasking, and focusing required to get to the end may be too overwhelming. Model the thought process of how to create a goal “front to back.” If that is not helping, consider creating the goal “back to front.” Let’s use baking a cake as an example. To serve a cake at 7pm, it needs to be decorated with frosting. Do you need to make the frosting or do you have a can of frosting ready? Let’s guess it will take 10 minutes to frost. To frost, you need a cooled cake. It’ll take an hour for the cake to cool, and how long to bake? Your calculations may be off, but that’s okay. Seeing an adult they know and trust be able to pivot when things don’t go as planned help them reflect on how they could respond to unexpected barriers in the future. But remember, you’re helping them create the recipe, not cooking for them!
As we partner with our young people along their journey, it is important to remember that we as humans learn by trial and error. That means that we expect error – both from our young people and from ourselves. To err is to be human. We can all use that reminder. It’s what we do when we make mistakes that helps us grow or keeps us stagnant. Don’t be afraid to be their loudest cheerleader, their soft place to land, and recognize how valuable it is for them to get a point where they can be that all those things for themselves.
Sarah Phillips, MSW, LCSW-A is the Foster Care 18-21 State Coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
