Adult child failing to launch
TLDR: 22 y/o adult child has attended 3 colleges in the last four years, changed majors, lying, and is struggling to grow up and assimilate into adult life.
Let me start this by saying that I love my child very much and we have suggested to them that maybe they should speak to a professional or perhaps needs something else. They have chosen against that and we cannot force the issue. We have also suggested trade school, the military, or just getting a full time job as college isn’t the only way to success and they have also declined.
This situation is more complicated by the fact that parents are divorced so they can escape any situation by staying at the other parents house for a while and have very sympathetic grandparents. While I have tried to unite with the other parent, that has not been reciprocal and since the most recent incident, we have established rules to try and prevent being used as a place to avoid responsibility.
My child has always been incredibly smart, to their own detriment. School was never challenging, and they excelled without studying or much work, despite being placed in college courses while still in high school. They graduated and because of this was on a path to complete their bachelors in less than three years post high school.
They opted to go out of state for college, and was unprepared for the self motivation adult life takes. Missed classes, ended up on academic-probation. They spent another year there and then came home saying that online school would be less expensive and more doable. We agreed and said they could be here rent free as long as they were enrolled full time working towards a degree. They were not required to get a job, but opted for a part time job.
Additional friction developed when they became nocturnal, disrupting the house with online gaming and waking me up at 1 am when everyone works. When it appeared they weren’t doing any schoolwork, we asked to see their grades and discovered they only completed one 6 week session online and then academically failed the second session for not completing any work or withdrawing on time. When confronted, they stated that they need the structure of in person classes, and also they want to change their major.
It hurt very much to be lied to because we emphasized when they moved back that if they were struggling academically to please come to us and maybe we could help. But because they lied we stated they would start paying rent April 1st. They opted to go to the other parent rather than pay rent.
That apparently isn’t working out, and now they are coming back here and will pay rent. Currently, between all the adults that care about them they pay very little in bills and we pay their cell phone service bill and when they are enrolled in school they get a $40/week stipend. This was obviously cut off upon discovery of the lie.
I guess my question if you’ve stayed with me this long is how to navigate moving forward? We want to create a supportive environment, but we’ve been taken advantage of. We want to say they don’t have to pay rent if they’re in school, but want to see their grades to ensure they’re actually in school, but that seems like quite a bit of oversight for their age. They can’t learn to be independent if we are helicoptering them, but when they are on their own they can’t self manage effectively.
What would you do?