Strengthening the Relationship with Your Parents After Moving Out: A Guide for Young Adults

Changing parent-child relationships means adjustments on both sides

So, you’ve moved out. What a tremendous step in your life! When a young adult moves out from their parent’s home, it means so much more than a change of address and a lot of heavy lifting. It’s a milestone in self-sufficiency, and it’s a very solid signal to both yourself and your parents that you’ve exited the life role of child, and are now an adult. 

But…what if you want to stay connected to your parents? And what should you do if your parents are trying to stay too involved, in ways that don’t give you space to launch your adult life? What does it look like to build a strong relationship with your parents as a young adult?

You and your parents will have to shift into new family roles when you move out

When you hit adulthood, you'll find yourself at one point or another struck by the notion that your parents are people. Instead of huge figures looming large or totally out-of-touch dinosaurs, they're people. But when you’re used to living by their rules and having them check up on you all the time, it can feel weird to now have a chance to assert yourself as an adult, and to have to put forth more effort to both connect with your parents and set boundaries. There is freedom, and responsibility, that comes with adult parent-child relationships.

Similarly, there should come a time in your relationship with your parents when they recognize you're a whole, separate person. It can be hard to navigate a relationship with your parents when they don't yet realize you're an adult, too. 

So how do you navigate these big adjustments?

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Think about how you talk to them and how they talk to you. 

• Do you feel heard?

• Do you actively listen, even if you don’t agree with them?

• Do you speak with respect, and feel you’re spoken to with respect?

• Do you reflect what your parents say to you, so you can make sure you understand?

If the answers to all these questions are “yes”, that’s great! But if you’re answering “no”, remember, communication is a skill. Skills can be learned, and you and your parents can build healthy communication as you work to strengthen your relationship.

You can model how you want to be spoken to when you speak to your parents. You can ask them to take the time to hear you out and let them know that you’ll take the time to hear them too. You can read up on communication, and share what you learn, and you can look for examples of solid adult parent-child relationships in your life to try to learn from as well.

Living separately from your parents can help your relationship mature

It can be really rewarding to get to know your parents more as people than as authority figures. You may be surprised how much easier it becomes to relate to them when you start approaching your relationship as one between adults. Your parents may share stories of their own young adulthood; these stories can be surprisingly relatable in your own young adulthood, even with the generational divide.

For example, when a friend was visiting her parents after moving out, her dad shared the cross-country hitchhiking adventure he had when he was around her age, back in the ‘70s. She was amazed that her buttoned-up math teacher dad had gone on such a trip!

It helped her see that her dad was, in fact, a person, one who had lived a more interesting life than she realized. It also helped her build up the confidence to drive across the country herself a few years later for a job; if Dad could do it, why couldn’t she, at least in a more modern way? She took the trip with her mother, who hadn’t driven across the country before. They both got to have a new experience, as adults, and sharing that helped them bond. 

Compromise to grow your relationship 

Sometimes your parents don’t maintain communication with you after you’ve moved out, and you struggle to know how to re-establish it. When you all live together, conversations can happen when they need to. You can ask for support or hash out your issues around the dinner table, or as you drive home from school, and while it can be hard when you’re a teen to open up to your parents, the possibility is consistently there.

As a young adult, you’ll have to work to develop an open channel of communication, and you may have to encourage your parents to meet you halfway. Some approaches you might consider include:

• Reach out first. Your parents may need time to catch up to the change, and haven’t quite realized why your connection is stretched thin.

• Directly ask for more contact or ask to schedule time together.

• Try phone calls or in-person visits instead of texting or video calls if possible; sometimes different generations don’t communicate the same way.

• Send them updates on your life once in a while; let them know the little mundane things that happen in your day, and ask about theirs, to try to recreate the same everyday contact you used to have.

• Thank your parents for the things they do for you that you appreciate; sometimes we take our parents for granted, and it can mean a lot for an adult child to recognize their parents’ efforts.

If it’s not crucial, agree to disagree

Your parents are adults. You are an adult. You may have different tastes, sensibilities, political leanings, personal goals, any and all differences that fellow adults can have. And that's okay! Remember respectful communication? That’s the key; if you can let go of your parents' individual quirks, and encourage them to agree to disagree with you too, you’ll find yourself in a strong relationship with your parents, but this time, as an adult. 

What do you do when you’re having trouble dealing with your parents after moving out?

How do you set boundaries with your parents after moving out?

Your parents may be used to being involved in every aspect of your life. When you move out, they may try to have extensive oversight over your choices. Your parents may scrutinize your spending, or they may have an involvement in your life goals that goes beyond interest and into attempts to control. You may find that you all disagree more and more on where, and how, you live.

How can you set boundaries, so you feel respected and your parents still feel involved?
With your respectful communication skills, you can:

• Remind your parents of your place in the world as an adult.

• Thank your parents for their interest in your life, and let them know some things you need to handle on your own. 

• Let your parents know you won’t discuss certain subjects.

• Stay in hotels, or only stay for certain amounts of time, when you return home.

• Seek out new activities to enjoy together, as adults, to avoid old and potentially toxic family dynamics

• Make sure you are taking full responsibility for yourself (especially financially), so it is harder to avoid recognizing your adulthood.

How should you handle parental resentment or guilt trips?

You may find your parents are struggling with resentment around your blooming independence.  In many families, it can be challenging for parents to grow into the idea that they’re parents of adults. They may take in your successes as indications that you don’t need them, and they may feel useless. They may turn to guilt trips or passive aggression to communicate how they’re struggling. This can continue even when it’s clear it hurts you. They may try to involve themselves in your life in ways that aren’t healthy, demanding you help them or insisting you need help, when what they really want is the type of interdependence you had in childhood. 

This isn’t an excuse for this kind of response, nor is it something that’s your responsibility to manage for them. They’re adults, and that means they’re responsible for managing their own emotions. This scenario is a great time to revisit the idea of boundaries we discussed earlier. Strengthening your relationship when your parents aren’t communicating respectfully may mean boundaries around specific topics or choosing how you speak or where you meet, so your time together can feel like it’s happening on more neutral ground. 

Family therapy can help young adults strengthen parental relationships

When you are still struggling to connect with your parents, even after trying to establish solid boundaries and open up the lines of communication, family therapy can help. Family therapy isn’t just for families with pronounced conflicts or sudden problems; it’s a place for everyone involved to be heard and understood so your family can make real, active changes that improve things for everyone.

A family therapist in Coral Springs can help you strengthen your communication skills, encouraging you to practice them in session while helping your family keep on track to meet your parent-child relationship goals. They can help you all feel heard and seen, facilitating sessions where you hash out issues and try to meet in the middle. They can help you adjust to your adult role in the family, and help your family see how your new role fits in, and benefits, the family dynamic. 

Family therapy can open a lot of doors for you and your parents, helping you build the relationship you want, together.

When is the time to focus more on yourself than your parents? 

Sometimes, your communication with your parents can totally collapse after you move out. It may be from resentment at your new independence and an inability to wrap their heads around your adulthood. It can also be a misplaced assumption some parents have that their relationship with their children can end when the child moves out. Some people have decided that their resentment at the limitations in their lives is the responsibility of their children, and when their children move out, they are “free.”

Neither of these types of parents is in the right. It can be so challenging to try to engage with them as a young adult looking to build a healthy relationship with their parents that it feels impossible. When you’re genuinely at a loss, and all the healthy communication skills you’ve tried haven’t made a difference, it may be time to ask your parents to go to family therapy. 

But then, what do you do when they refuse to engage with you in a healthy way, and refuse to go to therapy? It’s good to have a plan in case your parents refuse family therapy, and that plan should include focusing on yourself. Live your life in a way that suits your values and goals. Work with your own therapist so you can have additional support navigating a tough relationship with your parents. If you can’t find the connection you need with your parents, find it elsewhere in your life, including a stronger connection to yourself.

Building a Strong Foundation for Lifelong Family Connections

Choosing to reach out to Haven Family Therapy is an investment in yourself and your relationships that will benefit you for years to come. By taking this step, you are not only working to strengthen your connection with your parents but also laying a solid foundation for your own future, especially if children come into the mix. Whether you're looking to navigate the complexities of adulthood with your parents or preparing to build healthy relationships for generations to come, the support and guidance you'll receive from Haven Family Therapy can make all the difference. Don't wait—start the journey to a more fulfilling and harmonious family life today.