Uncategorized
August 15, 2016
The number of young adults living with their parents has steadily increased over the past two decades. According to recent data, 57.1% of 18-24 year-olds lived with their parents in 2023, up from 52.1% in 2005. This is evident with older age groups as well, with 21.7% of 25-29 year-olds and 12.1% of 30-34 year-olds living in their parents’ homes in 2023, compared to 16.5% and 8.4% respectively in 2005.
While economic factors, cultural trends, and educational pursuits all contribute to these statistics, one reason that’s becoming increasingly common is a phenomenon called failure to launch syndrome. This is essentially when young adults don’t leave home and lack the motivation, skills, or confidence needed to take on adult responsibilities.
Here’s an in-depth look at failure to launch syndrome and how you can help your adult child finally gain their independence.
Failure to launch syndrome is a condition where young adults struggle to make the transition to independent adulthood. This phenomenon is sometimes called “Peter Pan Syndrome,” a nod to the classic story of the boy who never grew up.
Essentially, a young adult experiencing failure to launch is physically mature on the outside, but they’re actually emotionally and functionally dependent. Their social behaviors, ideologies, and traits reflect those of someone much younger, as they struggle with commitment, maintaining stable employment, completing household chores, fulfilling responsibilities, and having any sort of meaningful direction in their lives.
While anyone can experience failure to launch syndrome, research consistently shows that it’s more common amongst young men than young women. According to Pew Research Center, 36% of young men in the U.S. lived in their parents’ home in 2021, compared with 30% of young women.
Educational level can also affect whether someone may experience failure to launch. Another study found that millennials who never attended college were twice as likely to live with their parents compared to those with a bachelor’s degree or more.
Living with parents isn’t entirely problematic. In fact, many cultures encourage multi-generational households, and in some cases, economic factors make it a wise choice. However, when your young adult starts to ignore responsibilities and seemingly takes a step back from being a functional member of society, it could indicate that something deeper is happening.
Spotting failure to launch isn’t always easy as many of us struggle in our day-to-day lives at one point or another. However, there are some signs that could suggest your young adult child is having some trouble stepping into their adult life.
For example, many young adults with failure to launch struggle to find and keep jobs. Recent statistics show only about half (50.9%) of young adults between 16-24 were employed in 2024, slightly down from 51.8% in 2023. Even among 25-29 year olds, employment dropped from 79.4% to 78.9%.
When asked why they’re not working, about a third of young adults claim they’re focusing on additional job training before job hunting, while others state they’re focusing on personal growth. While this might sound good on paper, it sometimes covers up an avoidance of work responsibilities. You might notice job-hopping without any career advancement, being chronically late, putting in the least amount of effort, or having unrealistic expectations about work.
Aside from a poor work ethic, you might notice your young adult struggling with:
For some young adults, they could be experiencing a lack of direction. For others, it could be anything from childhood trauma to co-occurring mental health conditions. No matter the cause, keep in mind that while these may be the “why” behind failure to launch syndrome, behavior patterns like feet dragging, stalling, or flat out refusing to function in life, are what ultimately affect life trajectories.
Day-to-day life is already hard for someone dealing with unresolved trauma, especially if it’s not being treated through professional therapy or appropriate medication. Trauma doesn’t just go away on its own.
Childhood trauma can create toxic stress that affects health and well-being throughout life. Young adults who experience adverse child experiences may struggle to form healthy and stable relationships. Their work histories tend to be unstable, and they frequently experience financial problems, job instability, and depression that can continue into adulthood.
These difficulties can become barriers to independence. When basic emotional regulation takes a lot of effort, things like job interviews or apartment hunting can feel like monumental tasks.
Parents who want to protect their children from struggling sometimes end up creating bigger problems down the road. Instead of allowing their child to overcome challenges and handle basic tasks on their own, helicopter parents handle everything from school assignments to job applications. As a result, their child misses out on opportunities to develop critical life skills, such as problem-solving or critical thinking.
Trends show that parents are more involved in their child’s life now than in previous years, which may explain why many of today’s 18-25 year-olds are still highly dependent on them. This has raised valid concerns about how excessive support can undermine independence and resilience.
Young adults who’ve never had to schedule their own appointments, manage their own conflicts, or face consequences for their actions are undoubtedly unprepared for independent living and may find living with their parents easier and more convenient.
The mental health of young adults from 18-29 years-old took a huge hit during the pandemic and hasn’t fully recovered. From the beginning of COVID through its peak, this age group experienced more psychological distress than any other demographic.
Even now, anxiety and depression rates are at 40% and 35% respectively. Many young adults who were just beginning to find their independence during the pandemic found themselves moving back home due to college closures, job losses, or both, creating a major setback in their development. This kind of setback for an extended period of time can be discouraging, isolating, and lonely, all of which can contribute to mental health symptoms.
The energy that’s required to search for jobs, maintain employment, or manage a household can be hard to find when symptoms of depression and anxiety take over. Without proper treatment, these conditions can create barriers to launching successfully.
For young adults struggling with addiction, establishing independence takes a backseat to keeping up with their substance use. Young adults aged 18-25 are more likely than any other age group to begin using substances or increase their use, making them vulnerable to failure to launch syndrome.
The cost of maintaining an addiction quickly depletes resources that could otherwise support independent living. Employment opportunities can also become limited as substance abuse affects reliability, performance, and behavior.
Recovery must become the main focus before independent living becomes possible. The skills and stability young adults need for launching successfully develop during the recovery process, as young adults learn new coping strategies and rebuild their capacity for responsibility.
Today’s younger generations grew up in a very different world than the generations that came before them with the introduction of the internet and mobile devices. Americans now spend more than seven hours online daily, which adds up to over 18 years of their adult lives. Excessive screen time like this can impact how young people develop social skills and view the world.
Spending so much time online can make face-to-face social interactions more difficult. Young adults who are more comfortable communicating through screens than in person may struggle with different areas of independent living, like building relationships or communicating in the workplace.
Social media, specifically, can have profound impacts on young adults as it constantly broadcasts curated versions of other peoples’ lives. These unrealistic portrayals can set impossible standards that damage motivation and self-worth. When independence looks effortless for peers online, normal struggles feel like personal failures, leading young adults to avoid trying rather than risk not measuring up.
The higher costs of living facing today’s young adults creates legitimate barriers to independence. Housing costs in particular have risen dramatically compared to wages, making self-sufficiency mathematically challenging for many.
Rental prices have increased faster than income, forcing renters to dedicate a larger percentage of their earnings to just housing. In nearly half of America’s 50 latest cities, the rent-to-income ratio exceeds the national median of 20%. Between 2020 and 2021 alone, rent jumped 6% while wages grew only 4.5%. With so much money going towards rent, it’s no surprise that young adults would be forced to stay home as they’d have little to no money leftover to pay for the rest of their bills and needs.
These economic realities mean that young adults face a genuine catch-22: they can’t afford to live independently without better employment, but better employment often requires education they can’t afford without taking on significant debt. This pressure can exacerbate existing or create new mental health symptoms, which in turn can lead to failure to launch.
Helping a young adult move from dependence to independence isn’t going to be the same for everyone as failure to launch affects each person differently. Success comes from treating the root causes and the behavior patterns that have developed over time. Here are some treatments and approaches that have helped many families break through failure to launch:
Professional therapy addresses the anxieties and obstacles that keep young adults stuck by:
A popular type of therapy that is used for treating failure to launch syndrome is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT addresses what might be contributing to low self-esteem, as well as challenging underlying core beliefs and unhelpful attitudes.
Self-esteem is fundamental in successful launching. Young adults with healthy self-esteem understand their potential and feel motivated to take on new challenges. On the other hand, those with low self-esteem tend to doubt their abilities and decision-making capacity. They’ll avoid trying new things because they don’t believe they can succeed, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.
A subtype of CBT is a therapy called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). Though commonly used for obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment, ERP can also help young adults face their fears about transitioning to adulthood. Through controlled exposure to anxiety-triggering situations while preventing avoidance behaviors, young adults will gradually build up their self-confidence.
Research even supports this as experts found that during ERP, individuals gain confidence in their general ability to cope with challenges and in their ability to tolerate distress. This increased confidence can help them engage more fully and appropriately with life rather than avoiding adult responsibilities.
Many young adults struggling to launch lack the practical skills needed for independent living. Life skills courses fill these gaps by teaching everything from financial management to emotional intelligence.
A recent survey shows the skills most Americans consider essential for success:
These skills are directly tied to economic success, health, and overall well-being in adulthood. Without them, young adults lack the foundation they need for independent living.
Research has shown that life skills training improves several competencies that support independent living, including:
Examples of life skills training courses include:
By learning and practicing these skills, young adults will develop competence, which in turn will build the self-assurance that’s needed to live independently.
While failure to launch syndrome isn’t an official mental health diagnosis, medication can be used to treat underlying mental health symptoms. As previously mentioned, many young adults struggling to launch are also dealing with untreated depression, anxiety, ADHD, or other conditions that affect motivation and functioning.
A thorough evaluation by a healthcare provider can determine whether medication is appropriate and which type (i.e., antidepressant, mood stabilizer) would be most beneficial. While a treatment option, medication typically works best when combined with therapy and skill-building rather than used on its own.
Supporting your young adult who’s experiencing failure to launch syndrome requires you to find a balance between offering help and encouraging independence. Here are some tips to help you get started:
Failure to launch syndrome doesn’t have to be permanent. At Ethos Recovery, we provide young men with the structure, support, and skills they need to overcome substance use and delayed independence.
Our Los Angeles sober living community offers the perfect environment to build confidence and competence in adult life. Through peer support, accountability, and life skills development, residents learn to handle the challenges of independence within a brotherhood that understands their struggles.
If you or someone you love is struggling to launch into adulthood, we can help. Contact Ethos Recovery today to learn how our supportive community can be the foundation for a successful and independent future.
Young Adults in the Parental Home, 2007-2023 - Bowling Green State University
Millennial life: How young adulthood today compares with prior generations - Pew Research Center
Employment rate in the United States from 2000 to 2024, by age - Statista
Understanding America’s Labor Shortage - U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) - CDC
Psychologist: Young adults hit hard by pandemic’s toll on mental health - Clark University
Population-based examination of substance use disorders and treatment use among US young adults in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2011–2019 - Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports
What Is Self-Esteem? - VeryWell Mind
Life skills training: Can it increases self esteem and reduces student anxiety? - Heliyon