Supporting Your Child When They Leave Home

Moving On…

Our page on Coping When Your Child Leaves Home makes clear that the purpose of parenting is, fundamentally, to send your child out into the world as a functioning adult. You provide them with the skills that they need to survive, and then let them go.

You hope that if you have done your job well, they are ready to go.

However, this does not mean that they will find the process easy.

You may need to provide support in various ways in the days and weeks before they go, and also in the weeks and months that follow. In particular it is likely that you may need to provide practical support and advice, and also emotional support.

Practical Support and Advice

The biggest issues for those leaving home for the first time are probably accommodation, food and money.

These are also relatively easy issues to address before they leave home.

Accommodation

Accommodation is likely to be fairly easy to organise if your child is going to university.

Universities and colleges usually provide accommodation for first-year students (and often those in other years), and it is relatively easy to organise through the university. The organisation will probably contact your child to tell them how to do that.

You may, however, need to check that they have taken the necessary steps, and check in with them about the process.

What about if your child needs to organise their own accommodation?

They may then need a bit more parental help. This is, after all, the first time that they have done this.

You can find rental properties on websites like RightMove.com, and single room rentals on SpareRoom.com. These websites have different business models, and you may have to pay for an account before you can make contact with advertisers. However, they usually allow you to browse for free, so you can get a good idea of what is available. You can also try lettings agents in the area.

Top Tip! Visit the area if you do not already know it

It may be worth spending a day or two visiting the area. This will help your child to appreciate which places to avoid when looking for accommodation.

While you are thinking about accommodation, check whether bed linen and towels are provided, and also whether there is a cleaning service. If not, you may need to prepare your child for washing their own sheets and towels, and cleaning up behind themselves. A quick lesson in ‘using the washing machine’ could save a lot of trouble in a few weeks.

Another key issue is insurance. Do they need their own, or will your contents insurance cover them while they are away? Check these questions, and make sure that they are covered.
Money

Your child will obviously need money in order to live independently.

The big question is the source of that money. For example:
- Will you or another family member be supporting your child financially?
- Will they qualify for a student loan or scholarship?
- Will they be working, either instead of or alongside studying?
Any or all of these are possible—and may result in very different amounts of money being available to your child. Make sure that both you and your child are clear about what is happening, and how the money will get to them.

It is also important to teach your child principles about budgeting, preferably before they leave home. They need to be able to live within their income, from whatever source, including being able to pay their rent when it falls due, eating regularly, meeting other expenses like travel costs, and hopefully having some fun.

Don’t forget termly or annual expenses

It may be helpful to remind your child that budgeting is not simply a matter of coping month-to-month. They may also need money for annual or one-off expenses like holidays or insurance, or for unforeseen problems and expenses like a broken laptop.

It is also worth reminding them that expenses may fall weekly, monthly, termly or quarterly and annually. They need enough money available to meet each expense or bill as it falls due.
Food

One of the biggest worries for parents of children leaving home is whether they will eat properly.

Some people may move into catered halls at university. This is more expensive—but it does at least mean that you know your child is being fed a reasonably nutritious diet on a regular basis. Self-catering accommodation is more of a lottery, and leaves the cooking up to your young person.

One of the best things that you can do for your child before they leave home is ensure that they can cook at least a few meals.

Buy them a basic cookbook that contains food that they like to eat, and encourage them to cook a few family meals before they leave home. It is also worth ensuring that they have basic cooking equipment available to them: a pan, a frying pan, an ovenproof dish and a few utensils will go a long way to enabling them to prepare simple meals.

You might also take them to a supermarket and stock up on some store cupboard essentials before you leave them in their new accommodation.

Emotional Support

Moving away from home for the first time is a big change.

However, there is also a big difference between someone going away to a different town or state for university or an apprenticeship at 18, and someone moving out of their parents’ home at 25 or 26, and settling in the same town or city.

It seems reasonable to expect that you are likely to need to provide more emotional support to a younger adult, and also one moving further away. However, this may not always be the case. You may also need to provide reassurance and support both before and after they leave.

If your child is anxious before they leave home, experts advise that you should:

Let them tell you what is worrying them, without trying to suggest solutions. Sometimes we all just need to feel heard, especially when we are anxious or worried about something.
Remind them that they can call you or text you whenever they like. There are no restrictions, especially if you have an unlimited phone plan (and you might want to keep paying for that for the moment). You could also arrange a regular time to call each week, even if there are other calls in between.
Remind them that other people will feel the same. At university, everyone has left home at the same time, and may be feeling very similar. This makes it easier to make friends and get to know people, because everyone is trying to do the same thing. It may be harder if they move for work—but there will probably still be a community of new starters, apprentices or graduate trainees.
Give them an ‘adulting kit’ to take with them. This should be specific to them, but contain things that they will find helpful and will also remind them of home. Examples include a particular cookbook that they like using, or an alarm clock for those who have had to be woken every day for school.

If they find it very hard to settle in their new location, or keep phoning you with their problems, resist the urge to try to step in and solve everything for them.

Part of being an adult is learning how to solve your own problems. One useful option is to take a coaching approach, and support them to work through the problem using careful questions about what they might try.

Our page on Coaching at Home may be a useful reference for this process.

And Finally...

If your child is finding it hard to settle, they may want to come home to visit quite often, possibly every weekend.

However, this is probably not the best idea in the long term. Instead, you should consider encouraging them to get to know other people in their new location. It is good if they can find other people who share similar interests, and do things with their new friends at weekends. If necessary, you might even need to be unavailable at weekends so that they cannot just come home on a whim.

After all, you want them to ‘launch’ successfully, not keep coming back to you—and sometimes that needs a bit of encouragement.

Continue to:
Increasing Children's Independence
Coping When Your Children Leave Home - Empty Nest Syndrome