If you’re the parent of an adult child in 2025, you know it can be tough to get them to a place of total independence. Also, it’s become increasingly common for young adults to stay in the nest much longer than their parents intended.
Some even often avoid adult responsibilities and skip opportunities to advance themselves financially, instead preferring to rely on the comforts of home.
“Failure to Launch Syndrome,” although not a diagnosable condition, is a real phenomenon for many parents and their children who just don’t seem to want to start living like adults.
Luckily, there are options. You could call it intervention, but it actually only involves you, the parent. It’s called SPACE, and it is highly effective for treating young adults who have failed to launch.
Let’s break it down:
Understanding Failure to Launch (FTL) Behaviors
Here’s what a FTL can look like:
- Living at home with parents despite being able to pursue and live an independent life.
- Appearing unmotivated or unenthusiastic about the prospect of living “in the real world.”
- A refusal to take responsibility for their situations.
- Symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- A sense of shame and embarrassment about their difficulty in separating themselves from their parents.
“A young person who is prone to anxiety and depression will have difficulty facing the challenges of independence. It is not hard to see that staying at home can exacerbate the situation by eroding self-confidence and inducing shame, which leads to increased depression. It’s a vicious cycle.” — Gabriel Banschick, Psychology Today
When considering why this occurs, it is also important to understand the social context and factors that influence a young adult to want to avoid stepping into adulthood:
- Increased costs of living: higher rents, gas prices, debts, and housing costs.
- Difficult job markets.
- Abundant opportunities for distraction and avoidance of responsibilities, including video gaming, internet, and smartphone usage. If they wished, a FTL could avoid thinking about being an adult at every moment of the day with modern technology.
This is not to say that anything listed so far should be considered an excuse for the behavior of a FTL. These factors are only meant to illustrate what they may be struggling with.
The creator of the SPACE program for FTLs, Dr. Eli Lebowitz, said that to avoid inducing feelings of shame in the young adults who fail to launch, we should see transitioning out of these behaviors as a process.
Lebowitz helps these young adults and their parents see their situation as a process, not a failure. It’s an important first step in helping to legitimize rather than further stigmatize the family’s turmoil and emotional pain. — Mark Katz, PhD.
Young adults in these situations should not be accused or met with shame, as this could serve to make their behavior more ingrained.
So, let’s examine what the SPACE program entails, so you can see if it resonates with the situation you have with you and your adult child.
Making Progress With SPACE
SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. It is a parent-only program meant to train parents to trade their accommodating behaviors (always intervening/taking away their child’s problems) for empowering ones (encouraging independence and resilience in their children).
The main theme of SPACE is parents encouraging their children to face anxieties and difficulties without directly helping them through it.
Children find resilience and self-confidence after realizing they can solve their problems without the help of a parent. This confidence builds over time into greater self-efficacy and well-being.
So how does this apply to a FTL situation?
First, a parent will learn to address their accommodating behaviors. These can include…
- Doing laundry.
- Providing weekly stipends.
- Making their adult child’s calls and appointments for them.
- Cooking all of their meals.
From here, parents will learn to safely and gradually reduce their accommodating behaviors. This is done so that parents and their kids do not fall into what Lebowitz calls the “accommodation trap.”
By accommodating too much, a parent bars their adult child from developing the necessary skills and experience they need to thrive in the adult world. The key factor to express is that SPACE therapy is not about changing the young adult’s behavior. It is exclusively about changing the parent’s.
It is about learning to send a message of encouragement by staying more hands-off. The parent is taught to communicate the following…
- I believe you are capable of doing these adult activities.
- I would be doing you a disservice by always solving your problems for you.
- This is being done out of love, and not a tool for punishment or shame.
If SPACE is practiced with empathy and respect then, over time, self-confidence, initiative, and a greater desire to participate in the adult world (and the adventure of independent living) can develop.
Does Your Adult Child Need SPACE?
If you’re concerned about someone in your family whom you believe has failed to launch, or if they’ve made attempts but struggle to make lasting changes, or you simply feel like you’ve been doing too much for them, you should consider trying SPACE.
Their participation is not required. All that is required is a willingness on your part to change the behaviors that you feel may be holding them back.
All parents want to see their kids safe and healthy, but there is more to life. What parents want, and we’re sure you want this too, is to see their child thriving in the world; to be feeling good about themselves, living out their dreams, and being happy instead of just being content.
You give them that by encouraging them to spread their wings, but you need to reinforce your words with actions. If you do everything for them, are you sending the message that they are capable, resourceful, and competent enough for the world?
I know you can do this. This should be your message.
Put it in their hands, and they’ll find a way to make it happen.
If you or someone you know is in need of support, we’re here to help.
Schedule a free consultation with one of our expert psychologists and take the first step towards healing and growth.
Join our SPACE program to see how small changes in your parenting can make a big difference in your child’s ability to manage anxiety.
