By Debbie Gardner
dgardner@thereminder.com
College graduation. It’s a time of celebration for students and parents alike. A time to reflect on all the hard work and sacrifices. A time to revel in the achievement. A time to look toward the next step in life.
For many graduates and their parents, that next step may include temporarily refilling what has been a virtually empty nest for the past four (or more) years.
It’s a move that may require a little – or a lot – of adjustments on the part of both parties.
With graduation season fresh in the rearview mirror, Prime reached out to Jason Seacat, Ph.D., associate dean of arts and sciences and professor of psychology at Western New England University for insights and advice on how parents and their college graduates can negotiate this new relationship arrangement.
“There is a bit to navigate,” Seacat shared, adding he’s heard from parents how challenging the transition back to a temporarily refilled nest can be. “It can add strain to a household.”
“Parents stress with the empty nest in the beginning and once they grapple with that, often envision a different way of living,” Seacat continued. “And when the child comes back home [to live] it can be stressful and even lead to some feelings of resentment.”
Managing expectations
From the parent’s perspective, the new arrangement can be frustrating, especially if the parents made sacrifices and/or paid for the recent graduate to attend school, Seacat said.
“The line of thinking … you’ve gotten out, you’ve gotten your college degree, where’s the job?... can trigger difficult feelings,” he said.
In that situation Seacat reminded parents to “not forget about our own past and the trials and tribulations” they might have had when they first started out as adults.
For the recent graduate, he cautioned them not to look at the return home as “down time” after the hard work of earning a degree. “It should be a very active time when they are out taking steps toward their future,” he said.
Establishing goals and accountability
The goal, Seacat said, is for parents to be supportive of their new graduate during this next phase in life, but not to slip over into micromanaging. He encouraged the parents and student to jointly set goals and a time frame for those goals, such as having a cover letter and resume out to a certain number of potential employers by a certain date.
He added it’s important for recent graduates to set short and medium-term career search goals such as “by this date I hope to have a certain number of interviews” that both parties can concretely evaluate.
“There does need to be a level of accountability,” Seacat said of the recent graduate’s job search activity. “The student at home can report back to the parents ‘these are the steps I’ve taken … this hasn’t panned out… etc.,’” he explained.
It’s also not too much to ask the recent graduate to weave in something, like a part-time job, so they can help pay the bills while living at home.
“Some shared responsibility … every family can negotiate what is meaningful accountability in that regard… $100 or $200 [a month] is going to help them learn ‘I don’t want to stay in this forever because I want to be able to put this toward my own space and my own living in the future,” Seacat said.
The graduate’s responsibility
Seacat said the recent graduate’s number one task while living at home is to look for a job and some of the steps to achieve this goal, he said, should be obvious.
“Making sure the resume and all supporting documents are polished and ready to go at a moment’s notice,” is an obvious must, as is setting aside a chunk of time every day to scan the employment market for prospective job leads.
“They should be looking at the different job search engines and networking to find contacts in their field,” he said.
Beyond the traditional job search engines, recent graduates should be “identifying potential opportunities – be it volunteering or internships or other opportunities that align with their career goals” to help advance their job search.
And Seacat acknowledged it’s natural to get discouraged if the search for a job seems to be dragging on without much success.
“This is the instance where persistence pays off,” he shared. “Take your application package to people knowledgeable in [your job field] and say, ‘this is what I have…what am I missing?’ and ask any connections you have in the field ‘what might be out there that I’m not aware of?’”
House rules
Another area that can create stress between parents and the recent graduate is behavior expectations once they are all living under the same roof, especially after the graduate has experienced life on their own in a dorm or apartment during college. Sleep schedules, meal preparation and timing, laundry and socializing may all present areas of conflict.
“I really think discretely defining house rules and what that relationship is going to look like is important,” Seacat stressed. “It’s the gray are that’s stressful; when a parent sees a child acting in certain ways it can cause a lot of conflict.”
He said the idea of “a family contract – with time limitations” is a great way to handle this new adult-to-adult relationship and manage expectations around the graduate’s job search.
For example, he said parents and graduates could decide “Here’s our six-month [house rules] contract; at the end of six months were going to revisit it and assess what progress has been made and reevaluate [the contract].”
The patience factor
Patience, positivity and support are keys to making this new living arrangement work, Seacat stressed.
“Positivity is a powerful force here. If we have these expectations and our son or daughter meet them – even if they are smaller ones – acknowledge them and support them…to build confidence, courage and to motivate them to move forward.”
“Too often we look at the negative and we overemphasize failing to meet expectations or goals,” Seacat continued. “If our son or daughter is coming [to us] and it’s been a long week and the say ‘I was going to get out 20 resumes and I got out 15,’ that’s something to really recognize.”
