Adult Child Dependency Situation (ACDS)

[Anonymous]

The challenges that can be part of an older child’s transition are complex and difficult to sort out.  Sometimes it can be hard to determine how to best support a child when a parent cannot fully understand the gender challenges themselves.  We’ve heard from many families over the years about how their adult age child has difficulty leaving the house for any reason and has an overwhelming feeling of helplessness or hopelessness.  Of course not ever situation is the same but sometimes there are helpful resources that can be utilized, even though they are not specifically designed for trans or gender diverse youth.  The following information is just that.  Read on for information regarding Adult Child Dependency Situation (ACDS).  While challenging to implement, this has been very helpful to a number of families with children who are experiencing a level of paralysis with respect to life engagement.

Adult Child Dependency Situation (ACDS)

1)    What is ACDS?

The term Adult Child Dependency Situation (ACDS) denotes a situation in which emotional or material dependence of adult offspring on parents leads to dysfunction and distress.

It is a phenomenon where adults remain dependent on their parents in ways that hinder their development and normal functioning. The dependency of the adult child can create distress and negative dynamics between them and their parents and between the parents themselves.

Essentially, we are talking about adults who remain in their parents’ house and don’t work or study sufficiently toward something that can lead to their independence in the future.

 

Over dependence of the adult child on the parents fosters the belief that they are unable to do things independently. The adult child may blame their parents for their lack of independence and demand they do things, such as preparing food or doing laundry, with the belief that it is the parents’ responsibility to provide for the child.

ACDS is defined as an ongoing, family systemic condition involving a sub-optimally functioning adult offspring and at least one parent who accommodates to the patterns of dependence by providing age-inappropriate services.

The fact that an adult is living with her parents is not negative in its own right. ACDS is distinct from simply living with one’s parents or enjoying their support, as is widely accepted in many cultures.

The problem arises when there’s a lack of sufficient functioning on the part of the adult child, when the adult child sees living at home as a way to help them to live comfortably without dealing with life’s challenges.

 

2)    Is this an isolated phenomenon and what are its causes?

 

Low functioning grown children who are highly dependent on their parents are a growing phenomenon in many parts of the world. This trend is reflected in the coining of many special words to describe the situation: In Japan they are called “Hikikomori” (Malagon, 2010), in Italy “Bamboccioni,” in Germany and France “Tanguy Syndrome” (Janne, 2007), and in England (Finlay, 2010) “NEET” (not in employment, education, or training) or “Kippers” (kids in parents pockets eroding retirement savings). In Canada, they are termed “Boomerang Children” (Ravanera, Rajulton, & Burch, 1995; Settersten, Furstenberg, & Rumbaut, 2005), in Austria “Mamma’s Hotel Children,” and in South Korea, they are known as “Kangurus.”

 

In the Unites States, the phenomenon has been given various names including the “Full Nest Syndrome” (Schnaiberg & Goldenberg, 1989; White, 1994) and “ILYA” (incompletely launched young adult). The phenomenon was also brought to popular attention under the name “Failure to Launch,” in a movie by the same name in which parents hired a “relationship expert” to help lure their 35-year-old son away from their all too comfortable home and toward independence.

 

In Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, well over half of all young adults currently live with their parents (Giuliano, 2007). In the United Kingdom and North America, rates are significantly higher compared with past decades (Berrington, Stone, & Falkingham, 2009; Settersten et al., 2005), and in Japan, there are estimated to be millions of self-isolating and dependent adults who have aroused considerable social and financial concern (Teo, 2010). Temporarily living at home and receiving help from one’s parents may be a normative phase that allows the young person to find his way in life. In many cases, however, the transition to fully autonomous functioning does not occur or is reversed after an abortive attempt at independence (Goldscheider & Goldscheider, 1998, 1999) leading to chronic dependence on parental support.

 

Alongside individual and family characteristics, a number of sociocultural factors may contribute to the spread of overly dependent grown children: (1) Modern society’s prolongation of adolescence as a period of search for personal, professional, and social identity creates a situation in which it is less and less clear when the young person should be expected to function independently (Arnett, 2007); (2) the belief that every person should find a career that perfectly suits his personality sanctifies the right for a personal search that may at times become interminable (Collin & Young, 2000; Twenge, 2006); (3) the decrease in traditional parental authority makes parents less able to set demands and limits (Omer, 2011); and (4) the spread of computer technology presents people with the temptation of a virtual life that satisfies their needs for entertainment and occupation without exposing them to the wear and tear of the “real world” (Shaw & Black, 2008).

 

The affluence of the western world may allow some families to sustain adults who do not work without experiencing excessive financial burden, but research has indicated that parents of higher socioeconomic status express greater levels of dissatisfaction with the situation, perhaps holding higher expectations for financial independent success (Aquilino, 1990). Although culture-specific factors presumably impact attitudes toward staying at home, it would appear from the data presented above that both collectivistic societies that emphasize strong family ties and individualistic ones that emphasize personal choice in career development may foster dependence in today’s world.

 

The diagnostic characteristics of dependent adults are probably quite varied. They may suffer from social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, conduct disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, or none of the above. The parental complaints, however, are often very similar, usually including school drop-out, work avoidance, demands for money and other services, immersion in the computer, and inversion of the night–day cycle.

 

 

3)    Describe in general terms a family that represents the phenomenon of Adult Child Dependency Situation.

 

ACDS is characterized by sub-optimal functioning and parental services that are beyond the norm for the given culture. With time, the adult becomes unable to deal with things on her own.

 

The most common form this takes is that of a young adult who continues to live in her parents’ home. She has an impregnable bastion there – her room – in which she can do whatever she wants, and no one has the right to demand anything of her. That room becomes her shelter against life, and her parents aggravate the situation by allowing it to persist.

 

The young person is in the midst of a “search process,” because she hasn’t yet found what exactly suits her – or possibly she has tried one or two things but failed. The search perpetuates itself, and at some stage becomes an excuse. No one believes any longer that she is really searching. On the contrary, people implore her to search: “Maybe you could take a course of some kind?” “Maybe you could meet with this or that friend, who is looking to hire someone?” It’s a very widespread phenomenon.

 

The shelter that the parents give the young person becomes atrophic, and the longer it is used as a haven, the greater the loss of the young person’s abilities to cope.

 

4)    How do you distinguish between healthy support and support that is problematic?

The rule is to differentiate between support and protectiveness.

To support adult children means to give them help that enables them to augment their independent capabilities and to establish themselves. If I pay for my adult child’s professional studies, or help with her young children while she is working, that is good support.

Protectiveness – is that which I give my adult child not to help her get established and get ahead, but because she is not succeeding in maintaining and establishing herself. She is not making sufficient effort to make a living, so I give her money. She is not succeeding in integrating into the labor market, so I allow him to be an eternal student.

If my child is not working and not attending school, and I give her money, my economic aid is harmful protectiveness, which seriously affects her development and ultimately will adversely affect our relations.

5)    What characterizes parent-child relations in a situation of adult child dependence?

There are two main types of relations.

In one, the child is miserable, depressive, incapable and the parent says to himself, “Well, what can I do? My child is unfortunate and can’t help himself, so I will do it in his place.”

A second type is vociferous, accusatory dependence. The child says to his parents, “You did this to me, and you will pay for it. I am in this situation because of you.” Those parents live in constant fear. Some of the parents who come to us are the victims of incessant threats: “You’ll never see me again,” “I will kill myself.”

ACDS is often accompanied by social or performance anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, or computer addiction. It is sometimes associated with adults who have very high expectations of their right profession and anything that is below those expectations is simply unacceptable. The discrepancy between their expectations and reality contributes to ACDS.

 

6)    Where do we see the shift from the normal to the pathological?

The first prominent indicator is a falloff in the young person’s normative behavior: She is incapable of functioning in structured frameworks.

The second indicator is an escalation within the home: bad relations, friction, anger. The child, and afterward the young adult, becomes remote. She lives in a completely different world from her parents and possibly switches day and night, thus avoiding all contact with her parents and with the world of reality and demands.

 

The parents are constantly fearful that the child will lapse into a condition of anxiety or panic, that she will commit suicide. Haunted by this thought, they are more determined than ever to give the child atrophic shelter, which only aggravates the problem.

 

7)    What are Typical Dysfunctional Behaviors in ACDS?

 

Here is a table that the researchers have put together to describe the dependent adult’s behavior and the parent’s corresponding behavior.

 

Child’s Dependent Behavior
Parent’s Accommodating Behavior
Explicit or implicit demands for money, goods, or services
Supply of money, goods, or services
Demand for continuous reassurance
Providing continuous reassurance
Aggression and victimization
Submitting to aggression and victimization
Blaming
Feeling and expressing guilt
Use of parent as a go-between and moderator for communicating with the external world
Providing communicative and other links to external reality
Maintaining a paradoxical, “present yet alienated” attitude toward the parents: “I am here all the time but I will reduce contact to a minimum”
Accepting dependent’s presence while avoiding contact
 

 

8)    Does ACDS originate with the adult child’s difficulty becoming independent or with the parents’ refusal to let go?

Many times the parents are very compassionate and sympathize with their child’s every display of discomfort. The problem here, however, does not usually lie in dependence needs of the parents. In the majority of the cases, when the parents are able to stop providing these services, the quality of life greatly improves for the parent. The child is dependent on the parent, not the other way around.

 

9)    Is the adult child incapable of independence or are they essentially unwilling?

It is hard to say; there’s no doubt that the adult child feels that life challenges are greater than their ability to deal with them. But when the parents supply all those needs, the adult doesn’t experience any necessity to deal with the challenges themselves. Without necessity, the chance that the adult child may deal with the challenges decreases.

 

The majority of people are willing to deal with challenges and hardships when there is a necessity to do so. But if they don’t need to, most people prefer not to deal with hardships.

10) Who’s to blame here – the parents or the child?

No one: There are no guilty parties in this situation. The parents arrived at this situation as a result of good intentions and confusion, the child because of her fears and her difficulty – and because she received too much, to her detriment.

 

11) What can be done to help in such situation?

Parents should understand that a situation of lack of necessity can hurt both them and their child.

Parents can create the necessity in the child even though they could potentially do it for them, with the understanding that supplying the needs of the child in this absolute manner only harms the development of the adult child.

 

12) Shifting to more healthy and functional relationships

a)    Name the Problem

b)    Educate yourself – about ACDS and how to deal with it effectively

c)     Define the degree of support/ set limits – look to the future not the past –create a plan

d)    Step back from ownership of the problem but not the person – Detach

e)    Turn responsibility for their lives back to them

 

Key Perspectives for Moving Forward

Shelter leads to Atrophy: the longer it is used as a haven, the greater the loss of a person’s ability to cope.

Support – enables independence.

Protectiveness – undermines independence.

 

Based on the works of: Eli Liebowitz, et. al. Family Process, March 2012, Volume 51, Issue

(ELI LEBOWITZ, DAN DOLBERGER, EFI NORTOV, HAIM OMER)

 

 

 

 

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