4 Solid Tips to Living with Your Parents in Harmony After Graduation

Are you living with your parent after graduating college? Or are you contemplating moving in with your parents?

You've graduated from college and decided to move in with your parents, but now you're worried. Should you have moved in?

Are you wondering how you manage the transition into your family structure and family dynamics after graduating college?

I'll tell you how.

Choosing to return home is not an easy choice, especially if you've already imagined a wonderful life of independence.

But here you are, graduating into a competitive job market during a pandemic with skyrocketing rent prices and murmurs of an incoming recession. If you can move in with your parents, it's a smart choice.

Here are 4 tips to help you integrate into your family structure and dynamics without losing your independence and autonomy.

It’s easy to return to old family dynamics, where you are a child and your parents dictate what you do.

I don't want that. I want you to be an independent adult when you return home.

Tips 1: Arrive with An Action Plan

The best way to return home is to arrive with an action plan.

An action plan outlines how you plan to spend your time while living with your parents. It lays out your personal, professional, and relationship goals and goals around leisure, fun, and rest.

And, it must also include any agreements you've made with your parents before returning home.

Some of you have parents who'll take you back, no questions asked or strings attached. They're thrilled and excited about your return. They'll take care of you, and you're welcome to stay for as long as you want.

Some of you are welcomed back by your parents, but they want to know you have a plan for your career. And other parents will allow you to return home but will have clear rules and expectations for you.

Regardless of which parent you have, I don't want any confusion about your purpose for returning home. And I also don't want you flailing around, directionless at home.

I want you to have your goals and your agreements laid down on paper so they give you direction while you’re there.

An action plan will keep you organized, focused, and accountable to yourself and to your parents.

I created a Google doc template you can download here. It gives more detail and provides examples.

What should an action plan include?

• Timeframe: How long do you plan to stay with your parents? Weeks, months, or years?

• Goals: What are your short-term and long-term goals while you’re there?

  • Rest, recover, and reconnect with friends and family.

  • Work a local part-time job or find a job in your industry.

  • Travel.

• Timeline: By when do you want to complete your goals? Share months or specific dates.

• Goals: Write down your goals then break them down into actionable projects and their accompanying tasks.

A broken-down list will keep you on track. Remember to dedicate time to tackling tasks that help you meet your milestones and achieve your goals.

Example goals & timeline

* The downloadable template includes this chart and walks you through the process of breaking down goals into small projects and tasks.

Tip 2: Establish a Predictable Daily Routine

Yes, you need a predictable daily routine.

And, I’m not talking about the motivational routines all over social media. This daily routine serves a different purpose.

The goal of a predictable daily routine is to visibly show your parents that you're actively engaging and moving forward in your adulthood. And to demonstrate you’re making intentional career choices and not stalling or avoiding the real world. I want them to see you thriving.

I, often, see parents tell their grown college-educated children they're not ready for the real world. And that is not true. Once you leave the nest to go to college, you've started "adulting." You'll likely struggle through the entire process, but you've already started the process of turning into an adult that's able and capable.

So, a well-balanced routine will signal to your parents that you are an adult, not the child who left for college years ago. It will also help them reevaluate their perception of you.

Most of us have the tendency to remember our friends, siblings, and children as younger than they are. I once shared a story with my colleague about my youngest brother. When she asked his age, and I was forced to remember how old he was. I realized, my brother, who is about six years younger, was stuck at middle school age in my mind. But he was already in his early 20s. I, however, was still talking about him as if he was a child. Because I had helped raise him, he was a child-like sibling to me. So, I understand how easy it's for your parents to receive you from college and not realize that you've grown and changed and that you are able and capable.

A routine allows them to see you as an independent, autonomous person. This predictable daily routine does not need to be detailed or burdensome. It just sets a rhythm, a pattern to your presence at home and helps your parents adjust to your presence and behaviors.

However, the rigidity of your routine will depend on the type of parents you have and the quality of that relationship.

Parents who perceive lounging, resting, and leisurely activities as laziness will want to see you moving from sunrise to sundown. So, be mindful of their expectations and unnecessary pressure, and carve out space for yourself and for rest and joy.

What should your daily routine include?

• Your wake-up time. Are you up at 7 am or noon? Some of you have parents who expect early morning wake-ups. Decide or negotiate your wake-up time.

• Day activities:

  • Working part-time?

  • Working on your job search from the coffee shop?

  • Lounging at home until the evening and working at night? A note to night owls: let your parents know why the night is your best working time.

• Chore contributions. Are you volunteering to do household chores, or are you expected to do certain chores? Decide on a time and do them at the same time.

• Dinner time. Will your parents expect you for dinner most days or on certain days? Are you expected to cook on certain days?

• Social time: When will you be out? Are weekends for family or friends?

*Don't forget to grab the downloadable template.

Your predictable daily schedule can be as detailed as you want. The goal of the routine is to establish a rhythm intentionally. Often, routines are established naturally. But it’s better to be proactive, especially if you have parents who need control. It will help deal with arguments quickly. (More details about this are in the template.)

PSA to children of immigrant parents. Some of you will need to negotiate assumed responsibilities and unreasonable rules and demands if you're parents default to their old parenting style. So, if you plan to return home, work on this before you arrive.

Remember, the goal of your predictable daily routine is to reduce your parents' anxieties about the future and to show them you can handle real life.

Tip #3 Manage Your Parent's Big Expectations

I'm certain you've already experienced people sharing their expectations with you, telling you what things should look like, feel like, and how fast you should move.

Your parents will do the same.

They’ll give you advice and will make big assumptions about what you should be doing, by when, and even how.

It will be your responsibility to right-size those big expectations, unfortunately.

This is an important message for those of you who are first-generation college graduates, first-generation professionals, and children of immigrant parents.

Your parents will likely not know enough about the job market, your industry, your career goals, or your career path. They may not be equipped to give you very concrete or proper advice on how things should be moving. But they may still put a lot of pressure on you. They'll make big assumptions about how fast things should be going and want to blame you for the lack of movement that's happening.

I don't want you to receive and carry that pressure.

One way to manage their unrealistic expectations and anxieties about your future, or the challenges you're facing, is to share the truth.

Bring them into the process you're experiencing and share the challenges. Since there is no guarantee of a positive outcome for any project, they need to see you are taking action and make it clear you are doing your part.

Hopefully, if they learn how tedious any process you take on is, they'll be able to manage their expectations and rightsized them.

I, for example, as a first-generation professional doing sedentary office work, most of my work is invisible to my mother. When I take on an interesting project or when I need to correct a misconception about a social-political event, I share the nitty-gritty details of my work with my mother. I talk about the goal and broken-down projects and connected tasks as well as the impact of my work on her life. She'll usually respond with an, "I guess nothing is easy."

Nope! Nothing is never easy.

Example: Sample responses to unrealistic expectations

In these examples, we responded with the challenging aspect of the process or experience.

If you do not share these logistical and procedural challenges, they won't know how hard job hunting is, for example. And it will be hard for them to manage their job hunting expectations. They'll assume a college degree and an interest in the field is enough to get you hired.

That's what I though as naive first-generation college student. I thought that after receiving my bachelors employers were going to looking for me and trying to recruit me. I didn't know I had to put effort into the job search process because no one talked about it until graduation was approaching.

A bright spot about bringing in your parents into the process, even though it can be draining, is that it will improve your relationship and quality of life and their relationship with others like your sibling.

Tip 4: Communicate or Over-communicate With Your Parents

All four tip are, to some extent, about communication. Learning to communicate with your parents is crucial to a harmonious relationship in the home.

Let me make something clear though. Because communicating with your parents is very important, if you choose to live with them, don't make this mistake.

Do not. Do not leave your parents in the dark.

When well-meaning parents don't know what's going on, they get anxious. And when they get anxious, they get nosy. And when they get nosy, they get in your business. They'll start asking questions. They'll start pushing you to take action. They create a sense of urgency and put unnecessary pressure on you to resolve their issue or concern.

This is especially true for those of you who have overbearing parents. Your inclination is likely to keep them at a distance because they’re too much, but it may be more useful to bring them into your life so they don't get anxious.

Your parents day-to-day are going to observe you at home. They're going to track the things they see with their eyes.

You going to the kitchen. You watching TV. You playing video games. You on the computer. You hanging out with friends. You going out. If this is all they see, they will start to panic.

Why? Because all the career-focused work you do on the computer is invisible. They don't "see" that work. You may be working on your resume and cover letter at night, but they didn't see that because you did that in your room, and you didn't share it with them.

You may be going out during the day to socialize and enjoying the freedom you get with graduation and doing the hard labor at night in your room when everybody's asleep.

Parents are observing and judging you by what's visible. So we want to make the invisible visible.

The only way you make the invisible visible is if they know and see what you're doing. When they know and see what you're doing, they see you making forward progress. They'll see you taking action to meet your career goals. Parents don't want to see is a child who looks stalled or they start worrying about their child's future.

Most of the time, what parents see is perception. They see their child stalled because they don't see the invisible work they are doing.

Examples: Responses that illustrate how to share the what and why.

Mom, I'm going to visit Rose tomorrow. We're going to work on our resumes.

Mom and dad, I'll be back. I'm going to the library to grab books on how to write a strong cover letter and resume.

Mom, I'm going to dinner with Lily this Thursday. I haven't seen her in a while. And I want to know how she's doing.

Mom, dad, I'm going to be busy next week applying to jobs. I'm going to spend most of my days at the coffee shop or at the library. Do you need me to do anything this weekend?

As you can see, these statements don't ask for permission but state what you're doing and why. They connect your daily actions to a reason. And if you've shared your goals with your parents, they connect your action to them as well.

Before I close, let me share some thoughts as you work to improve the communication with your parents.

Your Private Life is Private

I want to clarify that communicating with your parents is not about opening up your entire private life. I know some of you might have a tenuous relationship with your parents.

When I say communicate with your parents. I mean talk or narrate what you are doing and why you are doing it. We all want to know why someone does something.

You do not have to share private aspects of your life you don't want to share with your parents. Share what makes you comfortable. Share enough about your career goals and ambitions, so your parents see that you are being thoughtful and making thoughtful decisions.

Seeing you make thoughtful and intentional decisions will, hopefully, start to change their perception of you from a child to an adult.

In addition to sharing willingly the invisible work you do daily, include adulting activities like scheduling doctor's appointments, paying your bills, etc.

Honesty is Critical

If you haven't had a strong relationship with your parents, it's important to remember that communicating with your parents this time around as an adult means being truthful and trustworthy.

This is not the time to lie to your parents.

If you tell them you are going to the library, go to the library. If you tell them you're going to hang out with friends, go hang out with friends.

As a child of immigrant parents, I know there might be a desire not to share the truth with our parents because of their previous parenting practices. But learning to be truthful with hard-to-manage parents is important. So, be clear and truthful about what you're doing and why you're doing it. This will help them understand that everything you do is intentional.

And if you have a tough relationship with your parents, consider moving in with friends or extended family. If leaving is not possible, look for help from local social services programs.

Bust Their Misconceptions

Another aspect of building a good and honest relationship with your parents is investing time in correcting their misconceptions or assumptions about anything they share or ask about. This is part of managing expectations. When your parents make a really big statement that's not feasible, stop what you're doing, look at them, and respond appropriately. Investing in clarifying a process over time will improve the way you relate to your parents.

In Summary

The goal of all four tips is to give your parents enough information that if someone asked them at the grocery store, "Hey, how is Rosamaria doing?" They could respond.

If your parents can rattle off a long list of things you're doing and explain how you're taking action every single day to meet your goal then you've successfully made your invisible work visible.

I want your parents to know you're killing at adulting or when and why you're struggling.

I want them to know that you're going to spend July working from the coffee shop on your resume and cover letter. Or, that you're planning on taking a virtual course on interesting topic. Or that you are planning to attend a networking event nearby to network.

But they will only know if you tell them.

The more they know what's going on with you, the less stress they're going feel about you, how fast you're moving, the pace that you're moving at.

You are giving your parents the language they need to communicate externally. Parent's inability to share the positive things their children are doing brings stress and tension especially if they don't see the valuable invisible work they are doing. If they don't have this language, they might assume that Rosamaria spends her days watching reality TV and hanging out with friends.

Well, there you have it. Four solid tips to help you transition into your family structure and dynamics without losing your independence and autonomy.

Episode Exercises

• Go create an action plan.

  • Get the downloadable template.

• Set a predictable daily routine.

• Manage your parent's expectations.

• Communicate with your parents honestly.

Related Resources

• Watch How To Prepare For The Transition From College To Adulthood and Work to learn tips to manage your emotion and others' unnecessary expectations.

• Join my Free Rapid Fire Career and Life Coaching workshop every Saturday at 10 AM Pacific. Spots are limited.