Falling into the habit of sleeping late, leaving messes behind him wherever he goes, and making it clear to his parents that he would rather not talk about his future…How do you parent a kid who is not a child anymore, but doesn’t seem to be ready to become an adult?

Many kids come home again to rethink their college choices.  The school that looked so wonderful to him when he was 16, may not have been that great when he actually went there to live and study. He has lots of company in figuring this out—a whopping one out of three college students transfer schools before graduating, and many kids come home between times.

Perhaps your son is embarrassed to find himself living at home again.  Or maybe he is just really bummed out.  But turning into the family bum won’t solve any of these problems. The only way to transition out of childhood is to get more engaged with the responsibilities of adulthood.

In the beginning, we parents work hard to shelter our children from the toughest aspects of the real world.  But along the way, we teach our kids “this is how the real world works,” to get them prepared.  This is a time in your son’s life when he is ready to learn another valuable lesson about how “the real world works.”

Helping him understand that returning home is not the same thing as returning to childhood is a good place to start.

He’ll likely be very happy to hear that you don’t see him as a child anymore, but he may well be clueless about what it means to be an adult.  This is what you can kindly and firmly help him understand: his self-respect and personal dignity are based upon his ability to fulfill his responsibilities in life, now and in the future.  You are inviting him to step up as a young adult in your household because you believe he is capable of doing this.  Your belief in his abilities to contribute will help your son believe this himself.

To make this easier to imagine, it might help to imagine with your son what his responsibilities would be if he were living in a group house with his peers.  Of course he would be responsible for taking care of himself and his own stuff.  In addition, he would share responsibilities with his housemates for contributing financially, keeping the place clean, doing repair jobs as needed, and sharing in the general buying and cooking food.

Your home is now a kind of quasi group house, and your son can share the same kinds of responsibilities while he lives with members of his family.  For instance, he can be expected to not just clean up after himself, but to also do at least an hour of general cleaning and cooking every day, while still having plenty of time to do odd jobs and check out new colleges.

It’s also reasonable to expect your son to contribute something financially towards the household expenses.  Even a small contribution of about $20 to $50 a week will add to his self-respect because he will feel less like your dependent and more like your equal.  He’ll appreciate it even more if you let him know you are planning to put his “rent” into a “trust fund” which you’ll return to him as a gift when he is ready to set up his own household.

You’ve helped your child make many transitions.  From the crib to a bed, from nursery school to kindergarten, and from middle school to high school—figuring out how to get from childhood to adulthood is one more important transition for your son.  Together, you can make this transition another good learning and growing experience.