Money, Boundaries & Resilience: Guiding Your Young Adult Forward

Keywords

parenting, young adults, life transitions, mental health, financial literacy, college readiness, therapeutic consulting, adulting skills, boundaries, independence

Summary

In this episode of ABC's of Parenting Adult Children, James Moffitt speaks with Joanna Lilly, a therapeutic consultant, about the challenges parents face in supporting their young adult children during significant life transitions. They discuss the importance of financial literacy, the difference between being college capable and college ready, and the necessity of teaching essential life skills. Joanna emphasizes the need for parents to set boundaries and create plans when their children face setbacks, such as dropping out of college. The conversation highlights the complexities of parenting in today's world and offers practical strategies for fostering independence and resilience in young adults.

Takeaways

Joanna Lilly is a therapeutic consultant working with young adults.

Parents need to support their children during life transitions.

Financial literacy is crucial for young adults.

There is a difference between being college capable and college ready.

Teaching life skills is essential for independence.

Setting boundaries is important for parents.

Young adults need to contribute to household responsibilities.

A gap year can be beneficial for mental wellness.

Parents should have a plan if their child drops out of college.

Resilience is key to navigating life's challenges.

Sound bites

"We need to be a little more positive."

"It's important to have a plan."

"Life is hard, it's difficult."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Parenting Adult Children

03:16 The Role of a Therapeutic Consultant

05:58 Navigating Life Transitions for Young Adults

08:46 Understanding Financial Literacy

11:26 Signs of Young Adults Needing Support

14:30 Building Life Skills for Independence

17:17 The Importance of Communication and Support

20:11 Humor in Parenting Challenges

26:13 Navigating Daily Responsibilities

26:38 Understanding College Capable vs. College Ready

32:04 The Role of Gap Years in Mental Wellness

33:43 Rethinking the Necessity of a Four-Year Degree

41:17 Addressing College Dropouts and Setting Expectations

48:21 Establishing Boundaries as Parents

Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

Parenting Adult Children Call To Action 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

James Moffitt (00:00.946)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children. My name is James Moffitt. Today's special guest is Joanna Lilly. Joanna, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm all right. Do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Joanna Lilley (00:10.658)
I'm good, James. How are you?

Joanna Lilley (00:17.198)
Sure. My name is Joanna Lilly. I'm a therapeutic consultant. I work with young adults ages 18 to 29 in a one-on-one capacity matchmaking them with mental health or substance use or wellness-based resources.

James Moffitt (00:34.22)
awesome. So I'm going read off your pod match profile. Says, the episode could explore critical strategies parents need to support their young adults during life transitions. The conversation with Joanna would offer insights into challenges like mental health, college readiness, and finding professional help.

James Moffitt (01:03.036)
All right, so I usually at this point ask my podcast guests to talk about their parenting story, but something tells me you don't have one just yet.

Joanna Lilley (01:16.365)
Not yet.

James Moffitt (01:18.514)
All right. So, so tell us how you got into being a, what did you say your title was? You're a parenting coach, therapeutic consultant. How did you become that?

Joanna Lilley (01:25.24)
Therapeutic consultant. Yeah. Yeah. So I, well, I am also, I'll just pause and say too, going back to your point, I'm also really direct with the parents that I work with and letting them know I'm not a parent. So anything that I say obviously is, know, like maybe it's out of line or maybe you feel like because I don't have that perspective, you're going to take what I say with a green assault. And I just, I, you know, let parents kind of work with that.

So all that is to say, actually, I do have my masters in counseling. I thought I was gonna be a therapist and what I ended up doing is I liked knowing about the types of therapeutic modalities that matched presenting issues that a young adult was struggling with. But what I really liked was just kind of having a one-on-one connection with a young adult, not being in the weeds doing the therapy, but just identifying who are you as a human? What do you need? And like actually being interested in kind of forging this path of

Can I be the person that helps connect you with the right therapist? So you don't have to navigate this clunkily too many times throughout your life or at all. And so that's what led me kind of at least in part towards the consulting business. But the other piece too, is that all of the young adults that I was working with were college connected. And so I was navigating, helping support students that were basically exploring, do we need to take a break?

from college, if we do, what the heck do we do? And then helping parents kind of embrace that and navigate that process. Well, if they're not in college, then what are they doing?

James Moffitt (03:01.604)
Right. Well, as we know, teenagers, pre-teens, teenagers transitioning into becoming a young adult is traumatic enough. And parents are transitioning from the role of being a hands-on parent that's heavily involved in the child's day-to-day activities.

into that of a mentor or a support person, right? And so there's a lot of transitioning going on on both sides of the equation. And so there's a whole host of complexities that go into that. And so one of the topics that we cover from time to time is this thing called failure to launch. And I had a child psychologist

That's been on this podcast on several occasions. Guy's just awesome. he's a whole wealth of information. He didn't, he has something like transitioning in space or something like that. didn't like failure launch. He's like transitioning in space. And I'm like, or something like that, you know, it's a, it's, it's, it's a lot more positive. It's a little more neutral than failure to launch failure to launch the word failures, like red flags.

Joanna Lilley (04:10.647)
Hmm.

Joanna Lilley (04:19.944)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

James Moffitt (04:25.2)
Stop signs. You're so lazy. Get off your butt and go get a job or go to college or just do something for God's sake.

Joanna Lilley (04:34.765)
Yeah, there's a negative connotation, right? You're either a success or you're a failure. It's binary. And so this idea of like, you're not a success is make somebody feel really crummy about themselves.

James Moffitt (04:48.584)
Oh yeah, absolutely. And we don't, the world, the world does a wonderful job of doing that on its own. Social media does that. We parents don't need to add to that. We need to be a little more positive, a little more upbeat, a little more encouraging, a little kinder. Right. And at the same time in the back of our heads, we're going, Jesus, we've got to get them out of the nest. How do we kick them out of the nest and give them a parachute so they don't crash and burn at the bottom? Right.

Joanna Lilley (04:58.54)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (05:10.893)
You

James Moffitt (05:19.312)
So, well, that's interesting. So you kind of came into this therapy, therapeutic approach while you were in college, right?

Joanna Lilley (05:28.024)
Well, while I was in grad school, so I, yeah, yep. did, graduated undergrad and worked for about five years kind of in different types of, I inherently, ended up in more like therapeutic type environments, like a short-term residential treatment program or, you know, or, and, or hospitality. So I was kind of like, you know, vacillating back and forth in those types of positions. But then I realized, okay, I do want an advanced degree. like the idea of going back to become a therapist.

James Moffitt (05:30.28)
While you're in grad school.

Joanna Lilley (05:57.485)
I specifically chose the program and the school that I went to for multiple reasons, but it was while I was in the program that I realized, actually, I don't want to be a therapist, but I'm still going to go through this process because I think it's beneficial for me. also, you know, maybe one day I'll kind of get to it, but it was while I was in grad school, I had an assistantship where I was coaching students that were on academic probation.

And that was for me kind of where the light bulb went off because all the things that I was learning in my counseling program were essentially kind of the skills or I was applying a lot of those skills, just like active listening or congruence, like just generally being able to connect with essentially like as if I was a therapist and this was my patient. The same thing with a coach where it's just like, right, we're not going to get into the weeds though of really what's going on, but how do we kind of jump to more solution focused work? And anyways, fast forward.

I did that, worked at two different schools for about five years and I became jaded in working in higher education. And again, still just wanted to continue to have those one-on-one relationships and then created this path for myself, which really allowed me to connect outside of the structure of being in college or a job. And instead it's just like, I'm working one-on-one with this young adult and we're figuring it out. Yeah.

James Moffitt (07:19.592)
Did you find yourself in a position in your earlier years when you were an adult child? Did you find yourself needing that sort of thing?

Joanna Lilley (07:31.382)
Absolutely. And I think that's probably why it was a marrying of my own personal experiences and also the kind of the professional path or interests that I was taking. mean, when I was in my, honestly, I think when I was 25, I was the most anxious ever. What am I doing with my life? What's going on? Like I was working a lot of these short-term seasonal jobs. And so I was constantly on this grind and the...

the grind was if I don't figure this out, then I have to go back and live with my parents. I really don't want to do that. Certainly they would, you know, offer up the basement for me if I needed it, even in like a, you've got like a one week in between jobs, they'd help me out, but I hated it. So I was like constantly in this position of like, how do I become an independent, like self-sufficient independent adult? And that was, and then in addition to just like the stressors of constantly trying to find positions that was,

my own kind of mental health journey.

James Moffitt (08:32.968)
I did a, I did an episode earlier on, uh, on something called boomerang children. And, uh, you know, life is hard and it is expensive to go out on your own. You have deposits you have to come up with. You have first month, last month's rent. You have to have insurance. have to all this. It's like, it's like, I don't know, three or $4,000. You got to cough up just to get into an apartment almost. And, and who can afford that?

Joanna Lilley (08:37.933)
Mm.

Joanna Lilley (08:58.615)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (09:02.566)
I mean, even, even for somebody like myself, that's established in a, in a field of, you know, expertise or whatever, you know, I've been on my, obviously been on my own for just a few minutes. And, you know, just moving from one place to the next, we bought it, we bought a place in goose crate back in 2021. And I got really fortunate in that we were able to take over somebody's mortgage and the down payment was only a thousand dollars. If we'd have been buying.

If we'd have been buying a traditional home and they wanted a 10 % down payment, well, that could have been anywhere from 6,000 to 40,000. So anyway, young adults are not the only people that are the only ones that are susceptible to the expenses of living. It's just ridiculous. And anyhow, so anyway, I did this episode on

Joanna Lilley (09:55.895)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (10:02.118)
the issues that adult children face, because, know, let's face it, when you're living at home, you're a young adult, no matter how old you are, you got it made. And I remember, I had a horrible childhood. I could not wait to leave. I could not wait to launch. I had a rocket strapped to my butt and I was ready to light the fuse. I'm telling you, I was ready to go.

Joanna Lilley (10:16.002)
Hmm.

Joanna Lilley (10:22.039)
Mm-hmm.

Joanna Lilley (10:27.521)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (10:28.974)
I had no clue how hard it was. had no clue that, my God, you got to pay rent. You got to put it, pay for your own gasoline, your car insurance, your cell phone, your food, all of that. And I was like, I, it was an awakening and I was like, my God. I, I had no clue how good I had it. Right. And I still think kids don't kids just take you. They just take it for granted. Right. And as they possibly should, right. Because they're not supposed to.

Joanna Lilley (10:31.82)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (10:50.625)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

James Moffitt (10:59.24)
Children are not supposed to suffer. You know, we don't live in a third world country. We don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. We don't have to worry about what clothes we're going to wear. You know, we have high speed internet, cable TV. We have all the wants and luxuries of living in America, which is, be good or bad depending on where you're, which way you're looking at it. But, but yeah, uh, it's tough. It's very difficult to become an adult.

Joanna Lilley (11:16.429)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (11:26.918)
and learn how to land on your feet or learn how to fly without crashing into a tree somewhere, right?

Joanna Lilley (11:32.029)
Yeah. Well, and like you said, it's just so astronomically expensive to exist independently now. And it makes it a little bit more challenging to be able to do that quickly, especially, you know, like whether you're 18 or even in your early 20s.

James Moffitt (11:37.063)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (11:48.252)
Right. Well, I think hopefully mom and dad can look into the future and then look back into the past and realize how difficult it was and hopefully, you know, help the young adult come up with a budget of some sort. They help them budget and make a financial plan to go, okay, this is the date that you want to move out.

You know, help them find an apartment, you know, find apartment complexes or whatever. have specials going on. Whatever, you know, and say, okay, this month you need to put away 200, $300 towards your first deposit. And then this month you need to go put another $300 away, you know, and start building a little nest egg so that, so that when you are ready to launch, you're prepared and you have the funds that you need to, to do it. Right. And so.

Joanna Lilley (12:13.602)
Mm.

James Moffitt (12:41.042)
That all speaks to financial literacy and parents should be actively engaged in helping their children to understand the cost of living, understand what it means to budget, what it means to pay bills, what it means to save money, all of that.

Joanna Lilley (12:53.229)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (12:59.885)
I would actually say that that's probably one of the number one. So in my, I have like a parent intake form that the parents will fill out when, when their young adult has started to work with me. So I'm just like kind of gathering information from the parent perspective on what it is that they think their young adult needs support with.

And I've got a list of like adulting skills. And so I asked them, you know, check all that apply. And one question says, what of this list do you think your child can do independently? Right. And again, we're talking about adult children. So anybody over the age of 18. And then the next question is, what do you want your young adult to focus on? Like what areas do you feel like they are not educated in and they need support? And I would say probably like

really consistently financial literacy is almost the number one for every young adult that I'm working with. The parents are just like, my kid has no concept of budgeting because we have either we live in a really expensive area or we've never, you know, they've never held a job or we've never actually even had them like pay anything. So all of a sudden it's like, you know, like you said, leaving the nest, becomes a real

slap to the face in terms of reality, like a reality check financially of like, my gosh, grocery shopping, really expensive, rent, really expensive, right? Car insurance, really expensive. It all adds up and then you're like, wait, where did all my money go?

James Moffitt (14:29.8)
Do you remember your first paycheck?

Joanna Lilley (14:31.181)
Do I? It was, yeah, I'm pretty sure I made like maybe six dollars an hour working at a water park. I was 14 and I...

James Moffitt (14:33.446)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (14:46.504)
Do you remember how angry you were when you realized that they took money out of your check and taxes and social security and all that crap?

Joanna Lilley (14:51.788)
Yeah.

I remember being like, wait, this is all that I'm getting paid? Yeah.

James Moffitt (14:58.504)
Yeah. I was mad. I remember very, very clearly how I was angry for awhile. I was like, what? I'm like, this is, this is highway robbery. And of course, the more money you make, the more money they take after a while, you just learn to go, you know, you, you know, if you don't see it, it's not there, you know, whatever it's just, it's gone, you know? So there's a difference between gross income and net income. And there's a huge difference between the two.

Joanna Lilley (15:12.429)
Yep.

Joanna Lilley (15:25.005)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yeah. And just because you get like, you know, job offer, here's what your salary is. That doesn't actually mean that's what your take home, right. And in terms of exactly what you're talking about, it's super helpful for young adults to have that information.

James Moffitt (15:37.392)
Right. Right. Exactly.

James Moffitt (15:43.228)
Yeah. Somehow we, somehow we've got to, we need to, build in some sort of a emotional and psychological buffer to make them realize that, okay, when you get your first paycheck, take a deep breath, maybe not even look at your paycheck. Just put it in a drawer and leave it alone. And then when you, when you're, know, after you've had a beer or two and you feel like you can handle it, then you take your paycheck and out, look at the line items and go.

Joanna Lilley (15:56.823)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (16:12.263)
Whaaat?

Joanna Lilley (16:13.645)
Yeah, only pay attention to what the actual direct deposit is. Okay, this is how much money I have to work with. Okay.

James Moffitt (16:18.492)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

James Moffitt (16:25.682)
So what are key signals of a young adult needing support?

Joanna Lilley (16:31.489)
Yeah, think, well, let me ask a question, James, because I think, do we wanna talk about a young adult that's already living out of the house, or do we wanna use this as a reference for somebody that might still be under a parent's roof?

James Moffitt (16:47.976)
let's, let's talk about under the context of, of being at home, still living at home at this point. we can do both. You can do, we can look at it from the living at home versus being out of the house. I mean, cause, cause obviously there's going to be, signals on both sides of the fence.

Joanna Lilley (17:06.315)
Yeah, okay, so we'll start with struggles if there are key signs of struggles if they're still under your roof. I mean, when I talk about wellness, it's kind of like a, it's a broad stroke. We're talking about different areas. We just talked about financial literacy. That's financial wellness is actually a category of like whether or not a young adult is balanced. Social, emotional, mental, physical.

The list goes on, there's like kind of like an environmental, there's like an employment-based or vocational wellness. So we've got all of these categories. And I think the biggest like warning signs or kind of signals that we're seeing as parents is if your young adult is not doing anything or struggling to contribute in areas that are basically building them up to be able to leave the nest.

So they need to be employed, right? If they're not able to be employed, are they at least volunteering? Are they, and that can also be like around the house too. Are they contributing in ways that will demonstrate that as a parent, if anything were to happen to you, you wouldn't be fearful that your adult child wouldn't be able to fend for themselves even under your roof, right? So do they know to take the trash out? Do they know when the trash gets picked up? Do they know how to actually load and unload a dishwasher?

Do they understand why food needs to be thrown out after X amount of days? Like things that just, you know, again, for some of us, we might feel like, that's common sense. Well, it's common sense because we've known it for a while because somebody taught us. So there's gotta be a need for just teaching a lot of these skills that essentially build the ability to be self-sufficient or, or launch eventually, right? Like being able to live and transition independently. If they are, if their sleep hygiene is off, if they are addicted to tech,

if they are unemployed, if they are raging at you, if they're struggling to like, you know, focus on their diet or eat healthily, if they're not physically active, if they had mental health struggles before, maybe they were just super socially anxious and now they're retreating even more, they're very isolated. A lot of those things could look really small. So as a parent, you got to pay attention because collectively, that could become a pretty big issue, which is essentially my child, I'm making it

Joanna Lilley (19:25.998)
comfortable for my child to continue to exist under my roof with very little pressures that would be applied in the outside world because they are kind of protected in my home. And the idea is again, I mean, I'm just gonna assume that a parent doesn't want their young adult to live with them forever. And if that is what they want, then by all means, like go do your own thing. But if the parent eventually wants them like, okay, at some point,

You have to live in your own apartment. You have to work a job and pay your own bills. So as a parent, you just kind of do honestly like your own assessment. What's going on for my young adult and are they taking steps to basically demonstrate that they are interested and moving out? So, okay.

James Moffitt (20:18.56)
I to add a little levity to this. So you're talking about food and knowing when it needs to be thrown out. I have two prerequisites or two warning signs about food that's in a refrigerator. Number one, if you open the door and you slam it immediately because you go, my God, it stinks. What in the world? Or if you open the door and you reach in and you grab something and it's got a little green caterpillar on it, it looks like a science project.

Joanna Lilley (20:20.332)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (20:48.04)
That's your sign. What is, what is, what is a, uh, Jeff Foxworthy? Uh, uh, what is his famous statement? You know, you're a redneck. If this, that, or another is happening, right? You know, the food's bad if it stinks and, or it's got mold growing on

Joanna Lilley (20:59.533)
you

Joanna Lilley (21:06.209)
Yeah, I mean, honestly, the same thing, a lot of those translate though too, when you have a young adult that's living independently. So signs that things are not going well too, if they're, know, just because they're living in a different environment, whether it's an apartment, their own house, but you show up to visit as a parent and you realize, my gosh, I can't even walk through the door because there's clothes and trash everywhere, right? So like being really worried about essentially self-care.

and the upkeep of the space that they're living in. Have they lost a job? Are they calling you all the time? Did they stop taking their medications? Are you again, worried about their eating habits? I mean, we're not even tapping into substance use or abuse if that becomes a problem, but I mean, I think that goes without saying. So again, as a parent, you're just really trying to identify a lot of the same struggles, but just under a different roof.

And as a parent, how do you support your child again and continuing to not just be able to live independently, but do so in a safe and secure manner?

James Moffitt (22:15.4)
So have you ever heard Jeff Dunham?

Joanna Lilley (22:17.26)
Yes.

James Moffitt (22:19.036)
He, well, I've been watching him for years. He is so funny. I love peanut and, and not Ahmed and all of the dolls. They're, just, they have a, they just take on a life of, of their own. Right. And, peanuts, my favorite, when he does that one, I'm on the floor in a fetal position looking for oxygen. It's so funny, but, but he talks about before his show starts, he kind of does a warmup. He talks about his five children, right? He's got.

Joanna Lilley (22:26.273)
Mm-hmm.

Joanna Lilley (22:47.265)
Mm.

James Moffitt (22:49.352)
Uh, he's been married a couple of times and he's got five children and I was like, like three girls and two boys. James and John, think they're like twins or whatever. Anyway, so one of his shows he starts out and he's talking about how cruel his wife is. And his wife took her, one of her daughters to the gas station to get gasoline. And she was, she was doing a video and this poor kid, she did not open, she didn't know how to open the.

Joanna Lilley (22:57.282)
Mm.

James Moffitt (23:18.588)
the receptacle on the car to get put gas in. She didn't know how to use a credit card or the debit card. She didn't know how to swipe the card to start the process or even how to put the pump in the car. And so it was like a 10 minute video of his wife just giggling in the background and her, her daughter just going, mom, why this is not working. What? I don't know how to do this. I thought that was so funny. my God. that.

Joanna Lilley (23:21.132)
Yep.

Joanna Lilley (23:30.445)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (23:48.146)
That all goes, it's a funny story to illustrate the fact that mom, dad, don't take it for granted that they know how to use a debit card. I mean, at some point you're like, you probably don't want them to learn how to use your debit card, right? Because that's going to cost you money. However, financial literacy says you get the child a savings account and a checking account so that they, could, you give them money and they put it in there, get them a debit card.

Joanna Lilley (23:49.132)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (23:57.666)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (24:01.367)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (24:17.948)
You know, and let them learn how to, that's a life skill. You got to know how to put gas in your car. You got to know how to do all sorts of stuff. Right. And so tell you parents that are listening, don't just because you it's second nature to you. Doesn't mean a second nature to them. You gotta, you gotta teach them how to do this stuff.

Joanna Lilley (24:34.935)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, think laundry is a pretty common one too, for like being, being able to teach somebody when they're young, like you said, like a seven year old. mean, seven might be early, but I would still try it. Um, you know, cause last thing you want is a 27 year old who doesn't know how to do their laundry and they're still leaning on you as a parent. Hey, I've literally worn all of my underwear.

James Moffitt (24:39.304)
But anyway.

James Moffitt (24:42.682)
yeah.

Joanna Lilley (25:02.997)
my response instead of doing the laundry, because I don't know how to do it, is I'm just going to go to the store and buy some more.

James Moffitt (25:10.854)
I was a child of the seventies and eighties. I graduated high school in 1980. And so in the seventies, my sister and I were both growing up and we had, my dad was a drill instructor for 26 years, which was so much fun for a child. And my mother was Austrian. was of European descent. so my sister did all the inside chores and

I did all the outside chores, which included mowing the grass, weed eating, washing the cars, cleaning out the cars. They were, they were chain smokers. That was so much fun cleaning the cars. my sister had to do laundry. She had to, we didn't have dishwashers. We were the dishwashers. You didn't have a dishwasher back then. had, one side of the sink had soapy hot water with dirty dishes and you got a sponge and he washed them and you rinsed them and put them into the.

Joanna Lilley (25:46.445)
Mm.

Joanna Lilley (25:52.481)
Mm.

James Moffitt (26:03.032)
little thing on the side of the, on the, on the sink, whatever that's called, you know, the drain pan or the drain, whatever it was. And so laundry was, was one of her chores, my sister Tanya, and she had to, she had to help her mother do laundry. And when she went off to, the army, when she turned 18 to get out of the house, she wanted to launch too. Cause like I said, we had a pretty bad childhood, but

Joanna Lilley (26:06.163)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (26:21.537)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (26:28.648)
guess, guess who had to learn how to do laundry after she left and all the into inside chores. I had to learn how to do laundry. You know, I knew I had to learn how to separate the whites from the colors and difference between the cold water and the hot water and why you used it and how much detergent to put in and swapping it out into the dryer and all that crap that you had to learn how to do that as adults, we still don't want to do. Right. So yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of.

Joanna Lilley (26:34.189)
you

Joanna Lilley (26:51.917)
Truth.

James Moffitt (26:57.338)
I'm good at, I'm good at starting wash. I'm good at transferring it to the dryer. I'm good at putting it into the clothes hamper and dumping it on the bed. and I'll let my wife do the folding and putting stuff up. I don't do that. I'm just, and she, she hates doing that too. So what she'll do is she'll, she'll take everything from the bed, put it back in the clothes hamper and sit on the side of the bed and she'll go to sleep. And so we wind up, we wind up putting the clothes back on the bed two or three times for one.

Joanna Lilley (27:06.071)
Mm-hmm.

Joanna Lilley (27:13.346)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (27:26.392)
One of us finally gets tired of doing it and then you sort the laundry and put it away. You know, anyway. Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (27:28.065)
Mm-hmm.

Joanna Lilley (27:32.908)
It's a lot of work, like being able to just, we're not even talking about thriving, we're just talking about like being able to take care of yourself, things that are important, so. Yeah, yep.

James Moffitt (27:34.887)
Yes.

James Moffitt (27:42.204)
Yeah. Day to day crap that you got to do.

All right, how do college capable and college ready differ?

Joanna Lilley (27:51.373)
Yeah, when I think we're, so we're talking now about the kind of the younger age group. So this is more like the 18, 19 year olds. We are, dealing with a generation of young people right now too, where we're still pushing the like college path, or at least right now it feels like it in 2025. So all that is to say there is, you know, somebody can be college capable because they've,

They've got a certain GPA, which colleges are looking for. They got a certain, you know, test score on their, you know, SAT or ACT. They've taken X number of advanced placement classes and they've passed those exams, or they've taken concurrent enrollment classes at a local community college, even though usually concurrent enrollment classes are a little bit easier. So it gives this false sense of security of, you're college capable. You know what it means to be a college student.

college ready is we're talking about all of the other non-academic areas. Is this somebody who's socially able to make connections with new people? Is this somebody from a mental health perspective that has the ability to regulate themselves if they are uncomfortable, right? Or they're having a bad day. Can they self-soothe? From a physical wellness standpoint, do they know the importance of making sure that now that you're not living under your parents' roof,

you do need to actually be physically active. That helps your mental health. That's gonna help with your sleep hygiene. We've got this domino effect of all the things. If they've never experienced any type of adversity in their high school years, because there's just been a lot of either support from school or support from family for managing all of those tasks we just talked about, right?

Don't worry, I've got your laundry. Don't worry, I'll do, you X, Y, Z. You just focus on school. And it's like, if all we've been trained on is like doing well academically, then they go to college and you realize college is optional education. And unless somebody sits you down and says, you have to spend X amount of time outside of the classroom, actually organizing yourself to make sure that you're reading the syllabus, you're reading the coursework, that you're doing these assignments proactively,

Joanna Lilley (30:15.467)
All of a sudden we've got young people that went from a highly structured environment to a very unstructured environment, especially if they're not kind of putting that structure on themselves. And then we just get this like great unraveling experience. I'm so bored. There's so much free time, you you can get in trouble or you just isolate. And so the importance and all of this, and it kind of goes back to the, again, the true definition. A lot of people are college capable because a lot of high schools are really pushing.

for this college, like you can go to college, you got in, you should go. But we're not taking a step back and identifying what really is college readiness for each of these young people and whether or not they'll be able to hack it. Do they have resilience? Do they have grit? Are they able to, again, be self-sufficient or independent in any capacity? Because if the answer is no, or even like no for one of those answers, then I would be wary.

that this young person wouldn't go off and then all of a sudden again really just fall apart in a higher education setting.

James Moffitt (31:22.952)
I don't know why I keep coming up with these little analogies, but do you know who fluffy is?

Joanna Lilley (31:27.967)
Now, who's fluffy?

James Moffitt (31:30.098)
Fluffy is Hispanic, he's a big guy, and he's a comedian. He goes by Fluffy, Gabriel Inglisius is his name. Yeah, he is, my god, he's funny. I've seen all his specials. He always talks about his son, who's 19 years old. Now he's 19. Well, for the last five years, he's been talking about his son, his stepson, but he's like, I don't want to call you my stepson, you're my son.

Joanna Lilley (31:33.933)
Okay. Okay.

Joanna Lilley (31:41.712)
okay, I think I do know who he is.

Joanna Lilley (31:51.213)
Mm.

James Moffitt (32:00.488)
And I forget, what is his name? Anyway, I forget what the kid's name is, but he was always making fun of him because he wouldn't put on deodorant. He was like, you've got to put on deodorant, right? They'd go out to eat or something and be like, did you not put on deodorant? So he's always making fun of his son for not putting on deodorant. Now, now he's like, I don't know, his son's like, I don't know, 23, 24, 25, something like that. And he's like, young ladies, he's 25.

Joanna Lilley (32:24.365)
you

James Moffitt (32:28.836)
And he puts on deodorant. It's always, it's always funny, but yeah, you know, it's a, it's a life skill. You've got to put on deodorant before you leave the house.

Joanna Lilley (32:38.613)
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think using that example, if you've got a parent who's constantly, you know, let's just say as a parent, you were reminding your kid all the time, not just wear deodorant, but did you take a shower? Hey, it looks like your clothes are dirty. I'll do the laundry while you're at school today. Like all of these things that kind of lead to, I mean, obviously we're using this like category of hygiene, but it connects to relationships. Are people going to want to be around you if you stink?

Right? are you gonna, are you gonna be able to get a date if you have body odor? Probably not. And so I think this is one of those things where again, it's like as a, as a parent, when we're talking about whether or not somebody truly is capable of being successful on a college campus, it has nothing to do with their study habits. It has everything to do with everything else.

James Moffitt (33:09.34)
Right now.

James Moffitt (33:29.17)
Sure, absolutely, that's good stuff.

Can a gap year contribute to a young adult's mental wellness?

Joanna Lilley (33:37.742)
Yeah, and I think this just kind of plays off of what we were just talking about. A gap year, quote unquote, is just an intentional time off. Like we're just using it as a title. It doesn't have to be like what people envision. Like, you have to be at some international destination doing like humanitarian work. Like gone are the days where that's what a gap experience is. What a gap experience can be is literally somebody saying, hey, I got admitted to X name of institution.

As a young adult and as the parent, realized we need to teach them life skills because we were really lacking in that department. Academically, you got in, so that college is holding your spot, but they're just saying, let's wait a year. I think it'll be better for you at that point. So then this next year, right, this gap experience, we're focusing on teaching a lot of those life skills. It's still intentional. And the idea is that by the end of that year, the young adult is more self-sufficient.

They're more self-aware and as a parent, you're not worried about them being not just a student in the classroom, but a student on campus where they're again, socially connected, making these relationships, engaged, doing all the things that are college related outside of the classroom.

James Moffitt (34:53.618)
Right. I don't have a funny story for that one.

Joanna Lilley (34:58.033)
I'm all right, what you got, James? What do you think about when I say like a gap year doesn't have to be this like, you international experience, do you feel like what I just described is something that makes sense for parents and young adults nowadays?

James Moffitt (35:00.562)
I didn't, I, nothing, nothing ran through my head on that one.

James Moffitt (35:20.676)
the thing that runs through my head when I, you know, I never actually went through a four year college, but,

I've heard of kids taking a year off, you know, and I kind of assume that the reason they want to do that is because they need a mental break. You know, they need a break from the stress stresses of being in college, you know, always cramming for exams and memorizing crap and, you know, all of the stuff that swirls around that, right? And so that's kind of my perception of that.

Joanna Lilley (35:33.889)
Mm.

Joanna Lilley (35:53.271)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (35:57.547)
Yeah, I actually that's a good point. And the only thing that I'll say just to add to this larger conversation, and I think it goes back to this, the difference to have like college ready and college capable, just because you did well academically in high school doesn't mean that you need to go to college. I think that that's like, also, I didn't even say that, but like, I want to make sure that I'm saying it now. In fact, a lot of people would thrive if they enlisted.

Or if they, you know, like maybe took community college classes or, or you, there are so many tracks nowadays, like employers could give, they just don't care depending on the field that you're trying to work in. Um, like, Hey, we want to hire you. We will train you. We'll give you the certification and then you're going to be making a decent amount of money. And then it goes back full circle to financial literacy. How do we support you? And all of that is to say,

At some point in your life, if you see value going to get a four-year degree, great, do it. Otherwise, it's not necessary and you just saved yourself four years of heartache, headache, and financial stress.

James Moffitt (37:04.456)
So I'm going to, I'm to, I'm going to go down a rabbit hole and say something controversial.

Joanna Lilley (37:07.981)
Okay, do it.

James Moffitt (37:11.235)
So, back in the 60s and 70s, if you were an adult and you had a four year degree in underwater basket weaving, they would give you a corner office in 30,000 a year, right? Underwater basket weaving. In other words, kids are getting, you know, psychology degrees, a bachelor's degree in psychology. What can you do with that? Nothing, right? You can go to work at Walmart. And so,

Joanna Lilley (37:22.477)
Mm.

Joanna Lilley (37:29.101)
Mm-mm.

James Moffitt (37:40.452)
Education in America, especially is horribly, it needs an overhaul and it's a, it's a multi-billion dollar industry. Right. And I think parents and children alike are have through the centuries or through the decades have been pushed. this there's this cultural expectation that you go, you get out of high school and you go to college and you get your, you get your four year degree in underwater.

Joanna Lilley (37:46.839)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (38:09.736)
basket weaving, and then you're going to have, unless you got rich parents or if you get, you know, student loans, you know, a lot of, a lot of young adults come up with, you know, 40 or $50,000 in student loans that are, that are all, not only do you have your four year degree, but now you're in debt for the next 10 years. Right. And so I think that it's a good idea. Well, you know, I've always told my, uh, my idea of why do you go to college? Do you want to be a doctor?

Joanna Lilley (38:16.161)
Hmm.

Joanna Lilley (38:27.489)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (38:38.433)
Mm.

James Moffitt (38:38.728)
Do you want to be a lawyer? Do you want to be a judge? Do you want to be a therapist? Do you want to be an RN? Do you want to be a dentist? In other words, there are, and I think parents need to guide their children, their young adults into a field that's going to help support them after they get out of school, right? There's always a need for RNs, medical assistants. There's all sorts of...

Joanna Lilley (38:51.425)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (38:56.993)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (39:03.842)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (39:05.544)
technical skills in the medical field that you can, you can be an X-ray technician. can be a lobotomist or, know, whatever, you know, take blood. Uh, there's all sorts of technical positions within the medical field. can be a police. There's always going to be need for police officers. always going to be going into the armed forces is a wonderful, can be a wonderful thing. could be, it could be, you know, you can join up and you can go see the world. Right. And you have.

Joanna Lilley (39:14.263)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (39:25.645)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (39:33.5)
Great educational benefits when you get out, hopefully you don't wind up going into some kind of conflict somewhere. you know, that sort of thing, but, but there's nothing wrong with children or young adults joining the army or the Marine Corps or Navy, whatever, you know, that's, that's that's a possibility. And I think trade schools are awesome. You know, your child, your child doesn't have to necessarily go to a four year degree college for the sake of getting a degree.

Joanna Lilley (39:40.002)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (39:48.587)
Yeah? Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (39:55.458)
Yep.

James Moffitt (40:03.656)
You know, uh, but going to a trade school for, a year and a half or two years and coming out and making 40 or $50 an hour. What's wrong with that? You're like, there's, there's, there. Boeing is constantly looking for people to, to go to their trade schools and learn how to build aircraft and, and work on them. Uh, the world needs electricians. The world needs plumbers. The world needs HVAC people. There's all kinds of trades out there that, that, that us baby boomers are.

Joanna Lilley (40:11.297)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (40:25.706)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (40:34.032)
retiring out of that he's going to, he's going to replace us. Right. I just retired from it after 30 years. Right. And I, you know, I, I just, I retire, I was kind of forced into retirement because I've kept getting laid off and I've got 30 years of experience in seven industries, all kinds of certifications. And I kept hearing from, hiring managers and recruiters while you have an impressive background, we've decided to go with another candidate.

Joanna Lilley (40:35.073)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (41:03.629)
Mm.

James Moffitt (41:05.778)
So, so companies don't want to hire senior citizens and you, you, you become a senior citizen at 55 for all of you kids that are listening to this, you know, so anyway, I retired and said, I kind of gave corporate America the middle finger. Now, now I'll just do podcasting and photography and writing, and I work a part-time security job just to kind of keep my sanity. Give me something to do outside of the house, but,

Joanna Lilley (41:09.474)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (41:33.22)
Anyway, I just went down a huge rabbit hole. didn't mean to do that. Yeah. We're talking about it. Yeah. We're talking about education, right? So yeah, the contra, the controversial viewpoint from this baby boomer is, is that your child getting a four year degree for the sake of getting a four year degree is a huge waste of time in my mind. But anyway, that's my opinion for whatever it's worth.

Joanna Lilley (41:37.933)
I trackin' you.

Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (41:46.593)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (41:52.041)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Not controversial, James, because honestly, I feel the same way. My biggest question to parents is, if your kid's going to school right now and they're an undeclared major, then they need to be taking those classes, like, exploring. If that's really what it is, like, you need to figure out what it is you want to do, well, take those classes at the local community college, because that's going to cost you, like, a tenth of what it would be if they went off to college.

And then it also doesn't put the pressure on them. know, like I find most students that are undeclared or don't have a path end up really kind of having this existential crisis, whether it's the first semester or second semester, because academics are taken seriously. I don't know why I'm taking these classes. I'm taking these classes because that's what my advisor told me to take. And I'm trying to figure out what I want to do, but I don't really know what I want to do. Well, if you don't know what you want to do, you're not going to be interested in taking these random classes. So.

It's like a whole double edged sword, but I'm, I am a hundred percent with you. think the trades need to be focused on more. I absolutely support enlistment. I mean, I'm a, a, a offspring to generations of, you know, military men. And so I really appreciate, and respect that. In addition, my husband is also a vet. So just thinking about clients I work with, like people need to do those things and people find happiness in that. Again, it goes back to it. Like, why are you in college? If it's going to cause stress, don't.

Don't need to do that, there's so many other paths that you can pursue.

James Moffitt (43:23.592)
You know what kids want to do now? They, they want to be influencers and creators and artists. want to dance on tick tock and make millions. And that's the thing. Set sadly enough. Cause they, they look at tick tock and YouTube and look at all these videos and they look at these young performers, right? That are making millions. And that's kind of how they got their start. I think, or maybe, maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. I don't know, but.

Joanna Lilley (43:25.43)
What?

Joanna Lilley (43:32.769)
Yeah. Yeah, that one's hard. I know.

Joanna Lilley (43:46.529)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

James Moffitt (43:53.936)
It's like, okay, well that's, that's wonderful. You want to be a creator or an artist, but how are you going to pay your bills in the meantime? That's kind of the reality of that. All right. What steps should parents take when a child drops out of college?

Joanna Lilley (43:58.861)
Mm.

Joanna Lilley (44:03.063)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (44:07.799)
Yep.

Joanna Lilley (44:14.507)
Okay, first and foremost, just keep in mind that it's okay if they do that. I think going back to even our earlier conversation about like helping launch a young adult, it's important to have a plan. So if they end up, you know, like they're withdrawing from school, let's say hypothetically they were living on campus and now all of a sudden they're off and parents are like, my gosh, now you're back in our house. What do we do? You have to come up with a plan.

Not just like as a parent you create the plan and kind of put it on your child But I would actually kind of have a joint conversation. All right, so college didn't work out this time around. What do you want to do? While you're here here are our clear Expectations you do have to work a job. So you need to find something in the next three weeks It doesn't we don't care what it is that you're doing But you have to be working at least you know insert X amount of hours that parents want to do that

while you're here. I mean, like the list goes on. Do we want them to pay rent? Do we want them to be required to do some of these house tours? Do we want them to contribute to like the food in the house? I mean, there's just like, there's a lot of things that parents really need to consider, which is just because your kid didn't, like they weren't, they weren't quote unquote successful on a college campus doesn't mean that they just come home and hit the reset and do nothing.

Right? It's kind of like almost like you're coming home. You're kind of like licking your wounds. Okay. Yes. I do understand that sometimes there's, there is a fallout and there's a need to like kind of be curled up in the fetal position for a hot minute and feel sorry for yourself, but then you got to get over it. Then you have to actually show up and do something. And if the end goal for all of this, going back to it is as a parent, you don't have your young adult living with you indefinitely, then you have to write that in there quickly come up with a plan while they're living at your house.

What is, not just what are you doing, but what's the timeline? Is this, you here for just the semester? Are you here for a year? Or do we have like a longer kind of like deadline? Whatever the case may be, you just want to make sure that it's clear, it's understood, it's communicated, and everybody understands. Because the other thing too in all of this is I work with lot of parents that unfortunately have unspoken expectations for their kids, and then they get really, really resentful.

Joanna Lilley (46:37.087)
and frustrated, but yet the parent feels conflicted because here we are, like my kid's not doing the things that they're supposed to do even though they don't know because I haven't communicated it. And that also means that because they're not working a job, they're financially dependent. So the parent is stuck in this situation and feels really, really angry towards their child. We want to avoid that.

James Moffitt (47:01.202)
Well, I think our job as parents is to prepare our young people for the harsh realities of life, right? And we all fail at something at some point, right? And so the part of resilience is learning how to pick yourself up when life smacks you down on the ground and you're laying there going, what just happened? I just got hit by a truck or whatever.

Joanna Lilley (47:09.218)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (47:28.31)
Mm.

James Moffitt (47:29.208)
You have to learn how to assess your injuries, get up, go to the hospital, go to, know, we'll do whatever you need to do to get your injuries fixed. And, physically and emotionally, a lot of time, most of the time it's more of a psychological, emotional, spiritual sort of thing going on. And you're like, you know, part of, you know, as part of adulting, know, life is hard, it's difficult. There's a lot of challenges and a lot of unexpected traumas and unexpected.

Joanna Lilley (47:45.72)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (47:51.853)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (47:57.06)
issues that slap you in the face and you have to, and you, and you have to model that stuff to your kids too. I mean, if you lose your job and you wind up going on a six week bender and just being an alcoholic and being drunk all the time, because you don't know how to, you don't know how to, don't know how to, to manage your emotions and manage the situation. You know, it's like you said, you know, it's, it's okay to need some space and time to regroup.

Joanna Lilley (48:17.11)
Mm.

James Moffitt (48:26.79)
Right. But we're not talking weeks and months on end. We're talking hours and days on end. Right. And so after, four or five days of being in a fetal position, you know, mom and dad need to knock on the door and go, okay, it's time to suck it up, buttercup, and let's do this. You know, and it's, and it's difficult. It's difficult for the child. It's difficult for the parent, but if you want your child to be successful and learn some resilience, you know, and.

Joanna Lilley (48:29.111)
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Moffitt (48:54.962)
toughen up a little bit, you're going to have to lead the way, right? Be like my dad and walk in with a thing of cold water and dump it on the child and say, okay, it's time to get up and make your bed. You've been sleeping long enough. I remember how my dad, I remember to this day, how I knew my dad was awake at five 30 in the morning because I could hear that Zippo lighter click open and he would light his first cigarette of the day at five 30 in the morning.

Joanna Lilley (49:21.493)
my gosh.

James Moffitt (49:23.378)
And then he would go into the bathroom and he'd shave and do whatever he was doing. And he would come out and I knew before he came out of that bathroom and left, went into the hallway, which my room was right across from their room. My light had to be on in my bedroom and I might still be laying in the bed, but the light was on and that was his signal to know that I was awake. Right. And there were plenty of several times I failed to do that. He came into my bedroom and he grabbed the mattress and flipped it.

Joanna Lilley (49:37.101)
Mm.

James Moffitt (49:52.264)
upside down with me in it. And I wound up on the floor. Well, he was sending a signal to me saying, told you to get out of bed and get ready for your day. And, and the lights not on. You're not out of your bed. We, you know, drill instructor. Yeah. And so I learned very quickly, uh, he meant business. And when he told me to do something, if I didn't want to be on his radar, uh, I had to do what he said. Right. That's kind of an extreme example. You know, I don't.

Joanna Lilley (49:54.547)
my gosh.

Joanna Lilley (50:16.843)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (50:21.052)
I don't advocate that parents do that, but, I don't also don't advocate that they take the extreme opposite, you know, of not doing anything. Right. There's.

Joanna Lilley (50:23.468)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (50:29.953)
Yeah. Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is power. There is, there is still a power differential for parents. Like you, are able to be influential and control your environment. It is your house. Your kids are a guest, especially if they left and they're coming back. Remember that.

James Moffitt (50:47.878)
Right. Good stuff. All right. Last question. There'll be a, there's going to be an exam at the end of this. I hope you're ready. No, I'm kidding. It'll be, it won't be fill in the blank. We'll do multiple choice. How do you guide parents and setting effective boundaries? Boundaries is a huge, huge topic on our podcast.

Joanna Lilley (50:50.369)
Yeah.

Joanna Lilley (50:55.501)
You

Joanna Lilley (50:59.949)
Okay.

Joanna Lilley (51:05.791)
I know. Yep. I think the, to, to keep it short and sweet, it's important for a parent to also understand too, that when I talk about boundaries, me specifically, it's not a, like something that's applied on your kid, but rather it's a line in the sand that a parent's drawing for themselves. I am like my financial boundary. I am not going to continue to pay for all of these things that you want because it's straining me financially. So as a parent taking back that power,

which is the boundary of no, I'm only gonna pay for X, Y, Same with mental, same with physical, same with environmental, like spiritual, you name it. There are a lot of ways in which a parent, again, just draw the line in the sand for yourself. Where do you feel like you're comfortable going to and then saying anything beyond this is a no. And that said, I think it's easy for a parent to just take an inventory for themselves.

Like what do they feel like they need? Where do they feel like their adult child is pulling them in directions that make them as a parent start to feel stretched or powerless in certain situations? So part of that boundary in general, again, for me is like, how do you take your power back as a parent for what is in your control?

James Moffitt (52:26.568)
Good stuff. So a listener takeaway here is listeners will gain practical strategies and insights to better support the transitioning young adult children addressing key challenges in mental health and independence. Joanna, I've enjoyed our conversation. I think we had a good time. We had a good conversation and discussion and you brought a lot to the table and I appreciate that. And it provided me with a little bit of entertainment as I was able to.

Joanna Lilley (52:55.437)
You

James Moffitt (52:56.626)
Think of funny things to say. But thanks for being on the show and to listening audience, I'll say thank you for the privilege of your time. I release new episodes every Friday morning at 8 a.m. So everybody have a blessed day and hug your kids and kids, hug your parents. Bye bye.