Letting your Adult Child Come Home after Treatment
For the young adults I work with, I read about this request all the time. It is a bargaining chip with their parents. They ask in their letters or during a phone call to “just come home” in between residential and extended care. Each client in their reasoning is different. Some will say they miss the family pet and just want to give them a hug. Some will say that they want to go through their clothes by themselves to pack. Some will say that they earned it by completing residential, to relax a little before heading off to doing more treatment. As much as this pulls on the heartstrings of all the parents I work with, when they turn to me and ask if it’s a good idea my answer is consistently the same, no matter the client: “absolutely not.” This is me encouraging the parent to hold a boundary.
You may be wondering why I stand so firmly in that decision. To me, it’s simple. To the parents, it’s not-so-simple. If your adult child was living at home and resistant to treatment at any point in the process, you are allowing them potentially to derail the entire process. Allowing them to return home, albeit briefly, is enabling. They might refuse to go to extended care once they get home. They may relapse within the first day, because they stumbled upon their hidden stash in their bedroom. Or worse, there was a lot of family conflict before they went off to treatment, and there’s still a lot of family work that needs to get done. If you allow them to come home to just hang out, you are inviting a serious blow-up. A blow-up that’s so big that you, as a parent, really question whether or not they made any progress in treatment in the first place, and if you just threw away thousands of dollars.
Regardless of their request and no matter how much you want to believe that your adult child will behave perfectly when they come home for an intentional layover, it will not go well. Not for you, and not for anyone else trying to do this. If your adult child is leaving treatment and it is clinically recommended that they go to extended care, you need to support them in going straight from residential to extended care. Whatever their reasoning for wanting to come home, you eliminate that need. What if they want all their clothes? Send it all in the mail. What if they want to see your family dog? Tell them you can FaceTime when they arrive to their program.
Parents do not set yourself up! Your adult child has no clout to beg, bargain, or negotiate. That are in treatment for a reason. Remember that. You are not beholden to them, nor do you owe them anything for completing their residential level of care. If anything, it would behoove your adult child to be grateful for the sacrifices you are making in allowing them to get help. A part of that sacrifice will be to lovingly tell them, “I hear you, and I’m not going to support that request. You are going straight from residential to extended care.”
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
