When Does Helping an Adult Child Become Enabling?

Anna Lembke says help becomes enabling when parents keep an adult child comfortable in a life that never launches. Scott Galloway had asked where patience and support turn into enablement for young men living at home. Her view is to get comfortable with the parent's own anxiety and let that adult child have a life, choices, and consequences. That does not have to mean kicking the child out of the house.

She wants a behavioral contract. Sleeping all day, staying up all night, staying online, contributing nothing, earning nothing, and skipping school is not acceptable. The parent names the old pattern and says it has to change. The reset can be a device-free month away, or it can start at home by shutting off the Wi-Fi, taking the devices, and expecting a job or school plus a list of chores. Then the young adult meets the results of those choices. Without their own failures, they never become capable people. A severely depressed child is a different case, and she points that parent toward professional help. In her account, a lot of time online can itself deepen the depression, and getting off can ease it.