A Case of  Failure to Launch?

The day I watched the movie Failure to Launch with my adult kids, (now married with their own families). I had tears of laughter streaming down my eyes. 

My eldest son just looked at me and gave me a big grin. He was the first to leave home and study abroad. Five years later we moved to join him. Read my blog…  When Parents leave the nest.

 I was so desperate to leave home when I was a teenager. I came from a large family and we were split up to stay with grandparents. Salaries were low and there was no money to send us to further education.  My Dad worked very hard to clothe and feed us.

 My eldest sister went to work. As soon as I finished school, I  took a boatbuilder apprenticeship for three years. We contributed to the household utilities and food. I opened up a savings account.  

I remember coming home and told my parents that I had quit my apprenticeship. I already applied to work on a cargo boat. I was obsessed with seeing different countries.

My mother was horrified but my father understood how I felt.  I filled in the application form at the shipping company and within three months,  I was notified there was a vacant position for a ship’s steward.

I had to attend a catering school I learnt about catering, how to serve food etc.  My wages was paid into my account and  I made sure that my mum had some money for herself.

My Dad had just died leaving my two sisters and myself to support my mother and other siblings. My eldest sister bought a house and my mother came to live with her. All my remaining sisters and brothers set up their own homes. I had by then emigrated and got married.

The excuses now for children refusing to leave home are economic, unemployment and being overqualified. I do agree that the job prospects are a bit gloomy at the moment,  but!  many qualified teen adults apply for work abroad.

It has now become a universal trend for adult children refusing to leave the nest. This is causing a lot of stress to their aged parents.

In Japan apparently,  according to one newspaper, the Japanese cabinet survey released some startling figures. They found that there are currently 541,000 young Japanese aged between 15 and 39 who lead similarly reclusive lives. The term is called Hikikomori read more..

Here’s another article You may find of interest: Elderly Italian couple take legal action to force son, 41, to move out of home .. read more

You entitled to a Life after Children

So where do we draw the line? I think we have to put boundaries in place before adult children come back to the nest. I know what I would do?

Give them a time frame to sort themselves out and then change the door locks. Harsh yes! but how are they ever going to take responsibility for their own lives if we continue to shield them from the outside realities of life? Are we not entitled to our own lives or what’s left of them?

3 Myths To Help You Address Your Adult Child’s “Failure to Launch”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those were the days 

Oh! do I remember it well with my kids ?. –  My daughter had quiet tantrums and would jump up and down for about five minutes.

Her legs would never bend and her brothers would wind her up till she was red in the face. She would let out a deafening roar. The more we laughed the more she jumped and roared.

‘I couldn’t fix his cracker’: Fed-up parents share the RIDICULOUS reasons for their toddlers’ tantrums

These funny photos show how difficult life as a toddler can be

• Parents snapped photos of their children crying and written the reason
• They include broken crackers, dropped receipts and saying good morning   Read more: 

The best way to deal with tantrums

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How to Deal with Tantrums | Supernanny USA

Did you know that kids as young as five are phoning a charity helpline to hear a bedtime story because their parents were too drunk to read them one or tuck them in bed?

Parents ‘need to drink less’ in front of their kids NHS 

A study into the impact of parental drinking habits was in the papers today, with the Independent reporting that parents “should drink alcohol less in front of the children” and the Daily Mail claiming that women drinkers “pass on bad habits to their teenage children”.

The study was published by the think-tank Demos. Demos states that its work is driven by “the goal of a society populated by free, capable, secure and powerful citizens”.

The study, entitled ‘Feeling the Effects’, was carried out to assess whether there were alcohol-related harms occurring, to quote the report, ‘behind the headlines’.

City-centre fights and A&E admissions, fuelled by alcohol misuse, make for high-profile media stories. But there are other effects of alcohol misuse, which happen ‘behind closed doors’, that have an influence on family life.

The researchers make the case that there is a connection between three factors:

• parental drinking
• parenting style
• how likely it is that children grow up to misuse alcohol on a regular basis – i.e. binge drink

They found that the more a parent drank, the less likely they were to employ what is known as a ‘tough love’ parenting style. This approach combines a high level of emotional warmth with a high level of behavioural discipline. The report found that children not brought up with the tough love parenting style were more likely to begin drinking hazardously themselves.

The authors argue that helping parents address their drinking habits would be a better way to protect children against hazardous drinking than ‘one size fits all’ approaches such as minimum pricing for alcohol.

Who produced the report?

The report, called Feeling the Effects, has been produced by Demos, an independent think-tank that undertakes research on key social and political issues. The organisation says it challenges the traditional, ‘ivory tower’ model of policymaking by ‘giving a voice to people and communities’.

The authors of the report are Jonathan Birdwell, Emma Vandore and Bryanna Hahn.

What evidence does the report look at?

The report is based on evidence from two separate pieces of research. The first of these is the Birth Cohort Study (BCS), a cohort study of more than 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week during 1970.

Over the course of the cohort members’ lives, the BCS has collected information on many factors including alcohol consumption and family life. The current study used information collected from follow-up in 1980 (when the cohort members were aged 10), in 1986 (when they were aged 16) and in 2004/05 (when they were aged 34).

For this study, researchers looked at parental alcohol consumption, based on children’s perception of how often or how much their parents drank. The responses ranged from ‘never’, ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ to ‘always’.

They also categorized four parenting styles based on a range of questions asked of both parents and children about levels of behavioural discipline and emotional affection. These were:

• disengaged – low discipline, low affection
• laissez-faire – low discipline, high affection (laissez-faire is a French term the literal translation of which is “leave it be”)
• authoritarian – high discipline, low affection
• ‘tough love’ – high discipline, high affectionThe researchers then looked at whether parenting styles had any association with children’s drinking levels at 16 and 34 years of age.The second piece of research involved in-depth interviews with 50 families across the UK where at least one parent was accessing alcohol support services for being a ‘harmful’ or problematic drinker. Most of the parents were single mothers, many of whom had started drinking at a very young age.

What are the main findings of the report?

Demos says that its previous research has shown that ‘tough love’ parenting – combining high levels of affection with consistent discipline – is the most effective parenting style for protecting children from drinking hazardously as teenagers and adults. In this latest research, they wanted to explore how parental alcohol consumption affected parenting style and also how parental alcohol consumption affected the risk of children drinking hazardously as teenagers and adults.

They found that:

• Parents whose children described them as drinking ‘always’ were significantly less likely to be ‘tough love’ parents. Mothers who drank ‘always’ were 2.6 times less likely and fathers who drank ‘always’ two times less likely to be ‘tough love’ parents compared with those who drank ‘sometimes’.
• The report found that mothers who drank ‘always’ were more likely to have children who drank at hazardous levels in adulthood. The report found that 16-year-olds who perceived their mother to drink ‘always’ were 1.7 times more likely to drink hazardously themselves at the age of 34 than those who reported their mothers drank ‘sometimes’. The father’s drinking behaviour did not have any association with children’s later drinking levels

The researchers also explored the effectiveness of support to help families struggling with alcohol to address their issues, be better parents and prevent alcohol problems from occurring across the parent and child generations. They found that:

• Very few people self-refer to support services, which only become involved after incidents involving police, social services or schools.
• Many parents find it difficult to access appropriate support when they are struggling and “the system only kicks in when things are desperate”. Some found there was a long waiting list to get help and other problems included transport costs to meetings, lack of childcare and lack of follow-up care.
• Family-based interventions can make parents aware of the impact drinking is having on their children and is enough to make some parents try to change their behaviour.

What recommendations and conclusions does the report make?

The report says that helping parents address their alcohol misuse and become ‘better parents’ is critical to breaking the cycle of alcohol abuse. Their recommendations are aimed at a wide range of different agencies including national and local government and health professionals. The report recommends:

• Information campaigns targeted at parents to increase their awareness of the effect of drinking on parenting and to encourage ‘tough love’ parenting to protect their children from drinking at hazardous levels.
• Identification and brief advice (IBA) interventions, for example in hospitals and GP surgeries, to get parents to think about their alcohol consumption levels and to modify their behaviour.
• Early identification of and support for parents who may have a drinking problem, while their children are still young.
• High-quality family-based support for parents who are ‘harmful’ drinkers.
• Alcohol support initiatives to include ‘parent-child engagement sessions’ to give children a voice.
• Alcohol support programs to focus on parenting and advice on parenting techniques.
• Individually tailored support for families with alcohol problems to help tackle issues such as mental health and unemployment.
• Co-ordination with those working on the government’s ‘troubled families’ agenda.

How accurate was the media’s coverage of the report?

The media reports appear to be primarily based on information in a press release issued by Demos.

Coverage was fair, although there was little coverage of the report’s recommendations on services to support parents with drinking problems.

The reporting seemed to be more interested in the problems highlighted by the study than the solutions proposed.

Are you drinking too much?

It can be very easy to fall into a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption without realising it. Use the drinking self-assessment tool to find out if you’re drinking too much.

The tool will help you to assess the effects of your drinking and, if you are drinking too much, suggest ways of cutting down.

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch you can download the drinks tracker from the iTunes app store for free.

The app allows you to calculate units in your drinks, track your drinking over months and get personalised feedback.

There is also a desktop tracker available for both Windows and Mac.

Contact Alcoholic Anonymous for more information

 

“Women treated for very early signs of breast cancer live LONGER than those who never get the disease”.  Read more:

 

Breast cancer (female) – Symptoms NHS

The first symptom of breast cancer most women notice is a lump or an area of thickened tissue in their breast.

Most breast lumps (90%) aren’t cancerous, but it’s always best to have them checked by your doctor.

You should see your GP if you notice any of the following:

• a new lump or area of thickened tissue in either breast that was not there before
• a change in the size or shape of one or both breasts
• bloodstained discharge from either of your nipples
• a lump or swelling in either of your armpits
• dimpling on the skin of your breasts
• a rash on or around your nipple
• a change in the appearance of your nipple, such as becoming sunken into your breast

Breast pain isn’t usually a symptom of breast cancer.

Want to know more?

• Breast Cancer Care: changes to look and feel for
• Breast Cancer Now: signs and symptoms of breast cancer
• Cancer Research UK: breast cancer symptoms
• Macmillan Cancer Support: signs and symptoms of breast cancer

Breast awareness

It’s important to be breast aware so you can pick up any changes as soon as possible.

Get to know what is normal for you – for instance, your breasts may look or feel different at different times of your life. This will make it much easier to spot potential problem.

 

The single biggest health threat Women face