Are you helping your adult child move forward—or are you starting to carry responsibilities that belong to them?

This educational self-assessment helps parents explore the difference between supporting an adult child and repeatedly stepping in to solve problems, prevent consequences, provide financial help, or take over responsibilities. You’ll look at how helping, rescuing, parental guilt, repeated crises, and difficulty watching an adult child struggle can affect independence and responsibility.

Based on concepts explored in They’re Home… Now What? — Parenting After College, this guide takes a balanced look at helping vs. enabling adult children. Support is not automatically unhealthy, and an adult child needing help does not automatically mean they are dependent. The goal is to understand whether your support is helping your adult child become more capable over time or whether the same responsibilities continue returning to you.

Includes education, real-life examples, a self-assessment with score interpretation, practical exercises, and reflection questions to help you better understand how you support your adult child and where helping, responsibility, and independence may need to shift.