by Alyx Grayson

Created on: March 23, 2009   Last Updated: August 02, 2009

Parents of boomerang children become intimately familiar with the clich: if you love something, set it free; if it comes back, it's yours. Twenty and thirty somethings who once longed to flee the nest are returning in droves. The AARP Bulletin illustrates that over 11% of adults over the age of fifty live with their parents or with their grandchildren. 11% of adults in their mid-thirties to mid-forties live with their parents or with their in-laws. Those numbers match up. The bigger, scarier number is the 34% of adults in their mid-20s to mid-30s who indicate that they will soon have to move back in with parents because of a reduction or loss of income.

The Good, The Bad and The Boomerang

Going home again is hard for any adult child because it returns them to the self-perceived status of childhood' and no one voluntarily resumes their childhood' with the requisite lack of freedoms' and choices' if they can help it. Fortunately, the AARP Bulletin offers a lot of suggestions for boomerang children and their parents for coping with that situation, but the biggest tip is the one that everyone in the family needs to adjust to:

Boomerang kids are not returning to resume a parent-child relationship. Boomerang children need and should act like adults to their adult parents and develop a person to person rapport. This means not only respecting parents, their home and their lives as individuals, but not falling back into old roles particularly those that involve bickering with other siblings who live at home. Boomerang kids moving back in can help out aging boomers who are as affected by the tough financial times as their children.

Sharing a Problem; Halves a Problem

Adults who co-habitate in the same dwelling can help each other out by sharing responsibilities, problems and expenses particularly in financially tough times when parents struggling to make ends meet may find paying high daycare costs hinder working more than helping. Grandparents who look after grandchildren, for a fee earn extra money and help their children save money. Kids are also with their families.

Moving back in together, particularly as adults living with adults, affords an opportunity for children to learn from their parents and to see their parents through the eyes of equals instead of through the distorted lens of childhood.

"Healthy young adults don't like their need to return home, but it is a reality for many families because of the economy. This trend is quite different from

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