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For eighteen plus years they've been your baby they're still your baby. How do you stop treating your grown child as if (s)he is still totally dependant on you? It's not easy and it will take practice. Just as you made mistakes and did things by trial and error while raising them, the same will be true for letting them go.

If your child plans to continue living in your home for a period of time after reaching an age of maturity (maybe they're in college or they can't yet afford to support themselves), it's within reasonable expectations that you will have rules for them the follow. Often the same rules that applied to them as teenagers will hold true.

For example, you may request to be notified by your child if (s)he plans to stay out for the evening. Or maybe you are easily woken up and prefer that no one come home after eleven o'clock on week nights. This doesn't have to be presented to your adult child as a "curfew", but rather as a measure of courtesy to the home-owners.

For those whose children have moved out on their own, the rules are more for the parents than the child:

*Resist the urge to call them everyday*
You've known where your child is every minute of every day for eighteen years. Naturally it's going to be difficult not wonder and worry about what they're doing. It's ok to pick up the phone and check on their well-being occasionally, but be mindful of their need to create their independence. Just because they don't call you everyday doesn't mean they've stopped loving you. They need to feel that their on their own and if they have to check in with mom and dad every day they can't feel that independence.

*Being supportive does not mean doing everything for them*
You've provided the best you could afford for your child while they were under your roof. Their bedroom was decorated nicely. They may have even had a game room where you provided comfortable seating for their friends. Now that they're living on their own you feel bad for them. It seems that the only decent furniture they have is the bedroom set you bought them when they were twelve years old. How could you possibly allow your child to sit on a sofa that was obviously someone's trash?

It's tempting, especially if you can afford it, to buy them nicer things, but don't. Let them provide for themselves. If they have a genuine need and you can help, then absolutely, help them. If it's to give them something better than what they can give to themselves, try to resist. They deserve to feel the sense

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