Failure to Launch Counseling & Coaching
One of the biggest issues I see in my practice is parents asking for help with their failure-to-launch children. They come in all shapes and sizes, affect families from every background, and affect families in a deep and profound way. It’s not just the parents — the young adult children themselves are often frustrated too. Failure to launch is simply defined as a young adult who isn’t moving forward in life. They often haven’t gone to college, or have dropped out multiple times. They often have no clear career direction, and when parents ask about their plan, they’re often met with anger and a request to be left alone. Many parents feel like prisoners in their own homes, powerless to act since their child is legally an adult. With a large share of young college graduates struggling to find work after school, more and more are moving back home to figure out their next move. In other words, this problem isn’t going away anytime soon.
The reasons behind it are varied — entitlement, mental health issues, substance abuse, autism spectrum concerns, career indecision, or some combination of all of these. Whatever’s at the root of a failure-to-launch situation, I’m a clinician who is well equipped and experienced to help your child and your family do what’s necessary to get them moving forward. Don’t just take my word for it — check out my book Failure to Launch to read my views on the problem and how I teach counselors and parents to address it. I’ve also built those same principles into Stick the Launch, a self-paced course for parents anywhere in the country who want this framework without in-person therapy.
My failure-to-launch approach works with families in stages. First, we work to understand why the problem exists in the first place — because the root cause shapes the approach. If it’s more mental-health related, we address that first; if it’s career indecision, we start there. If the family system itself is enabling the pattern, we usually start with the family.
Once we know where to start, we don’t just talk about the problem — we build a clear, concrete plan to address it. Whether that’s career coaching, therapeutic skills, family counseling, or some mix, we develop the plan and walk through it step by step. You’ll always know what needs to happen next. If a plan isn’t working, we adapt it until it does.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here — every plan is unique to your family. Even if the adult child doesn’t want to participate, I can still work with the rest of the family to coach them on how to stop enabling, set boundaries, and become part of the solution rather than the problem. If this sounds familiar and you’re not sure what to do next, reach out and let’s take the first step.