You're Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty -- B. Janet Hibbs, Hardcover

A clear-eyed, optimistic guide for parents with adult children who need help navigating the challenges to launching an independent life.

Times were already tough for young adults looking for ways to start living independent lives after high school and college: rents were up, wages were down, student loan debt was burdensome, then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. A generation of young people were forced out of their classrooms, jobs, and social lives, returning home to live with their parents. Now many of these young adults carry the scars of the internal pandemic, with increased anxiety and depression, poor coping, and the uncertainty of how to restart their lives. Parents want to help, but the old rules of advice-giving can clash with the need to respect their child's autonomy.

In You're Not Done Yet, two leading adolescent and young adult mental health experts provide a practical and compassionate path to parents combatting the worry and frustrating isolation many feel when supporting their twentysomethings. Hibbs and Rostain explain when and how developmental markers changed, and invite parents and young adults to learn new, more effective ways of communicating with each other. Part I of the book covers the "new normal," of young adulthood, with its educational and career changes. The new normal of parent-child relationship asks us to rethink our "shoulds," and in the process develop a closer relationship based on talking and listening to understand each other, rather than "being right." Part II addresses the common and challenging problems that arise when mental illness creates a drag on a young adult's progress, and shows how parents may be engaged in their child's treatment. Packed with helpful information and step-by-step guides to specific problems, this book will be an invaluable resource for parents and their twentysomething children.

Author: B. Janet Hibbs, Anthony Rostain
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 03/26/2024
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.04lbs
Size: 9.35h x 6.45w x 1.07d
ISBN: 9781250283238

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 02/01/2024 pg. 8
Publishers Weekly 02/05/2024
Library Journal 02/01/2024 pg. 86

About the Author

DR. HIBBS is dually licensed as a Psychologist and Family Therapist. Her previous books are Try to See It My Way: Being Fair in Love and Marriage, and The Stressed Years of Their Lives. She maintains a private clinical practice in Philadelphia.

ANTHONY L ROSTAIN, MD, MA is currently Chief and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Cooper University Health Care and Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, NJ. He is also Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.