A parent describes a 19-year-old daughter's final year at home and the emotional challenge of letting go while maintaining connection. The parent emphasizes teaching practical adult skills through guided practice, such as making telephone appointments, writing r e9sum e9s, job applications and interviews, organising vacation time at work, handling banking, and preparing for overseas travel. Gen Z's discomfort with phone calls prompts repeated coaching and role-play. Small moments of encouragement, like prompting phrases to end a call, help build confidence. Many late-teen tasks go beyond driving and cooking and require active parental support and practice.
My daughter is 19 and I still feel like time went too fast. It's her last year at home before she moves away and starts her own adult life. Letting go of her while staying connected is my new challenge. I make her 'practice' being an adult. It's made me realise the importance of supporting our teens to "practice" adulthood. Even something as simple as ringing up the doctor to book an appointment can be a challenge for some young people. As adults, we take these things for granted. We know the process of booking an appointment and what the receptionist wants us to tell them, but our teens don't. And Gen Z seems particularly allergic to talking on the phone.
My daughter and I have had several conversations prepping her for making phone calls. Just the other day, I sat next to her, prompting her through a call. She wanted to find out information from a course provider she's looking at training with. She's become fairly confident on the phone now after a few years of practice, but at the end of the call, I could see she was struggling. She'd introduced herself, asked questions, and gotten all the information she needed, but couldn't seem to figure out how to politely end the call. There was a long, awkward pause. "Thank you, bye," I whispered beside her. "Thank you so much, bye," she repeated, looking relieved.
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