As young adults move from the comfort of their teenage years into the broader world of adulthood, learning independent living skills becomes essential. These skills, often called independent living skills, are the building blocks of a successful, self-sufficient life. They help young people manage daily responsibilities and face new challenges with confidence. In this month’s journal, we’ll dive into what these skills are, why they matter so much, and how you can help young adults develop them. Our goal at Valiance is to make sure they’re ready to thrive on their own.
What Are Independent Living Skills?
Independent living skills are a set of abilities that enable individuals to manage their daily lives effectively without excessive reliance on others. These skills include a wide range of competencies necessary for self-sufficiency, from managing finances and maintaining a home, to handling personal health and building relationships. For young adults, mastering these skills is crucial for navigating the complexities of adult life with confidence and competence. Independent living skills for young adults encompass both practical and emotional skills. They involve understanding how to perform everyday tasks, make informed decisions, and handle challenges independently. These skills are not just about survival, but are about thriving and leading a fulfilling life.
Examples of Independent Living Skills for Young Adults & Emerging Adults
Financial Management: Financial management is one of the most critical independent living skills. Young adults need to learn how to budget, manage expenses, and save money. Effective financial management ensures they can support themselves, avoid debt, and plan for future goals. The ability to manage money wisely is important for achieving financial stability and independence. We understand that financial management can be difficult and stressful, at Valiance, we will work together with your son or daughter to help them set meaningful, reasonable and actionable financial goals and support their ability to achieve them. We also help our clients make smarter financial decisions and provide them tools and strategies to make wise financial decisions.
Valiance Parenting Tip: In a highly competitive area with usually highly resourced families, it’s common for parents to forget just how much they are subsidizing their child's life. When things go off the rails and your child is struggling to function, there is a tendency to pendulum swing one’s parental approach from one extreme to another. For example, we typically see parents have an all or nothing attitude. Try and find a middle ground that incentivizes independent financial management by gradually outlining (ie: use a calendar and mark down dates) when your child will inherit new financial responsibilities versus suddenly making them responsible for all expenses.
2. Time Management: Time management is essential for balancing multiple responsibilities, from work or school to personal life. Skills in time management help young adults organize their schedules, prioritize tasks, and avoid procrastination. By managing their time effectively, they can reduce stress, enhance productivity, and ensure they meet deadlines and achieve their goals. With effective time management, you can also accomplish more in your day. At Valiance, we work together with our clients to create time management strategies that can easily and consistently be applied to their daily routine.
Valiance Parenting Tip: Get your child involved in the planning and scheduling of their activities. If you’re finding that your booking practices, appointments, meetings, tutoring etc, and you are working overtime to make sure your son or daughter get to where they need to go, it’s time to involve them in their own life’s activities! Try and find 30 mins a week where you can share the schedule with your child and make sure they have a calendar (phone or paper) to write down what you share with them so they can independently begin to manage their own schedule.
3. Health and Self-Care: Self-care and health management are important for maintaining overall well-being. This includes personal hygiene, eating clean nutritious foods, being active, and managing household chores. Understanding how to address health needs such as scheduling and attending yearly and necessary medical appointments is important to stay consistent with to ensure you are in good health. Effective self-care promotes physical health and mental well-being, which are essential to having a healthy, balanced, and independent life. At Valiance, we promote self-care by supporting our client’s well-being and prioritizing the time needed for self-care. We want our clients to feel confident in their own skin and comfortable with your well-being.
Valiance Parenting Tip: We believe that modeling the behavior we wish to see in others is a great way to teach what we believe in. Afterall, all of our providers are trained mental health providers, but also successful athletes, coaches, and high performers in their own right. If you want your son/daughter to change their self care routines, it’s important parents prioritize their own as well. If children see their parents making strides to take care of themselves, there’s a higher likelihood that your children will as well.
4. Communication Skills: Strong communication skills are necessary for interacting effectively with others. This includes understanding social cues, expressing oneself, and actively listening. Effective communication helps young adults build and maintain relationships, network, and interact with colleagues and authorities, and advocate for themselves. Effective communication skills also help you feel better understood by others and vice versa. Communication skills are also more effective when problem-solving and decision-making skills are well-developed. These skills are essential for navigating complexities. Young adults must learn how to analyze situations and make informed decisions. These skills help them handle unexpected challenges, resolve conflicts, and make choices that align with their values and goals. At Valiance, we work on communication and decision-making skills to enhance intelligent decision-making abilities and provide targeted communication training to help our clients feel more confident and successful with your communication.
Valiance Parenting Tip: Active listening means demonstrating your listening without saying or doing much. Try the following skills out next time your teen or young adult is discussing something with you. PS; this is particularly important if they are sharing something hard for you to hear:
Nod your head to agree, or demonstrate you’re listening and agreeing with what’s said or felt
Shake your head if you disagree, but use this move sparingly to keep them talking
Move your eyebrows up if you’re interested in the conversation or want to know more
Literally put your hands around your chin or mouth to signal that you won’t be speaking (it’s a good reminder to not speak too)
Non-word vocal expressions like “mhmm” or “ahha”
5. Emotional Intelligence: Processing and managing emotions and coping with stress are important aspects of emotional resilience. Young adults need to develop strategies for handling onset emotions and adapting to change. Emotional regulation supports overall well-being and helps individuals face challenges with a more mature and effective approach. Emotional intelligence will help you navigate better through emotional distress and life stressors. At Valiance, we can work together to build emotional intelligence by developing strategies for understanding your emotions and how to process and manage emotions. Additionally, we can teach how to become more empathetic and thus connect more easily in the relationships that matter most.
Valiance Parenting Tip: There’s a difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is like “walking a mile in another person's shoes” or “seeing a person who’s fallen into an empty well in the ground, and getting down there with them”. Sympathy is like saying you’ve run a mile too or looking down into the well and saying just how bad it looks to be stuck there. To get along with your child more easily, try to see their world from their perspective. That’s empathy, and empathy builds bridges to heal relationships.
6. Self-Advocacy: Self-advocacy is understanding one’s rights and needs and being able to communicate them effectively. This includes seeking help, making independent choices, and standing up for oneself. Self-advocacy guides you through navigating personal and professional environments confidently. Self-advocacy is important because it empowers individuals to take control of their own lives and make independent confident decisions that impact their well-being. By communicating one’s needs and desires, others can better understand and respect your decisions, which is important in both personal and professional settings. Self-advocacy also promotes self-respect and a strong trusting relationship within oneself. Valiance can enhance clients’ self-advocacy by working together with clients to understand how their needs are valid, demystifying and destigmatizing what “getting help” looks and feels like, and supporting their ability to have their voice be heard.
Valiance Parenting Tip: Self advocacy comes up a lot when we talk with parents about their desire for their son/daughter to use the accommodations they have in place for them to be successful in school. Rather than be prescriptive with what you want your child to do around self advocacy, recognize that the reason they probably aren’t self advocating is due to their desire to figure it out on their own. Use their intrinsic desire to your advantage and ask your child (versus tell your child) about what they might consider doing to get the help they may need.
Starting with the End in Mind | Goals for Young Adult Independence
One way a young adult should be independent is by taking responsibility for their living arrangements. This includes managing household responsibilities such as cleaning, cooking, and paying household bills and finances. Being able to live independently is a big transition in life. It involves taking on all living responsibilities such as keeping food in the house, paying utilities, purchasing utilities, keeping the home clean, cleaning dishes, doing laundry, and many other responsibilities that come with independent living that you may not have had to do living with a parent or caretaker. Independent living could also be shared with a significant other or roommate to share these responsibilities with which requires teamwork and effective communication skills.
Another way young adults should be independent is in their career development. Young adults need to find job opportunities, manage their professional responsibilities, and pursue career goals. Building a career not only provides financial stability but also fosters personal growth and fulfillment. Careers promote a sense of purpose in one’s life. When you have a sense of purpose in life you are motivated and promote growth. Lastly, developing and maintaining healthy relationships is a key component of independence. Young adults should nurture connections with friends and family. Social connections and a supportive network are essential for emotional well-being and overall success.
At Valiance, we focus on supporting both clients and families to understand how to work towards these end goals by changing how things are being done today. Oftentimes, parents know that this is what they should aim for, but can’t seem to get their child to be motivated for those same aims. Scared of the future, and afraid that their child is already too fragile, parents tend to bend their expectations while simultaneously becoming riddled with fear that their child doesn’t have what it takes to be an adult. Anxious and afraid, parents are stuck themselves, scared enough to warrant help from professionals, but too scared to push expectations onto their children. We hear that fear, know that fear, and are prepared to work with parents through it. Interestingly, oftentimes children embody a paralyzing fear based on their parents lack of belief in them. If children believe that their parents don’t believe they can do it, then they will resist taking risks and action until it is overtly or covertly signaled by their parents that it is safe to do so. Therefore, parents are encouraged to view expectations, accountability and boundary setting as an act of love towards their children, not as something that would send them over the edge and incur further backsliding. If you love your children, love them enough to hold them to a high standard, and communicate your love by believing in them that they can reach that standard, even when they are unsure, depressed, anxious, or lack all the skills they need.
Conclusion
As young adults transition into independence, embracing essential independent living skills such as financial management, time management, self-care, and communication becomes crucial for leading a fulfilling and self-sufficient life. These skills empower them to navigate daily responsibilities with confidence, manage their finances wisely, maintain their health, and build meaningful relationships. It's a journey filled with both challenges and growth, but with encouragement and the right support, young adults can thrive on their own. Valiance can be a valuable resource in this journey, providing guidance, building emotional resilience, and helping clients develop the skills needed to face life's challenges with a positive outlook. By working with us at Valiance, young adults gain tools and strategies that enhance their independence and support their path to a successful and balanced life.
Here’s to working together for a more fulfilling and balanced life! Onwards and upwards!
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