Failure to Launch

Dr. Mark McConville is a family clinical psychologist who has spent decades working with adolescents and their parents. Of all the problems he has seen, one of the hardest is the young adult who does not manage the move from adolescence into adulthood. These young people are technically adults, but they cannot hold a job, struggle to form meaningful relationships, and often end up back in a parent's spare bedroom or on the couch. The book is written for the parents of the roughly 2.2 million young adults in America in this position.

McConville points to studies showing that 1 in 4 Americans aged 25 to 34 neither work nor attend school, and says the problem crosses all socioeconomic and geographic lines. He looks at why so many more young people are failing to launch.

His answer is that they are struggling with three skills needed to cross from childhood to adulthood: finding a sense of purpose, taking on administrative responsibility, and developing interdependence. He breaks each of these into achievable goals and offers a practical plan for the whole family. Its aim is to help parents build these skills in their young adults and get them out into the world, ready to start their own lives.