Welcome to the, "What Could Go Right?" podcast. My
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name is Erik Orton. I'm Emily Orton. And today we're going to talk about
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your kids moving out and moving in. Especially how to be an awesome roommate and how to have
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like a smooth roommate situation. So on this podcast we talk about personal development,
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family connection, and raising adult kids. And so today we're going to dive into this topic that is
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especially for parents of adult kids because we we have adult kids. I'd love for you to share, Emily,
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a little bit about helping Karina move this past month. And also as we head into the new school
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year, kids are moving out for college. They're getting into new roommate situations. New, even if
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they're not in school or done with school. They're getting in with new roommates. We have rented out
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our apartment in New York a lot. And we live in a duplex and we have tenants next door. And a lot of
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them are young ladies who are young professionals or students. And so this has been on our minds a
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lot as we've been helping everyone get settled into this next chapter. At least, you know, kind
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of, for the coming year. So, Emily, do you mind just giving a quick recap about your your trip
1:11 Recap of Latest Cross Country Move
with Karina and kind of the process of getting her settled? Yeah. I just had the best time with
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our oldest. She got a promotion and she's moving – like a cross-country move– and so I drove with her
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20 hours to Minneapolis where she's very happily set up now. But the first step was
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for getting her moved in ,it's like, 'Who are these other people that I'm going to be living
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with?' She has never met any of them really in person. She doesn't know anybody there.
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It's a new situation. And so she's just trying to kind of like feel it out. Like,
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'How is this gonna roll?' But she's been a roommate many many times. Our kids had
1:56 Sibling Advantage
the good fortune of all five of them sharing a bedroom. So they learned how to be respectful of
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each other's space and have a high tolerance for different people's way of doing things. And so
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they're they're pretty lucky that way. But when we got him out to college they were like, 'Wow.
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Some of these kids don't actually clean up after themselves. Or they'll leave their dishes in the
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sink forever. Or, you know, they just realized we're gonna have to have some communication for
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us to all be happy in this space.' So that's where Karina is starting, right. She's still
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in the getting to know everyone and figuring out what the communication is going to be. And
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how they're gonna, you know, share the shared spaces and roll like that.
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I think one thing that is important to note is that she has set this all up on her own. Neither
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me nor you have been in touch at all with the landlord, with the contract, anything. She's she
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found the place. She's worked it all out. She's made the deposit, everything she's done. She's
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done that 100 of the time. Whether she was living in a college dorm or off-campus housing or another
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living situation, she's always done it all herself. She'll call us and say, 'Why do I
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have to leave a deposit? Or is this normal?' Like, she'll kind of check back with us on
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what she has questions about. Or, 'Hey, I want to ask the landlord to fix something.
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How does this message sound?' And we're there. So yeah, I guess one thing, one thing that I that I
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think we were talking about that is important to mention here is that we deal with a lot of people
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renting from us. And it's always informative, at least to me, when I end up talking mostly
3:44 Who Communicates with the Landlord?
with the parents. That tells me a lot about the relationship and the person that's going to be
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living in our apartment or, you know, house. Because if the parent is doing everything then
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that adult child is not doing anything. And I think one of the things that we've discussed is
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that this is an opportunity to let our adult children have an experience where they learn
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this new skill of moving into a new space and making an agreement for a contract. Things
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like that. And so but um, should we dive into a little bit about how we can help our adult kids
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navigate this space on their own with us more in the background rather than the foreground? Yeah.
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I think it's important to state from the outset – as the parent, you're going to know your kid
4:29 Incognito Parenting
best. But you also need to know yourself best. Are you someone who tries to like cushion the landing,
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make everything a little easier for them or do it for them? or are you the person who's like
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I believe in my kid can do this? You know, and so there's going to be a sliding scale.
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And there will be different situations for different kids at different seasons. And you
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have to navigate that yourself. But we like to lean away from doing it for you and more
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towards the "shadow leadership" or "incognito parenting." Or, like, 'I'll be your, you know,
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your coach in the background. If you want to ask for help, I'll give you some ideas and then set
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you loose because I trust you can, you can manage it. And then come back to me and I'll praise you
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for the effort that you made. And then we'll see what the outcomes were. And we can deal with that
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together if it didn't go the way you hoped. You know, I'll give you some more counsel. Or maybe
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we'll ask somebody else who has more ideas.' And so, in general, as the parent of an adult child,
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when we do things for them they feel that we don't trust them. That doesn't mean you can
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never do something. Like, 'Hey, I wanted to take you out for dinner. Or I bought you some groceries
5:43 Empower not Enable
because I just wanted to.' But if you're saying like, 'May I please sit in on my child's job
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interview?' Which a friend of mine recently had a job applicant. Their mother called and was like,
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"Can I sit in with my child on the job interview?' And they're like, 'We no longer want to interview
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this person because we need to work with someone who we can work with.' Who is a grown-up. Yeah. So
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that that sort of thing. Yeah. So, okay, so, yeah, I think, for example, if you say, 'Hey, I'm gonna
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go do all your grocery shopping for you and I'm going to put in a an Instacart order for you every
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month so you don't have to grocery shop', that's doing it for the child. Versus letting them.
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And there may be a legitimate need for that like we might do that for Lily. Or you know,
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anyway.. But you know and I know other parents that do that just because their children are so
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busy that they're not eating well. And so they do that but that's an example of how how to balance
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things that a child– an adult child– can do for themselves versus how much we can do from afar or,
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you know, in person. So I guess let's talk about how we've done this a little bit where
6:50 Housing Trouble in Paradise
our kids have been out in the forefront and we've been in the background. So our daughter, Alison,
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was transferring schools. And the new school that she wanted to attend was having a housing shortage
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in the area. And so she was trying to think about all the ways she might possibly find a connection
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that would help lead to housing for her in this area. But behind the scenes we were also thinking
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of other alternatives. Like, what if you buy an inexpensive van that you can live in? And you
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know people have done that. And especially at this school people have done that. Some people
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have actually just camped because there was no housing. That was one of the Facebook groups
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that was popping up. Like, 'Hey, why don't all 100 of us who can't find housing just camp together,
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you know, while we go to school?' Yeah, good weather in Hawaii. Anyway. So I know Erik and
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Alison, they went and looked together at a RV that she might potentially live in. Not an RV
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but like it was a camper van. Yeah. A camper van that she might potentially live in. Was it
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our first choice? No. Was it her first choice. No. But she had a good attitude about it and
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she thought it might be cool. And there were other pros that she was thinking about. And,
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at the end of the day, one lead she had followed up on that said, 'We don't have any space,' they
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connected again and they did have space. And she ended up living in a great apartment. But in that
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apartment there were so many roommates I think there were like 10 roomates. 10 roommates. And
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they weren't all really connected. And so sometimes she would say, 'Oh, some of my roommates
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are doing things that are contrary to our contract or that make me feel unsafe.' And we would kind of
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chat with her through, 'What do you want to say to the person who's doing this behavior?' Or, 'What
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kind of message do you want to send to the group?' Or, 'How do you want to communicate with them?' We
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would just coach her on like helping her write the text to make sure the tone sounded right. Or just
9:07 Help Think Through Options
what approach she might be interested in taking. Help think through options. But
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every action that was taken, she took. Whether it was speaking directly to a roommate, gathering all
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of the roommates for a meeting, or connecting with the landlord if that were necessary. So
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she did everything but we were always in the background. Like, asking for updates and, 'How did
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that go?' And, 'How is it now?' And we want her to be in a good situation but we didn't want to
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take over her role as, you know, the independent woman that she is in her own life. So I think
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that's key there where you're saying, like, she would take all the action. But she could always
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vet conversations, dialogue a draft of a text past us, and we would give her feedback. But
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she would always be the one. It's sending from her. Her roommates never got a text from me as
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her dad or you as her mom. Or her landlord's never heard from us. It was always her taking
10:02 Let Them Be in Front
the action and we were sort of her backup. Which I think is key to let her be in the
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forefront of the decisions in the in, the voicing of anything. I think also. Let's..
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I think this would be a good point /place to just talk about things that we've been asked
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to do with our with the young women living in places where we, you know, renting from us.
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Because I think. Yeah. Sometimes, from the position of the landlord, we have been asked
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by our tenants to do certain things or say, like, 'This is an issue. Can you take care of this? Can
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you take care of that?' And you know we say like, 'You can change your own light bulbs but we will
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help with, you know, an ant problem or something like that.' But in some situations there's just a
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person who will take the lead and say, 'Let's gather up and share expenses for cleaning
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supplies. Or let's make this nice for each other by creating a chore chart.' But we sometimes get
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a group who doesn't have that skill set or that forethought. And and so then we either–
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Nobody says anything to us. And they quietly suffer and struggle in silence. Yeah. They
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live in a disorganized chaotic way that doesn't breed goodwill, you know, for each other. And
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doesn't make them enjoy living in that space. Or we recently had a parent reach out and say,
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'Hey, can you make sure that all the roommates do x y, and z? You know, and we were pretty
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committed to letting them sort it out on their own. But we said, 'We will
11:47 Talk About Basic Things Early On
recommend that they have a meeting. And that they talk about some of these basic things. But we're
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not going to have them report their plan to us. They need to be accountable to each other.' So
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let me just give the rundown of that because, yeah, a parent did reach out. And that's fine.
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But we said, 'We're not going to come up with a chore list for them. We're not going to create,
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you know, their plan for how they're going to share expenses on cleaning items and things like
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that.' So here's what we did is we we created a text that we sent to all of the tenants that
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are living in this space. And we said we want you to have a meeting. You schedule
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a time that works for you. You have a meeting. Here are the things that we want you to discuss.
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Once you have agreement on all these points... We don't necessarily even want to hear your plan. We
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just want to know that each of you feels good about the plan. Keep the details to yourself
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because we don't want to be the enforcers. And so we asked them to talk about sharing chores:
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dishes, cleaning the bathrooms,you know, on and on. Shared spaces. Whatever they
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want to take care of in terms of chores, shared expenses for cleaning items, how to share spaces
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in the fridge, in the kitchen cabinets, in the bathroom shelves, you know. In the hallways. In
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the hallways. Things like that. They're shared spaces in the living room or how do we want to
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handle having guests over for a while? Etiquette for having overnight guests. Or who are having,
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you know, 'I'm going to have a gathering.' Sr something like that. Yeah, 'I want to have my
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friends over.' Exactly. So we, again, we asked them to have this meeting. And they're supposed
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to have it by this week and they'll let us know. Again, we don't necessarily want to know their
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plan. We want them to take ownership of it. But if there is not some tenant or roommate that's
13:27 Empower by Encouraging
taking the lead, you can empower your kids by encouraging them to have these conversations.
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And be that person that takes the lead if nobody does because it will make for a better smoother,
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happier life for your kids. And when your kids are happy and succeeding outside the home, guess
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what happens for your life as a parent? It's just easier. It's better, smoother, more fun. You don't
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get complaints about... complaining calls about roommates and things like that. Your kids are
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just happy and thriving as adults which is what we want. One less thing to worry about. All right.
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I think that's everything we had to say. Any.. anything else anyway that you had in mind for
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this topic? Well, another issue that has come up is roommates who maybe– if you're in a shared room
14:08 Roommates with Differences
–who aren't very tidy. They do something different than how you would prefer to be done.
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Yeah. Exactly. Whether it's where they keep their things, or how they handle their garbage,
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or how they play their music, or whatever else it might be. Yeah, making sure your kids know that
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if that comes up you're there as a resource for them of how they might be able to handle that. How
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they might be able to initiate a conversation even if they're an introvert, or even if they're shy,
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even if they've never handled the situation like this before. You can help them prepare
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to communicate. And, honestly, I remember when I was living with a bunch of roommates and we didn't
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have any issue with how we shared the space or how we did cleaning supplies. All of that was working
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pretty well but one thing that I had to learn how to do (which isn't an issue anymore) is I
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had never in my life ordered a pizza. And I was .. You're very good at that now. I have an app for it
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now. But I was so nervous to have a conversation that I'd never had before. I didn't know if
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they're gonna want my credit card number over the phone. I didn't know how it was going to work. I
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hadn't seen it done. I'd never been part of the mechanics of it and I was nervous about it. And
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so when I finally did it I kind of like wrote out a little script for myself that I could practice.
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And then when I got on the phone I felt a little more comfortable. And I know no kids have issues
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ordering pizza anymore because you don't even have to talk to anybody on the phone to do that but
15:40 Role Play the Scenario
it's an example of you can say like, 'Okay, I need to talk to my roommate about
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whatever the action, behavior, or situation is that I'm not comfortable with, or that I'd like
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to make an improvement on.' And, 'All right. Well, let's go through it. Let's just role
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play it over the phone right now. How do you feel about that? Do you feel like you're ready to talk
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to them? Okay. I believe in you. Let me know how it goes.' Something like that. So for me
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the biggest takeaway from what we've talked about is to let our adult kids take the lead in these
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situations. Let them be the voice, the Action Taker. And our job as parents is to help them,
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vet ideas, you know, try on language. You know, have conversations to practice. But
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ultimately... You know, we can even, like, review a text that they want to send. But ultimately,
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let them hit send. Let them make the call. Let them actually have the interaction. And that says,
16:31 I Believe in You
'Hey, I believe in you. You've got what this takes. You're going to be great.' And they get
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to lean into a new skill set knowing that we're there to back them up. And as they do it, they
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gain more confidence in themselves. And maybe next time they won't need to check in with you. They'll
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just go ahead and take care of it. Awesome. So thanks for listening to this episode of,
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What Could Go Right? We hope that if you enjoy what we're sharing or these topics that they're
16:55
even just helpful to you, comment, review, share. We're not planning to run ads on this podcast so
17:02
the only way people are going to find out about it is to just, you know, discover it through word
17:07
of mouth. So please put the word out if you think this might help somebody in your life. And if you
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want to have a conversation about anything that we're bringing up, feel free to jump
17:15
into our Instagram it's theawesomefactory.nyc on Instagram or Facebook. And you can leave
17:22
comments there and we're happy to continue the conversation. And as coaches, one of the
17:28
things that we love to do is talk with people who are trying to figure out what's possible
17:32
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17:38
30 to 40 minutes. You hop on and we're happy to help you discover what's possible in your
17:43
life. Just go to theawesomefacotry/disovery And we'd love to chat with you in person,
17:53
hear what you're interested in doing, what's the "What if?" in your life, and help you
17:58
answer that question. So, anyway, look forward to chatting with you there. Thanks so much.
Summary of This Episode:
Your kids are ready to move out but are they roommate ready? This is an opportunity for adult kids to learn new communication skills. Whether your kids need a little support or a lot, this episode can help. We share insights gleaned from launching three kids and providing housing for dozens of young adults fresh to the flat-mate dynamic. And outline the successful sharing conversation all roommates should have but few do. Guess what happens to your life when your kids are happy and succeeding outside the home? It's just easier, better, and more fun.
