Boomerang Kids: How to Live With Adult Children Who Return Home [Hardcover]

Jean Davies Okimoto (Author), Phyllis Jackson Stegall (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When previously independent adult children return home to live with their parents, as an estimated 22 million do currently, there are inevitable problems of co-existence. Techniques and strategies to avoid predictable pitfalls in the former parent-child roles are presented in this guide by two psychotherapists who specialize in family relationships. They write of the experiences of such adults across the United States for whom "the phenomenon of delayed independence represents a true change in American family life." In the case histories presented there is a wide range of reasons why adult chidren return home: divorce, drugs, and emotional and financial problems are among them. The authors suggest practical ways of sharing territory and enjoying the benefits of a new mutuality, but the emphasis is on ways to help young adults achieve success in making it on their own.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The authors, psychotherapists in private practice, assert that there has been a phenomenal surge in delayed independence among the nation's adult children, with marriage and the military no longer effective rites of passage to self-identity and the stimulation of accomplishing developmental tasks tempered by the rewards for regressive behavior. Their book is meant to bridge the recent generation gap between Sixties young adults, willingly forced into early independence, and their children who now face rapid economic displacement, the demands of a designer life-style, and today's drug, alcohol, and emotional problems. A timely, easily accessible parenting guide to preserving goodwill. William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 181 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (October 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316638102
• ISBN-13: 978-0316638104
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,599,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jean Davies Okimoto's latest book, The Love Ceiling, was a winner of a 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award. She is also the recipient of the American Library Association "Best Books for Young Adults" Award, the International Reading Association's Reader's Choice Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adults' Choice Award, the Parents' Choice Award, the Washington Governor's Award, the 1993 Maxwell Medallion for Best Children's Book of the Year, and two of her books have been recognized as Smithsonian Notable Books. In 2007 she received the Green Earth Book Award from the Newton Marasco Foundation and in 2008 the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature honor book, a national award given by the Santa Monica Public Library.

Her publishers include Atlantic Monthly Press, Putnam, Little, Brown & Co., Dell, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and the Simul Press in Japan which has published Japanese editions of her novels My Mother Is Not Married To My Father and It's Just Too Much. Her short stories have also appeared in four Delacourte anthologies, Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults. Shelley Duvall produced an animated version of Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat for the series "Bedtime Stories" which was narrated by John Candy and appeared on HBO and Showtime. In connection with her non-fiction title, Boomerang Kids: How to Live with Adult Children who Return Home, she has appeared on the Today Show, the CBS Morning Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and CNN.

Her one-act play, Hum it Again, Jeremy has been produced in schools in Vancouver, Toronto and New York. The Northwest Asian American Theater in Seattle produced the world premiere of Uncle Hideki based on her novel Talent Night and in 2006 produced Uncle Hideki and the Empty Nest. Book-it Repertory Theatre produced The Eclipse of Moonbeam Dawson based on her novel by the same name.

Her other titles include Norman Schnurman, Average Person, a mystery, Who Did It, Jenny Lake?, Jason's Women, Molly By Any Other Name, and Take A Chance, Gramps! which was a Junior Library Guild selection, named to the Lone Star State Reading List, and nominated for the Mark Twain Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.

A Place For Grace, published by Sasquatch Books, was the first picture book for a general audience to feature a hearing dog and a deaf character and was praised by Smithsonian as "One of this year's most charming and large-hearted offerings." No Dear, Not Here a picture book about the marbled murrelets, endangered seabirds and their quest for a nest in the Pacific Northwest, is also a Sasquatch title and was designated a 1995 Smithsonian Notable Book for Children.

A member of PEN American Center, the Author's Guild and the Dramatists Guild, she has a master's degree in psychology from Antioch University and is the founder of the Seattle Reading Awards, which recognizes the fifth grade students in the Seattle Public Schools who have shown the most improvement in reading. The program focuses on Chapter One, Bilingual and Special Education students and she has served as its co-chair since the awards began under the sponsorship of the Seattle Reading Association in 1986.

She and her husband Joe live on Vashon Island, Washington. Together they have four grown children, six grandchildren and a dog who thinks it's a person.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book for ideas and strategies to deal w returning grown children, December 2, 2010

By 

A newbee with GPS (cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boomerang Kids (Mass Market Paperback)

The hardest part of being a parent is to LET GO of your children. WHen a grown child comes back for a rather extended stay, from a misfortune or simply from being lazy or unmotivated, though we know that they should be staying temporarily but the FEAR, the OBLIGATION and the GUILT will force us into letting them stay quasi permanently. Consequently, the dilemna paralyzes us. This book brings some clarity and some actions to what we can do to make the situation a better one.

In the words of Khalid Gebran, a lebanese poet:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, July 29, 2009

By 

Frustrated Mom "Marty" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boomerang Kids (Mass Market Paperback)

I could really relate to this book. It really hit home concerning my daughter. I was reading things that sounded just my situation. Things I had known I needed to do, but just couldn't bring my self to do them. But I'm trying every day and sometimes i go back to the book and read certain chapters. I definitely recommend this book for parents who have a child either living at home and doesn't want to leave or follow the rules, or if your child lives out but wants you to help support them.