Hefty student debt and limited pay in a first job force many young adults with freshly minted college degrees to return home after graduation.

Don’t let your “boomerang kid” thump your sanity - or disrupt your retirement planning.

Set financial and behavioral guidelines for your student’s return and make it clear the situation is temporary. This establishes a framework for you and your student and will put you both at ease.

“Negotiate the terms of living at home before your student returns,” says Susan Morris Shaffer, co-author of Mom, Can I Move Back In With You? A Survival Guide For Parents of Twentysomethings. “Your student is coming home as an emerging adult so the rules that applied as teens won’t work. Negotiate responsibilities rather than telling your student what to do. But parents have a certain comfort level and it’s important to make this clear before their student moves back in with you.”

Parents need to understand that the student feels awkward about returning home and may see himself as a klutz -- even pathetic -- because he can’t live independently. If you have funny stories about your early efforts to launch a career, now’s the time to use them.

“It’s important to talk to your kids about your failures as well as your successes because the situation is then normalized,” says Morris Shaffer.

She says as many as 60% of students return home at some point after graduation, but the situation won’t work for either you or your student unless you make it a partnership: you offer temporary housing while your student uses the old homestead as a base to launch a career.

Encourage responsibility and steps toward independence. Make it clear that your student isn’t getting a free ride and must contribute to the household. The broad outlines of the post-degree parent-student partnership might look like this:
 

• Your student pays rent, even if it’s a nominal sum.
  
  
• Your student contributes to the household by handling routine chores such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the pool, vacuuming, doing the laundry and taking out the trash
  
  
• If your student has a car, he pays the bills. If the student uses the family car, he fills the tank at least once a week.
  
  
• Your student and his friends don’t take over your living room with pizza, beer and movies on weekends, weeknights - ever.
  
  
• Your student understands he’s living in your house and if you object to overnight guests, there will be no overnight guests.
  
  
• Your student understands this is a temporary arrangement and has a target date for moving out.
  
  
• You offer encouragement, emotional support and, if necessary, job hunting tips.
  
  
• You never criticize your student for returning home - don’t say something like “You’d be on your own if you had listened to me and majored in business rather than English.”
  
  
• If unemployed, explain to your student that he takes a good job even if it’s in a place he never considered because living independently in a second- or third-tier city beats the spare bedroom.
  
  
• You enjoy your student’s company, but leave plenty of time for him to be alone or with friends. Suggest lunch or a ballgame, but don’t demand outings.
  
  
• Introduce your student to the glories of a brown bag lunch and other money-saving techniques. Even if your student works through a temp agency while looking for a permanent, full-time job, some money should be set aside.
  

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