Dear Mr. Dad: How do you handle a 21-year-old male who’ dropped out of college, has no job, and has been living in our house for the past six months? My husband and I provide our son with a car, insurance, gas, clothes, and cover all his healthcare. But whenever we ask him to do anything around the house, he flat out refuses or does it poorly. And whenever we bring up the issue of his finding work and moving out, he gets angry and accuses us of not supporting him. What can we do?

A: My first reaction is to suggest that the next time your son leaves the house you call a locksmith and have all your locks changed. However, that would only work (to the extent that it would at all) if your son was responsible for the entire problem. He’s not. In fact, I’d say that you and your husband are making an already difficult situation even worse.

But let’s take a step back for a moment. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not alone in having an adult child move back in with you. Some studies have found that as many as a third of all young adults under 35 are living with ma and pa. The situation is so common that there’s actually a term for these adult children: “boomerang kids.” The bad news is that these arrangements are often extremely stressful on everyone involved, but especially on parents who had planned to downsize during their retirement years.

Okay, back to you. By providing your son with free room and board, transportation, and insurance, you’re undercutting any incentive he might have had to learn how to grow up and survive on his own. I’d actually go a step further and say that you’re encouraging your son to be a slacker—and the only way the situation is going to improve is if you change your behavior. Here’s what you’ll have to do:

1. You and your husband need to get on the same page. Having one of you push for independence while the other slips your son wads of cash under the table will guarantee the status quo. What do you want to have happen, and over what period of time?
2. Once you’ve come up with a plan, call a family meeting. Ask your son how he sees the current situation. Does he plan to finish college? Look for work? How long does he expect to be living with you? It’s possible that he’s feeling guilty and maybe even ashamed.
3. Start charging. The value he places on his living arrangements is directly proportional to how much he has to pay. In other words, the less he pays—for rent, car, insurance, food, clothes—the more he’ll take them for granted. If he has income, put a dollar value on household chores and have him work off his debts.
4. Get out your calendar. Your goal is to get your son ready to live in the real world. But it’s not going to happen overnight. So come up with a timetable that includes reasonable targets (enroll in college for the next semester, find a job within 12 weeks, move to your own place within six months, etc).
5. Create rules and enforce them. Can he bring dates home to spend the night? Do you expect him to call if he’ll be spending the night elsewhere?

As the economy continues to stagnate, this is a bigger and bigger issue. We’ll go into more details in future columns.

Dear Mr. Dad: Now that our troops are coming home from Iraq, my husband is thinking about getting out of the Air Force. We’ve heard a lot about all the benefits that are supposedly available to veterans and their families, but how do we find out about them?

A: When I got out of the Marine Corps I started looking into this, but the process was so cumbersome and overwhelming that I gave up. Big mistake. By not thoroughly investigating, I missed out on a lot of benefits. Fortunately, things are much, much better today.

I recently interviewed representatives from a number of agencies within the Veteran’s Administration, which should be your first stop—specifically their eBenefits program (ebenefits.va.gov). This is where vets (and soon-to-be vets) can register for health benefits and investigate many others. If you start registering now, the system will tell you what programs you may be eligible for and the documentation you’ll need to access them. Here are just a few examples:

Your husband may receive hiring preferences for certain government and civil service jobs. He may also have an advantage when bidding on government contracts. If he has a service-connected disability, check out vetsuccess.gov, which provides counseling, education, vocational training, and a number of other services. “Disability’ now includes Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which don’t leave visible scars but can be just as damaging.

Today’s GI Bill (gibill.va.gov) is fantastic, paying full tuition for in-state schools and up to $17,500/year for private. If the vet can’t or doesn’t want to use them, these benefits can be transferred to another family member.

If you’re looking to buy a house or refinance your current loan, the VA guarantee allows for higher LTV (loan-to-value) ratios, meaning you may be able to get qualified with a smaller down payment. Funding fees can be a little steep, though, but there are other advantages.

National Cemetery Administration. We all know we need to talk about this at some point—we just don’t want to do it today. As uncomfortable as it might make you, visit cem.va.gov, read up on the benefits and eligibility, and then store the information away in the back of your mind. Hopefully you won’t need it for a long, long time. But knowing where to turn is better than not knowing.

Check into non-government organizations such as the VFW and American Legion. They can help vets negotiate the VA system and provide support in a variety of other ways. In addition, most states provide some kind of benefits for veterans. Check to see whether yours has a Department of Veterans Affairs or something similar.

There is a dizzying array of other organizations offering services to veterans and families—way more than I can go into here. The Military Family Network (emilitary.org) has a ton of resources and a comprehensive directory of providers that’s well worth exploring.

Your husband currently has life insurance through the military (Servicemembers Group Life Insurance—SGLI), which he can convert to a veteran’s policy (VGLI) but it has to be done soon after discharge.

One more idea: Look into the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. This wonderful program lets veterans tell their stories (orally, in writing, or in pictures), which then become a permanent part of the Library’s collection. If your husband has stories—and everyone does—have him visit loc.gov/vets.

Finally, I recorded in-depth interviews with a number of VSOs. You’ll be able to hear them on the military version of my radio show, “Positive Parenting.” Check militaryfather.com – Coming Up – for the schedule.

Dear Mr. Dad: A few months ago you answered a question from a reader whose teenager was refusing to do chores. My situation is similar, except that it’s my husband who won’t lift a finger. We both work full time, but when I come home, I usually start making dinner and getting the kids going on their homework. When my husband comes home, he plops himself down in the living room and reads the newspaper or watches TV. Fortunately, the kids set the table and clean up after meals, because my husband disappears right after dinner and goes off to check his email while I put in a load of laundry. I’m worried that my children—one boy, one girl—are going to get the wrong idea about gender roles and what a marriage is supposed to be like. How can I curb my DH’s laziness?

A: My initial thought is that a cattle prod would be an excellent investment. But that wouldn’t clear up your children’s confusion about marriage and division of labor issues.

You didn’t say anything about whether you and your husband have talked about this, but either way, that’s a critical second step. Your first step is to put together a comprehensive list of everything you, your husband, and your kids are doing for the family and how long each task takes. If he has a longer commute, puts in more hours, and spends the weekends fixing things around the house and paying bills, you might discover that he’s not quite as big a slacker as he seems to be.

Once you have your list in hand, it’s discussion time. Even assuming that the two of you put in exactly the same amount of time (including all chores), there’s still a problem: He apparently decided on his own that whatever he’s doing is enough and that you should do everything else. That may be fair in his mind—and if you count up the hours he may technically be right—but it’s obviously not working for you. The two of you need to discuss a better way to divvy up the workload. Suggest that you switch chores for a few weeks—you write the checks and take care of the leaky toilets and he does the shopping, meal prep, and laundry. This kind of role reversal tends to make people a lot more appreciative of what others are doing.

If, however, you’re doing a lot more than your husband is, you’ll need to have a different kind of discussion. Start by telling him that you’re just not able to do everything by yourself and that you really need his help. (show him the list, but stay far away from words like “lazy” and “slothful.”) If you’re lucky, he’ll say, “I had no idea, honey. I’m ashamed and I’ll change my ways right now.” Don’t hold your breath.

Unfortunately appealing to people’s sense of fairness doesn’t always produce the desired results—or it may produce them for a while until things start backsliding. If you find yourself in this spot, you’ll want to be a bit more aggressive. One thing you can do is start preparing meals that your husband really doesn’t like. If he complains, hand him a cookbook and print out a Google map of the nearest grocery store. But the most effective approach of all is a good old-fashioned strike. A few days of having to do his own laundry and eating nothing but canned tuna, and he’ll be a new man—or at least a skinnier, dirtier one.

Dear Mr. Dad: My kids, 9 and 11, spend a fair amount of time with electronic games but my husband and I insist that they spend an equal amount of time reading. They both play outdoor sports (one does soccer, the other baseball), but no matter what we do, we just can’t get them to hang around outside and have fun by themselves. Got any suggestions?

A: What you’re describing sounds like a case of Nature Deficit Disorder—a phrase coined by Richard Louv in his book, “Last Child in the Woods.” Louv says that there are significant psychological, physical, and cognitive costs to not spending adequate time in nature.

Although Louv’s phrase sounds a little alarmist—after all, the last thing parents need to worry about is yet another disorder—there’s a growing body of research that supports the idea. For example, Americans are about 25 percent less likely to visit National and State Parks than we were just 25 years ago. Our children spend less time playing outside—and a lot more playing inside—than we did at their age. They’re what one researcher calls “the backseat generation,” much less likely than we were to walk or bike to school because they’re getting driven everywhere.

When kids finally do get to play outside, they don’t get nearly the same amount of freedom to explore as we did, and playtime (including organized sports) is so highly structured and there are so many rules that all the fun of running around and exploring is sucked out.

The situation is aggravated by elementary schools—and there are plenty—that have reduced or eliminated recesses. And just a few years ago, a number of environmental groups were outraged when the publisher of the “Oxford Junior Dictionary” got rid of a number of nature-related words, such as beaver, dandelion, heron, acorn, clover, otter, and blackberry. New words have been added, though, including broadband, blog, MP3 player, voicemail, and Blackberry (with a capital B).

The good news is that play in nature—particularly unstructured play—benefits children in a variety of ways, including improving problem solving skills, increasing focus and creativity, bolstering self-discipline, reducing stress and aggressive behavior, and even increasing IQ.

So how do you get your kids outside? There are a ton of options.

• Do some research. The Children & Nature Network has compiled a huge (and growing) list of organizations, campaigns, and programs. The list (at childrenandnature.org/movement/info) will help you connect with resources in your community. Other groups, such as the Sierra Club (sierraclub.org/youth) and National Wildlife Federation (nwf.org/Kids) have programs aimed at children.
• Do some reading. There are lots of places to get suggestions for outdoor activities to do with your kids. Two recent books that I really like are “Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors,” by David Sobel and “It’s a Jungle out There! 52 Nature Adventures for City Kids,” by Jennifer Ward.
• Set a good example. Looking up from your computer to tell your kids to get out and play isn’t going to work. So put some air in your bike tires, dust off your skateboard, buy some bug repellant, get your sleeping bags and tent cleaned, put new batteries in your flashlights, and start making plans. Ease into it. Start with a five-mile bike ride or a two-hour hike before you jump into overnighters. The object is to get everyone interested in and excited by spending time outside. You may get some pushback from the kids early on, but once they get their hands dirty, they’ll love it.

Dear Mr. Dad: My husband and I have only been married for about eight months. He’s 45 and I’m 36. Before we got married, we talked about starting a family—and we’re both aware of the small window of opportunity to get pregnant. But since the marriage he constantly tells me we aren’t ready, that we need more money, I see how great he is with my niece and nephews—he enjoys playing with them and they just love him to death—and I know he’ll be a wonderful father. What can I do to bring him along?

A: Your situation reminds me of a discussion I had with my parents when I was an expectant father for the first time. I was in a bit of a panic about money and worried about how my wife and I could possibly afford to have a baby. When I mentioned this to my parents, they told me that just about everyone has worries about whether they’re “ready.” The reality, though, is that just about no one actually is—and if you wait until all the pieces are in place, you might end up not ever having kids at all. Then, as if to reinforce their no-one-is-ever-ready argument, they told me that when I was born they were both starving students at the University of Illinois—so broke that they couldn’t even afford a crib, so I had to spend my first few months in a sock drawer.(I’m sure that explains all sorts of things about how I turned out, but that’s a topic for another day.)

That said, I have a feeling that what’s troubling your husband has less to do with money and more to do with his fears about repeating his parents’ mistakes with his own kids.The good news on that front is that the whole acorn-doesn’t-fall-fall-from-the-tree thing is garbage; what his parents did is almost completely irrelevant. It’ll take some work on his part and plenty of support from you, but he really can be the father he wants to be.

A lot of men worry about whether they’ll be able to actually care for a child. Given that most guys have a lot less baby-handling experience than their partners, that’s a reasonable concern. But it’s one that can be easily resolved by simply closing his eyes and jumping in. Babies are remarkably resilient little creatures and there’s no substitute for on the job training. In addition, your husband’s behavior with your niece and nephews pretty well proves that he’s got good instincts. Kids have an uncanny ability to identify adults who like being with children and they wouldn’t “love him to death” if he didn’t.

There’s a good chance that your husband is concerned about how his age will factor into his parenting. Another reasonable theme. While there’s no question that his back and knees aren’t as well suited to wrestling with kids as they were 20 years ago, there are plenty of other ways to be involved. Many of the “older” dads in my research told me that while they had less of a physical relationship with their kids, they felt that they had an especially strong emotional bond. In part that was because they were able to spend a lot of time reading, talking, teaching, mentoring, volunteering in their children’s classrooms, and getting to know their children’s friends.

As far as what you can do? Be patient. As a lot of questions, point out all the great parenting traits he has, and make sure your sock drawer is ready.

Dear Mr. Dad: My wife is pregnant. She already has two children from two different dads, but this will be my first child. She seems to have feelings of regret about the whole thing even though we planned this pregnancy for a long time. How can I reassure her that we're going to be fine and that she is the most important thing in my life right now?

A: In the first year after the birth of a baby, 90 percent of couples have a huge drop off in the quantity and quality of their communication. Half the time it’s permanent. That sad little statistic goes a long way toward explaining why the divorce rate among couples with small children is among the highest of all. Given that your wife has had two children with different fathers, it’s clear to her that having a baby isn’t enough to keep two people together. In fact, in her mind, having a baby may actually be the first step toward the end of a relationship.

Telling your wife that she’s the most important thing in your life is a good first step, but you can’t just say it once or twice and let it go. With the baggage it sounds like your wife may be dragging around, she’s going to need to hear those words on a regular basis. You also need to banish the phrase “right now”—as in “she is the most important thing in my life right now” from your vocabulary. Someone who’s as worried as your wife is will be asking herself, “Sure, I’m important to him now, but what about later?”

If you’ve ever taken a writing workshop you know about the importance of showing over telling. So get ready to start proving that you’re in it for the long haul. How? Well, it seems kind of trite, but some of the most basic approaches are the most successful. For example, calling her a few times a day just to tell her you love her, sending her flirty texts (or, if you’re feeling adventurous, sexts), leaving love notes in her purse or some other place where she’ll find them, bringing home flowers, and planning some getaways. You don’t actually have to go very far or for very long. If you Google “babymoon,” you’ll find a ton of resorts and hotels that have romantic, massage-filled, packages ranging from a long afternoon to a full weekend or longer, and from pretty reasonably priced to insanely expensive.

Okay, that takes care of showing your wife that you love her. But there’s still the issue of demonstrating that having a baby isn’t going to kill your marriage. This is another case of show it don’t tell it. And there are all sorts of ways to make your point. Start by doing some reading. My book, “The Expectant Father,” is a good place to start. If you’ve got friends or relatives with little kids, visit them often and try to get in some baby-holding time. The object is to show your wife that you’re interested in learning everything you can about what it takes be an involved dad. Next, get out your calendar and have her tell you when all her prenatal OB visits are. Then, try to make it to as many of them as you can. Just showing up will be a credibility booster. Bringing along a few questions for the doctor will boost your stock even more. Oh, and while you have your calendar out, schedule a childbirth prep class.