It might be a bit of a trauma, and that’s on her parents, but it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a 19 year old to take responsibility for themselves, regardless of how they were raised. I truly believe the idea that the damage can’t be undone or that she needs some kind of special skills training is more harmful than helpful. People are all kinds of resourceful and resilient. Nothing will motivate you to succeed faster than the real possibility of homelessness. In this society, survival is a pretty basic concept. Work = food and place to live. She can figure out the rest as she goes.
You get a lot more success dealing with the way things actually are, rather than the way they should be. My suggestion for this family would be to make staying in the family home, rent-free, to be contingent on her staying in school. An unemployed or employed adult child at home should be paying rent and having expectations placed on them (you’ll have a curfew; you’ll do x amount of chores; your rent will be $XXX per month, etc.) so that they get the idea that no one gets a free ride in life. Let her do this at home first, so she can learn with the training wheels on.
Honestly, I don’t understand why parents continue to cripple their children this way, by not raising them to become independent. Do they think that they are going to just support and do everything for that child forever? I vividly remember talking to my mom when I had been on my own for a decade or so; we got on the subject of how she had not been really soft on us as kids, and she said I was hard on you kids because life is hard, and you needed to be prepared for it. Now, THAT’S a mother’s love!
ETA: You have to place conditions on them staying at home so they get the idea that the freedom of being on their own is better. 
I saw it when I started university 20 years ago. It’s nothing new. Kids are often immature and selfish. In other breaking news, sources in the Vatican report the Pope is Catholic. The OP is repeating a very old story indeed.
If the parents enable the behaviour the behaviour will continue; if they do not, it will not continue on their dime, and either the kid will grow up or she’ll find someone else to use. No matter what, the OP can’t really do much about it.
I see what you’re saying, but I’ve been teaching college since 1990 and it has definitely gotten much worse–the laziness, the inability to deal with any kind of adversity, the wanting everything right now without having to work for it.
You’re just getting older. 
I don’t think that’s it - America is seeing a possible narcissism epidemic (narcissism includes traits like being unable to deal with adversity, blaming everyone else when anything goes wrong, and entitlement).
Uh, just seconding (or thirding?) the “corporal punishment is so, so wrong” thing. My father would twist my younger brother’s ear, and it only served to sew hatred between them.
Nancy almost definitely does not have biopolar disorder or ADD. She doesn’t appear to be exhibiting any signs of either. My younger brother was misdiagnosed repeatedly until a kind and brutally honest psychiatrist who had undergone his own share of “the real world” (had a child while on LSD at 16…) told my parents very seriously that Eric* suffered from entitlement syndrome. Not bipolar disorder, not ADHD, just plain spoiled child antics.
vivalostwages, my youngest brother exhibited the same symptoms your niece seems to have. Eric* smoked, drank, took drugs he’s still admitting to taking, almost failed his classes, and never came home at a reasonable hour for over a year from the time he was 15-16. What was most disturbing is that nothing was ever his fault. It was astounding - things just HAPPENED, but he had no part in it turning out poorly. This of course had been building since he was young - very cute, and VERY smart, he could talk his way out of many situations. Of course, my parents - especially my father - always made excuses for him since he was younger. Frankly, because he’s so smart he never was kicked out of school or sent to juvie, when he should have been - he would start fights, but never took the first swing so that he could claim self defense! He never fought on school grounds (so he couldn’t be punished by the administration), and he kept his black belt in karate a secret (sent many a kid to the hospital). He dealt several thousand dollars worth of pot, meanwhile not smoking (many) of his profits. He had no morals, only doing what immediately benefitted him.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Eric broke a window to party in my parents’ lifetime achievement - a lakehouse they plan to retire to. It was only then that he was, for the first time in his whole life, expected to stand on his own two feet. Three ex-Navy Seals turned psychologists picked him up in the middle of the night for six weeks at a bootcamp run by mental health professionals. He punched through a young tree while there, angry at his world and furious it had come to a screeching halt.
But today he is living proof that you can change - your attitude, your mind, and even your body. It’s the hardest thing a relative can do, see someone you love broken down. I have a relationship with him now, something I didn’t have for years. And he talks to me - about school, about girls, about where he’s going in life. And he’ll get there. It’s just a matter of time.
It brings me to tears, thinking about how far he’s come. I’m so ashamed at my hatred for his actions when he was younger, but in awe of who he is today. He’s a big brother to our youngest sibling, a proud athlete and a fantastic son. He just finished his first semester of college with better grades than I had my first semester.
And he’ll never forget what he was before. It’s been two years since he’s returned - and he still wakes up every morning at 3:30. It’s the time he was woken up and driven twelve hours by the ex-Seals. Sometimes when he’s lonely or can’t fall sleep, he’ll sleep on the floor of his room on a thin foam pad, covered in a thin blanket, both pieces from bootcamp. He recently posted this vide on on my facebook wall, saying “Found this video of what I was like before camp haha”.
This is bullshit. If you’re like the OP (and you’re insinuating you are), then you were a slacker and spoiled and a narcissist and you’re…in therapy for still being one. Clearly you haven’t had a breakthrough “it’s not them, it’s me” yet if you’re blaming others for your problems and lack of progress in the world.
*Eric is not his real name
To the OP, she needs to be cut off entirely. Gently going about it will be no help. That said, try to be sure she a) has healthcare and is on birthcontrol or b) if she’s not, take her to PP and get her on it. So long as she doesn’t get pregnant, she can change her life.
I KNOW!!! Except for having to live at home (can’t afford rent on my own since I’m on disabilty) I am VERY independent. I think a lot of it has to do with helicopter parenting.
Helicopter parenting teaches a kid that THEY are the center of the universe and they’re entitled to everything.
My former boss at University of Michigan is one of the people who researched this phenomena, and one of the current hypotheses being evaluated is the impact of electronic media (particularly the internet) on increased narcissism. There is already plenty of evidence that violence in the media increases aggressive behavior in children, but new findings suggest there is also a strong correlation between narcissism and aggressive behavior. Bullies, for example, are more likely to be narcissists.
When the news broke, the Michigan Daily (school paper) put out an op-ed piece entitled, ‘‘It’s Not Narcissism If You’re Really The Best.’’ 
Well, she fell off of her parents’ health insurance plan by dumping her college classes and can’t afford it on her own. They’ll have to pay for any medical care she needs. About the birth control…Touchy subject, given that her very religious parents are probably convinced that it wouldn’t be an issue. I am concerned about it, though.
friedo: You are probably right. Seeing the world through my 44-year-old eyes has given me some different perspectives, I suppose.
It’s possible, although I suspect she won’t be interested in being screened for it since she’s managed to set up a sweet deal for herself where she does exactly what she wants and her parents fit the bill. I’ve worked with college students in the past who didn’t realize they had ADD until they reached college because they were able to function well in a high school environment. However, even if she was formally diagnosed with some mental issue, it shouldn’t excuse her from trying to be as independent as she could be, or her parents from enabling her.
I just called my brother’s cell phone number and Nancy answered, saying it’s her phone now. Great. This, after they supposedly took hers away after she rang up an $800.00 bill several months ago by yakking with some friend of hers (not the BF) in another state.
Sigh.
I think what we’re seeing here is a perfect example of “you get what you raise.”
Olives, the book I read on the narcissism epidemic also mentioned that bullies often have high self-esteem, in contradiction to the accepted wisdom about them. They also made the fascinating point that the only kind of self-esteem worth having is the kind that comes from actually accomplishing things, not the kind that comes from parents/teachers/everyone else in your life telling you you’re special from the day you were born.
To be sure. Having high-self esteem is also not correlated to life satisfaction. Just because someone feels good about him or herself doesn’t mean he or she will be happy. In fact, for narcissists, unhappiness is pretty common because they don’t get everything they expect out of others.
It’s arguable that self-esteem is really only relevant to psychological disorders where people are suffering from a very negative perception of themselves. However, it might be better to use a different word altogether when talking about psych disorders: self-efficacy, or one’s belief that they have the ability to take action to help themselves. To be sure, many kids suffering from Entitlement Disorder* have self-esteem off the charts but very little self-efficacy. Bandura’s research on self-efficacy indicates that it’s pretty much a requirement for life satisfaction.
*Yeah I totally made that up
To be sure. Having high-self esteem is also not correlated to life satisfaction. Just because someone feels good about him or herself doesn’t mean he or she will be happy. In fact, for narcissists, unhappiness is pretty common because they don’t get everything they expect out of others.
It’s arguable that self-esteem is really only relevant to psychological disorders where people are suffering from a very negative perception of themselves. However, it might be better to use a different word altogether when talking about psych disorders: self-efficacy, or one’s belief that they have the ability to take action to help themselves. I believe that many kids suffering from Entitlement Disorder* have self-esteem off the charts but very little self-efficacy. Bandura’s research on self-efficacy indicates that it’s pretty much a requirement for the successful treatment of a number of psychological maladies. It plays a far greater role in personal happiness, I would argue, then does self-esteem.
*Yeah I totally made that up
I was with the fam in question last night, and they are still handing this girl anything she demands. She wanted a new mattress, so they were going out to get it. She’s wearing Versace glasses. She wants and she gets, and evidently there is no end to this.
Sounds like they deserve her spoiled brattiness. She’ll likely hold them hostage until they die, demanding they bail her out of whatever shenanegans she gets herself into, as well as eventually supporting her and her children once the babydaddies leave her (only a matter of time before she gets knocked up.)
The sad part is, you can’t really blame her, it’s completely the parent’s fault. You might want to smack her silly, and I’m sure she deserves it, but the parents need to be smacked even harder. You reap what you sow, and all that.
Can they afford to do all this? That’s got to be a huge drag on top of ordinary stuff like paying bills and saving for retirement.
You can blame her. She’s 19, not 12. Are people not getting the irony of blaming the parents for the behavior of a 19-year-old in a thread about enabling? Kids get all kinds of shit slung at them, and some grow up and learn to parent themselves, and others wallow in dysfunction for the rest of their lives. While you can’t ignore the role the parents play in perpetuating that behavior, ultimately it is a choice made by the adult child.
I agree with this, to a certain extent. You have to admit, though, that if a child is raised to believe the world operates in a certain way, you can hardly blame the child when they end up believing that the world does, in fact, operate that way.
If this girl grew up getting everything handed to her and never having to work for a damn thing, she’s going to believe that’s the way life is: that everything will be handed to her and she won’t have to work for a damn thing. Parents that think they can hand their kids everything and then somehow have those kids magically turn out to be self sufficient adults as soon as they turn 18 are deluded.
It boils down to this: brattiness can be inherent, but entitlement is taught.