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She is an adult. You are 19 years too late to become her parent.
Perhaps, family counseling may help. The counselor may help you set up reasonable expectations if she wants to continue living at home, such as doing chores and paying rent. Do not let you wife con you into continuing to baby her and spoil her. If your daughter does not follow the house rules, Yes, you can, and should, kick her out. In fact, IMHO, it is better to do that now than wait until she is 30 or 40 years old and you are still supporting her because she refuses to get a job.
You are still young enough to have more children. If you do have more children remember that you are the parent and they are the child. Set rules and boundaries from the very beginning.
Time to set some boundaries. At 19 she's not a 'kid', but it's not too late for her to learn some responsibility. Tell her if she can't pass classes at college, then she needs to get a job and start paying rent. Make it reasonable at first. Start at maybe $300 a month, and then after 6 months, increase it to $500, and then after another 6 months increase it again. Tell her if she enrolls back in college and gets B's or higher, then she doesn't have to help pay rent while she's in school.
She can either ship up, or ship out. You know what's not a terrible idea? The military. Perhaps it would be a good thing for her.
In the old days, the military would've been a great idea. I don't think she'd hack it it today's military, if she could even get in.
OP, I agree with family counseling and setting limits. This is a problem that can't be solved with a few tips from the Internet: there are 3 adults in a household that are all going different directions from the sound of it.
i dont know how parents can kick their kids out who are obviously problem under their watchful eyes & being on their own will mean even more trouble and bad decision. your job as parents are not done at 18 but rather your job is to guide your kids even adult kids to best of your ability.
I agree with your wife, she is your only child, spent time to sort things out. As someone mentioned, try therapy. It might help her deal with whatever issue she has. Rent is a good idea but I don't know if you can force her to pay rent but I highly suggest you don't give her any money. She needs a job for her cell phone bill, transportation bill, coffee bill whatever she does. she gets roof over her head and food in kitchen, everything else she needs to figure out.
ATLer, I'm kind of puzzled by the picture you are painting. Having "no rules" as a child doesn't usually result in the child spiraling out of control as an adult, and becoming wild as an adult. Or a child whose parents are absent or treat the child as if she isn't a priority at all. Being out of control is often the result of a child who has been too strictly raised - the old preacher's daughter cliche.
It sounds like she did fairly well in high school if she got into UGA.
I didn't discipline my children in the classic way - we didn't punish. I didn't do any taking toys away, sit in this one chair for timeout, you're grounded, etc. Although they certainly weren't given everything they wanted.
So. When she was a child did she look feral? Like, she just ran around the house doing absolutely anything she wanted all the time and any request she had was granted? I'm just trying to picture this.
This sentence is from the OP - "Just keep her happy, give her what she wants, everything will be fine."
Someone who was always kept happy and given whatever she wanted when she wanted sounds like a kid who grew into a 19 year old adult still expecting to always get her way in order to keep her happy.
When she was young, she did whatever she wanted. Cookies before dinner? Sure why not have a few? Stay up late for no reason? Why not? We just didn't want to see her pout or be sad
my fear is that " the highway" will look much more appealing to her
Well then, she's got you over the barrel.
If it were me, she'd have no access to her or the family car. And, I'd take away her house key. And take the lock off her bedroom door, and stop paying her phone bill.
She wants to act like a baby, with no rules, than treat her like a baby who can't be trusted not to put her finger in the light socket.
I'm not even implying that kids should fear or be afraid of their parents but, even on the rare occasion that we did try and ground her, it was met with scoffing, eye-rolling, and back talk.
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