Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey.

Jim Burns: So you can have standards, you can have biblical standards, but you do it in the middle of showing an incredible depth of love. You can accept them without accepting their behavior.

John Fuller: Well, that's Dr. Jim Burns sharing about the complex dynamics that parents and their adult children often experience. If you've got grown kids, you're going to find this conversation to be of great interest. Welcome to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Let me just speak to the parents directly. Are there days you're going, "What am I doing? Everything I do is wrong," and just filling yourself up with guilt and trying to figure out a better pathway? I think parenting is not easy, but it is rewarding.

I can tell you now, with two boys in their 20s, I've really enjoyed every aspect of it. When they were little, man, watching those home videos now and laughing at them pretending to be French chefs working with pepper, water, mustard, and mayonnaise. It was delicious, I'm sure. The best part was they didn't turn to Jean and I and say, "Would you like a bite?" We didn't have to do that part.

It is so funny watching those videos. Up until now where the 20-somethings are full of serious questions about school, vocation, spouses, and other things. So it's really been great, but it isn't easy. I'm sure some of you are dealing with even greater difficulties with your adult children. It's one of the most common calls that we get here at Focus on the Family for counselors, and we welcome those calls. We want you to get in touch with us. John will give details to do that in just a minute.

But that is the question: "My kids aren't following the Lord. They're not walking with the Lord. What do I do?" It's almost as if the more control you want to administer, the more you will drive them further away. We'll talk about that today with our great guest, Jim Burns.

John Fuller: Jim is the founder of Homeward, which is all about educating, equipping, and encouraging parents to build God-honoring families from generation to generation. He's got a book on this topic called *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*. By the way, Jim mentioned our counseling team, and they're a phone call away at 800-A-FAMILY.

Jim Daly: Jim, welcome back to Focus. It's so good to see you.

Jim Burns: Always great to be with you all. I feel like I'm in a family reunion when I come back.

Jim Daly: I'm a little disappointed you didn't eat the mustard, pepper, and salt thing.

Jim Burns: No, I would have tried it, just a little sip, but they never pressured us, which I thought was great. It was very kind of them.

Jim Daly: I just saw Trent as a 20-something, and he's a lot taller than you and a lot bigger than you. He could have forced you today! "Eat this!" But again, you're developing character in your sons and daughters that won't do that. That's what we're trying. I'm proud to say he's never done that.

Hey, let's go there. When parents think about raising toddlers or teenagers, they can expect challenges. I loved somebody's great advice given to Jean and me. They said, "Love every stage." We were like, "Okay, what will that mean?" Now on the back end, we get it. There are different challenges. Terrible twos are terrible. It is like, "Kid, do you not hear me?" You deal with the tantrums and getting their own way and all that.

Then they get to teenagerhood, and they want to be independent, and you work through all those things. Then it happens: they go off for their vocation or for college or for whatever they're going to do. There seems to be in some situations this great drift that occurs. Why do you say parenting adult children can actually be one of the hardest seasons compared to terrible twos and teens?

Jim Burns: We do have to embrace that stage, but they're moving from dependence to independence very rapidly. They get to a stage, it might be even 18, and they say, "Well, I'm an adult." You're going, "Yeah, and I'm paying for their cell phone, I'm paying for college, and I'm still paying for the insurance." They're saying, "But I want freedom."

At that stage when they go into adulthood, a lot of times they don't know how to be an adult, so they're making some goofy decisions. We don't know how to parent an adult because we got these other stages down, but now we're in a new stage. I don't think most of us saw that coming.

Most of us who raised kids in the church or who had kids who were great, all of a sudden they start violating values, straying from their faith, and drifting from the family story, and we didn't see it coming. Or we say, "That's going to be somebody else's kid, not ours."

Jim Daly: You have a story in the book about a woman named Amber. I'm sure you've changed all the names, but what was Amber's situation?

Jim Burns: Her dad is one of my best friends and a great guy. He's actually been in the office with me here at Focus talking with you. Amber—beautiful, wonderful—had some tough things happen that they didn't know about when she was in junior high. The way she coped with that was to do some drugs. She became sexually promiscuous and just had a tough life.

She rebelled. This was the kid who was in the junior high leading the Bible study type of a thing. She went from drug rehab to drug rehab. They stayed in her story. Today, I happened to have breakfast with them last week, and she's 40 months sober. She's actually working for the drug rehab center. It's not perfect, but through that process—and I thought this was a neat thing her parents did—they gave her a necklace.

The necklace said: peace, joy, hope. Peace from your past, joy for today, and hope for the future. I said that's beautiful. He said, "That was for her, but it's also for us." What they did was they stayed in her story, and it wasn't easy.

Jim Daly: What does that mean, though?

Jim Burns: "Stay in the story" means that there's a mess, and they're in the messy middle. They don't just agree with her. They're not parenting just to go, "Hey, whatever you want to do." It was tough love. They were allowing the circumstances of her poor choices to actually take place.

They had to allow this beautiful kid—and I've known this girl all her life—this beautiful girl to almost be homeless and make some horrible decisions that go against the grain of their belief system. But they still stayed in the story. They didn't agree with her. They said, "Here's what we believe. Here's what our boundaries are." But they stayed in the story of the mess.

Because of that, they were always safe. If she had a problem, she was going to call back. Now, she might not call that day, but she would call back. She would come back into the situation. They didn't enable her. You can enable kids like Amber to be dependent on you, but they didn't enable her. They helped her. They loved her.

Jim Daly: We need to ask these questions on behalf of those listening and watching. I'm thinking of Amber's situation, but how do parents balance unconditional love, the love of Christ, with the idea of not affirming that destructive behavior or not addressing it or not speaking to it? Our temperaments as parents can be legalistic or the opposite—just love at all costs.

Jim Burns: Neither one of those is good, Jim. You have rigid parenting. What does that equal? Rebellion. You have lenient parenting. That equals no... they're rudderless. There are times we're going to have to take the hit. My friends had to with Amber and sometimes say, "This is not appropriate. Actually, you can't bring that into our home because of the other kids."

That was hard for them. But you mentioned Christ. Christ led with love. He practiced kindness, but he also had no patience for hypocrisy, and he had boundaries. It's weird to think that we're talking about boundaries with your adult kids, but we need to have some boundaries sometimes with our adult kids.

That means we've got to talk to them about expectations. "Here's what we're expecting. If you're going to live in our house, here's what we're expecting." It's better when you do that not in the heat of the battle, but when you've thought through it and when you're having good conversations. Adult children will also support what they help create. If you can bring them into the picture, that's really beneficial.

Jim Daly: You mentioned this transition from hands-on parenting through 17 or 18. Hopefully, as a parent, you've been giving them more and more independence as they've gotten older. Then there's this massive transition where you're no longer the hand holder and the all-in parent, but you're now coach or influencer in their 20s.

Some parents struggle with that. I remember a story we received here at Focus where a professor had contacted us. They were complaining about a classroom at a university where it's illegal for the professor to share test results with a parent at that age because they're an adult. But this one young man in a class didn't like the grade and got his mom on the phone during class. He gave the phone to the professor, and she began to chew the professor out to say, "My son would have done better than that." He's like, "I cannot talk to you." Describe that situation and what the error is. She's ready to fight every fight for her son.

Jim Burns: Exactly, and she might have helped write that paper. Honestly, I couldn't have done that for him, and I have an MBA! Parents have to be careful. A woman said to me, "I don't understand why my son won't make his own pediatrician appointments. He's 22 years old." I thought on two levels: Why is he going to the pediatrician, and why do we have to allow our kids to sometimes fail?

That's really hard for us. But that's a generation of parenting called "helicopter parenting." We've just continued to try to do that with our adult children, and we can't do that. Sometimes we have to allow our kids to fail. A five-year-old is going to fall off the bike, get a skinned knee, and they're going to learn how to ride that bike. Sometimes, and they're tougher issues, we have to allow our adult children to fall off the bike, skin their knee, and still be there to pick them up and love on them, but in a different manner.

Jim Daly: I so agree. It is hard because we want to be protector and provider. The point is you can overdo that to their detriment.

Jim Burns: Then they have a failure to launch. We have a generation of some adult kids who are entitled, and they're not launching because we literally have continued to enable. There's a difference between helping and enabling. Most parents would say, "I'm helping, I'm not enabling."

But if you're buying them a new house and they can't afford the payments, you're actually enabling them to be dependent on you. You can help them in different ways. That's the big difference. As parents, we have to have that mindset. What does it mean to come alongside them?

Jim Daly: Jim, how do we do that? We're talking about the relationship with adult kids and sometimes I think we put it all on them, but it's really us that you're talking about here. How do we make that shift to being an influence or a mentor, not the person saying, "You should do this," or "You shouldn't do this"?

Jim Burns: For one thing, we have to give our kids what I call the passport to adulthood. That's not easy for them, and it's not easy necessarily for us. But in doing that, it's almost a ritual of "Okay, they're now going to be in charge." For us to do that right, we then move to mentor.

As older teens, we're their consultant. Most of their day-to-day decisions are done by themselves, and we're not always around. We were coaching them at younger stages and obviously in control, but we're not in control anymore. When we now give them the passport to adulthood, we have to take a deep breath and keep a welcoming mat type of a relationship with them.

At the same time, we have to be strong with what we believe our values are. But it's very possible to, in the context of this culture, be in a relationship with people whom we don't agree with. We do that in every aspect of life. That's going to be the case we do with our adult children at times, too.

Jim Daly: Is it ideal, then, for that child to be out of the house if we have different values?

Jim Burns: I think some kids do need to get out on their own and feel it a bit. I think other kids it would be better for them to stay a little bit longer. That's where parents need discernment. But the Bible says where there's no counsel the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. That's why we need what I call a circle of support around us to give us wisdom and counsel.

Jim Daly: Regardless of where you're at in your parenting, we have resources for you here at Focus on the Family. Give us a call at 800-A-FAMILY. That would include all sorts of great parenting resources like the book by Jim Burns, *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*. We've got copies of that book here. Give us a call or stop by focusonthefamily.com/weekend. We'll be right back after this.

Jim Daly: Can you believe it? Focus on the Family will celebrate 50 years of ministry next year.

Guest (Male): That's really amazing, Jim. We know that behind those 50 years, there are countless real-life stories from listeners. Stories about marriages strengthened, babies saved, and even people coming to Christ. Looking back, it's amazing what God has done. So we want you to give us a call and record your story. Details and the link are at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: No matter what you're going through, you are not alone. Focus on the Family is here with you every step of the way. Our caring Christian counselors will listen, share biblical advice, connect you with resources, and pray with you. You can start your path toward healing today by requesting your free confidential consult. Call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY or visit us at focusonthefamily.com/gethelp.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let's resume now with the balance of today's programming.

Jim Daly: Jim, you describe in the book a couple who were church leaders who tried to fix their daughter when she made some bad relational choices. What strained the relationship between them and their daughter and then what helped their relationship? Critically here, it's really the spiritual element to it. I mean, you said they're church leaders for a reason.

Jim Burns: Church leaders, meaning a lead pastor of a major church in America and his wife. This girl went everywhere. She tried a same-sex relationship, she was involved with other things, and she rebelled. She walked away from Jesus. We kind of teased because they said, "We didn't like the guy who was doing cocaine, but at least this guy only does marijuana."

What happened was they still stayed in her story, even though she knew that they were not happy about the choices she was making. They had to make some of those hard decisions that you talked about. Maybe she's not going to live here. Is she going to go move in with the guy?

They stayed in the story, and she ended up being with a guy who was addicted to marijuana. He was open to faith. They kind of cut a deal that he would start coming to church. He was so different than they were, but they had two things in common: he loved the daughter, and they could see that. Two, the Los Angeles Dodgers. My friend who's the pastor loved the Dodgers, and this guy loved the Dodgers.

He started spending time with him and taking him to Dodgers games. They got to know each other. This young man made a commitment to Christ. He kept going to the church. They wanted her to marry a youth pastor, and he stopped smoking marijuana. Now he's their youth pastor. He's doing a great job. He's all tatted out and looks so different than what they expected, but he's living for the Lord.

Are there bumps and bruises in this thing? Sure. There are actually some stepchildren in this thing. But what I appreciated about them was they said, "We have one thing in common: we both love this young woman." So we're not going to just bag on this thing. The ending of the story is a great ending. It's not always an easy ending. I wish I could say every time there's going to be an easy ending. There's not, but they stayed in the story. They showed love and honored the relationship with this young man, and the young man appreciated it and was open to things.

Jim Daly: Again, the net-net, they were praying for and hoping for their son-in-law to be a youth pastor, and they ended up with this guy smoking pot. But then, he becomes the youth pastor!

Jim Burns: We didn't think he was going to be that youth pastor. By the way, he's a great youth pastor.

Jim Daly: That's good. It does beg the question about parental expectation. This happens in marriage and parenting. It certainly happens with 20-somethings because you have your perspective on who they will be. You've thought of this since you held them as a beautiful bundle on your chest. You knew what the story would be, but all of a sudden they're not following that blueprint. Speak to the angst that begins to create and how we, as the parents, have to let go.

Jim Burns: We have to let go, but we also have to deal with the grief. It's a necessary loss. When a child becomes an adult, it's a loss. You spend two decades of your life basically in control or semi-control as they get older, and now you're letting them go. You have to embrace that grief. C.S. Lewis says that change is loss.

Change is good. We've all changed. I've known you guys for enough years where we've changed. I've changed in my weight, but I don't want to talk about that. The point is that change is loss. As a parent, you have to deal with the grief. Sometimes we feel pain and shame. We think we should have prayed more, we should have done Bible studies around the table, we should have gone on more mission trips. All these "should have, should have, should have."

In the middle of that, we do that, and we do it quietly. Everybody else in the church is also going through these same things, but they're not talking. It goes back to us making sure that we have an authentic relationship with people who will help us get through it. It's a very important aspect.

Jim Daly: As a pastor and speaker, and through Homeward, you've worked with thousands of couples in a whole variety of ways in their marriage and parenting. We see it here too. It seems there's a bit of a formula that occurs. When you're a stringent parent as a Christian, we have expectations for our own lives and for those of our children to live to a higher standard.

Sometimes I think we even expect our teens and 20-somethings to live at a standard that we may not have been living up to at that age. But it can be so counterproductive for the rebellious child who is sending a message. In your experience in those situations, what are those common things that you see the children are actually rebelling against, if we're honest?

Jim Burns: I think a lot of them felt like we were doing shame-based parenting. We didn't think we were doing shame-based parenting, but a lot of times when we have... the Focus on the Family parent has high, beautiful, God-honoring, biblical standards. We need to share those. But at the same time, it's how we share them.

We need to make it attractive. We need to make living life with faith and in alignment with God more attractive. We have to be careful that we're not making it so rigid that they break those standards. When they break the standards, then they change their morality or their belief system. Really only two things happen. If a kid strays, violates values, or sins, they either come back to Jesus, or they change their values in their mind. Now they don't believe in the morality that we have because they had to rebel since they're going to live that out.

It's important for us to understand that as the father in the prodigal son story was so great, he showed a depth of love to his son who had wasted money on prostitutes and partying. He didn't change the deal with his elder son. He showed love. But if the son says, "I've been working with you this whole time," he said, "All that I have is yours." He didn't change the financial setup. We miss that sometimes. You can have biblical standards, but you do it in the middle of showing an incredible depth of love. You can accept them without accepting their behavior.

Jim Daly: Again, the problem is in our control as parents. Our control issues, anxiety issues, and guilt issues start dominating our reactions to them. It's totally opposite what the Lord would want.

Jim Burns: What some of these adult kids are telling me is they're saying my parent is just a one-topic parent. "I moved in with my boyfriend and I still want a relationship with my mom, but she's only a one-topic parent. That's all she talks about. I'd like to go shopping with her or do some other things."

I would say to the woman, "Does she know how you feel? Does she know what you believe? Yes." Then expand the relationship because probably the relationship that your daughter is in right now isn't going to last, and you want her to come back to you and your values. We're seeing that with a lot of young adults today.

There are some things happening in the Gen Z movement. Five years ago, I probably was on this broadcast saying it's really quite possible that twice as many atheists would be in Gen Z. But whom are we seeing coming back into the church? Gen Z, especially guys. God is doing a work. God's not going to let this go. We just have to stay in that messy story.

Jim Daly: We've got to have our help. Moses is battling the Amalekites. Moses has the rod and picks up the rod, and the Israelites start winning. Then he gets weary and tired. We, as parents, get weary and tired. He has to sit down, and then the Amalekites start winning.

What does he do? He brings people around him in his weariness who help him by holding up the rod, and Israel wins the battle. We have a battle for our kids' souls. Our kids are forfeiting their spiritual purpose at times. But the battle belongs to the Lord. Secondly, the battle is a long-term battle.

Jim Burns: I led my brother to the Lord three days before he died. I wish he hadn't forfeited a lot of things in a negative way, but he came back. I think that sometimes happens, too.

Jim Daly: That's the desire to have this expectation that as an extended family we're all in Christ and experiencing the joy of this life together. Let me ask you this in terms of that Scripture. I don't think these words are lost. I don't think the Lord misplaces a word in Scripture. When the Scripture says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," isn't it interesting that the word "old" is in there?

We want something to happen sooner. But it's almost like if you've done your job, you've pointed them toward the Lord, you've given them a compass, and you've made known what it is you believe—hopefully in the context of love, not demanding it in some kind of militaristic thing—then the Lord is going to honor this.

Jim Burns: We have to say—I want to cup every listener on their face—really good parents have kids who make poor choices. That's true. There are parents who have done a great job. Not a perfect job, because nobody's perfect, but they've done a great job, and their kids are making poor choices. I'm seeing some of those kids come back.

Especially in the 20s, it's an interesting time because some of them meander toward marriage or some responsibility. Once they get married and have kids, guess where they come? They come back to the community that they had once in the church. They come back to faith. Now, they may not come back to our church. Fantastic, they're just going to church.

If we do the training—and nobody thinks they're a perfect parent so nobody trained them perfect—then I honestly think God honors that in a beautiful way. I don't know what it looks like. I'm not God. That's way beyond my pay grade. But for the people who have younger kids, do the training. We forget "training" is an athletic term. Paul and others use the word "training" much more as an athletic term. Run the race. It's perseverance and endurance. We need a dose of perseverance and endurance as we're running the race with our adult kids.

Jim Daly: I hope this is a drop of water for your thirsty parenting souls. Jim, if you'll stick with us, we'll come back for a day two. We're scratching the surface. We want to get into more of the detail about how to do this and how to do it well. Again, Jim's great book is *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*.

That's a better place to be. Heartache is not a good place to just land and sit there. Jim's book can equip you to have a better attitude, that loving attitude we're talking about today so that you don't lose the tether with your adult child. That will be the hope of the future. Donate today at 800-A-FAMILY or visit focusonthefamily.com/weekend. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We'll take a quick break and then return with the second half of this program for your family. Stay tuned.

Jim Daly: Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down? Trust fading? Conflict that never seems to resolve? There's still hope. Hope Restored Marriage Intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship. Right now, through the Marriage Investment Initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives. Visit hoperestored.com/invest.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let's resume now with the balance of today's programming.

Jim Burns: You can still find something to say "I'm sorry" for. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I really want to hear from you what you believe about this because I want to be a better person and I actually want our relationship to work." That goes against the grain of saying, "You need to clean it up. You need to fix it," because when we do that, that's actually just moving them away from us as opposed to moving them toward us in a safe manner. We want to be that safe parent. You can be safe by being authentic.

John Fuller: Well, that's Jim Burns, and he shared last time here about navigating the joyful, sometimes heart-wrenching world of parenting adult children. Thanks for being with us here on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, more and more parents are facing a reality that they never expected: their adult son or daughter is questioning or maybe even walking away from the Christian faith they were raised in. It becomes such a disappointing burden for the parents. "What did we do wrong? How did we not communicate effectively? If we did our job right, I'm sure the Lord would have done his job right."

Where is the breakdown? It often is right there in this little thing called free will. God was a parent to Adam and Eve, and look at what his kids did. We're all part of that connection to a sin-filled world. We can do everything well—and we're never going to do it perfectly—but kids have their choices. Teens make choices. Adults, our children in their 20s make choices that we might see as harmful, but they don't see it the way we see it.

Today, we want to continue the discussion with Jim Burns. If you missed last time, get the app so you can download it and get access to all the programs, especially the discussion yesterday so you can catch up. Or you can go to focusonthefamily.com to do that. All in all, we're here to help you. We've got counselors and so much help. We want to continue this discussion for parents of adult children.

John Fuller: Jim Burns is the founder of Homeward, a ministry that has been equipping parents for a long, long time. He's really got an authentic...

Jim Daly: I think he's saying you're old, Jim. I don't know.

John Fuller: You've got an authenticity and an approachability to you that really connects with people. Jim has captured his thoughts about this topic in a terrific book, *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*. We'll encourage you to get a copy of that from us.

Jim Daly: Jim, welcome back to Focus.

Jim Burns: Great to be back with you all.

Jim Daly: Continuing the chat, it was so good. Many of us are living in this, and it's become one of the dominant questions we receive online or through phone calls here to the counseling team. "My 20-something is doing this," and you fill in the blank. It's all over the board—sexual issues, decisions to live together. Parents wear that pretty roughly because they ask, "What did we do wrong? What happened here?" Respond to that.

Jim Burns: We play the "should have" game. "We should have done this, we should have done that." I know Kathy and I did that. Our kids bumped in college. They didn't take the major step that we even talk about in this book. But when they did it, we took the blame as if only we would have done something differently. I think too many parents do that. I think too many parents play that "I should have done this" when we're not in control. That's where we have to relinquish our kids to God. That's a hard thing to do.

Jim Daly: If you were to describe the parental prototype that you see as most successful, what do those parents look like? What are their attitudes? You've seen these over the years, these parents who now have 20 or 30-something kids and they're generally healthy. What are the attributes of those parents that you've seen?

Jim Burns: I actually don't think they know they've done this, but this is what they've done. In those first two years, they've catered to them and just loved on their kids. They controlled them for protection till about 10. Then they moved to coaching, where coaches are still in charge, but they started to let the kids make some decisions. They became consultants from 15 to 18. In consulting, most of those day-to-day decisions were done by the kids, and they embraced that. You know how many weeks that is? 936 weeks from the time they're born until the time they become an adult.

Jim Daly: That sounds so finite. 936 weeks.

Jim Burns: That's it. But these are the ones who prepared. The ones who didn't prepare for this were still in control. They were telling their kids what to wear at 18. The point is that those parents allowed independence. They bought into the fact that their kids were now adults even though they didn't act like adults and didn't always make good adult decisions. They were going to treat them accordingly. They had moved from a parent-child relationship to a parent-adult child, and that's a big difference.

Jim Daly: A lot of young people in their 20s especially are re-examining what they believe. So often we've had conversations with experts talking about deconstructing the Christian faith. They get it down and they disavow it because they deconstruct it. Then there are others actually in the process of making the faith their own. Parents need to allow that.

John Lennox, the great mathematician at Oxford, now retired but a tremendous thinker, said the best thing his mother and father did for him was to allow him to read books, even at 13 or 14, by Karl Marx. They said, "Read it. You need to know about it." They weren't intimidated by it. John Lennox is a brilliant man; he became the head of mathematics at Oxford. He said his parents willingly wanted him to be familiar with things, and then they would challenge it at the dinner table. "Now tell me what you learned about communism." Speak to that.

Jim Burns: What I love about him is that he did that when the kids were still in the home. We sometimes don't do it that way. We won't let them have a doubt or share a struggle, or we won't let them read a book that goes against something. Then they get away to college or into the workforce, and they're killed because they've never even heard this stuff.

The best thing we can do is teach them to become critical thinkers at even a young age. My 10-year-old grandson—I'm beginning the process as Grandpa to help him think critically. He'll tell me something the kids are doing at school, and I go, "What do you think about that?" At this point, I haven't read communist books to him, but I think it's a lot safer to have him read some of that stuff under my wings than what he's going to get when he goes away to school.

His example is that what he perceived was that his father didn't fear those things in his faith. That's a great thing to communicate. With our faith, we shouldn't fear a lot of this stuff. We're so fearful. Our God is bigger than any of this.

Jim Daly: You have a story about Christie, your daughter, which illustrates this difference between rejecting faith and forming an independent faith. What was her story?

Jim Burns: Her senior year, she wrote a column in the school newspaper that said, "I had to disown my parents' faith to own my own faith." I still get chills thinking about that because I was like, "Oh my gosh, Christie's going to blow it!" It was the best thing. She deconstructed in a positive way.

Too much of her faith was really the faith of Mom and Dad. Again, we did Bible studies at home and prayed together. In a sense, she had to disown us in the faith department to own her own. Now, we go to the same church. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. But she does have a faith that's her own now. It's a strong faith. The things she reads are a little different than the things I read.

Jim Daly: In that description, what we're saying is don't yank the chain so quickly. Don't be fearful to allow them to wonder about the world around them. When you look at faith formation, one of the aspects of growing in faith formation is that you can actually live in a world where you don't understand everything about it. I always will laugh and just say, "I don't know. I'll have to ask God when I get to heaven because I have no idea." That's actually a stronger thing than buttoning it down for our kids. With Christie going through this time of searching, it was deconstruction. That's when deconstruction can be good.

Jim Daly: As a parent of adult children, the whole journey—they know you better than anybody. Your spouse knows you best, then your kids are going to know you. How do we live up to the reality that we're not perfect? We're going to try hard to live a Christian faith very well, but we're going to blow it. I'm going to say things to my son or my daughter that they scratch their head at. Speak to the healthy nature of that because we're all sinners saved by grace.

Jim Burns: It's a very healthy thing. I actually write and talk a lot about it with parents of adults: sometimes we have to embrace "I'm sorry." To say, "That was all about me, and that wasn't about you. I have stuff going on at work," or "Your mom and I are feeling some pressure here, and so I blew it. I was out of line on that conversation."

Sometimes we just have to admit our sinfulness. You can say, "I'm a sinner and I'm saved by grace," sure. But sometimes we have to simply say to them, "I'm sorry," and lead with that, and be sincere. You can't lead if you're in estrangement and they're saying it's all about you. Even if you don't think it is, you can still find something to say "I'm sorry" for. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I really want to hear from you what you believe about this because I want to be a better person and I actually want our relationship to work." That goes against the grain of saying, "You need to clean it up. You need to fix it," because when we do that, that's actually just moving them away from us as opposed to moving them toward us in a safe manner. We want to be that safe parent. You can be safe by being authentic.

John Fuller: This Focus on the Family broadcast will continue in just a moment.

Jim Daly: Hey, Jim Daly here. If you like the Focus on the Family broadcast and haven't grown tired of this voice just yet, you'll love my Refocus podcast. On Refocus, I take a deeper dive with a respected thinker on different aspects of culture. I ask those hard questions that maybe they don't get that often, and I don't shy away from challenging topics to help you share God's grace, truth, and love with others. So listen to Refocus with Jim Daly on your favorite streaming app today.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. Let's resume now with the balance of today's programming.

Jim Daly: Jim, as we do this kind of work with our adult kids, sometimes they make decisions that upset one parent but not necessarily the other. There have been frictions in some marriages regarding adult kids. How do we navigate that? How do we stay on the same team? It's really critical that we don't let that child get in the way of our relationship.

Jim Burns: First of all, you're going to have to accept, because this is just parenting 101, that we're not going to agree on everything. I think when they get older and we don't agree, it's harder. I would say most of Kathy's and my strongest intense discussions are over our kids, still. Kathy and I do have a different way.

I have this book on doing life with your adult children, and the second approach is "unsolicited advice is taken as criticism." Kathy will sometimes say, "You need to work on principle number two right now," because I'm giving advice and it sounds like criticism. That's where I think as a couple we have to look at what we agree on.

For Kathy and me, we probably agree on 85%, but it's that 15% that drives us nuts. There are times when I just have to say I'm going to let Kathy do her thing a little different than I'm going to do mine. There are times when she has to say that to me.

But if people can't get on the same page, that's where I think we need a moderator. There are great Christian coaches out there and some great Christian counseling. I actually think this is a stage that very few of us can get through without the help of other people. We have a couple, Terry and Sharon. They've raised their kids. Their kids are not perfect. They are amazing people. We meet with them about six times a year. I have a little notice in my pocket where I have about five questions I want to ask them. That's where we get some of our counsel. He's a health executive; he's not a therapist or a pastor. He was the chairman of an elder board at a church, but they have helped us big time. Sometimes they'll just say, "We don't see eye to eye on that one either."

Jim Daly: The issue of anxiety and maybe even tipping into depression. The CDC said 15 to 25-year-olds—at least one report that I read—said that in that demographic of about 14 million, 50% are experiencing anxiety or depression. That's a whole different parenting issue that crops up. Given what we're talking about, you have to now have that capacity as a parent to work with a child in that age group dealing with that. How do we go about discerning it, understanding it, and helping?

Jim Burns: I'm really glad you brought it up. I believe you're right, and it's the largest demographic of that age group we've ever had. So, yes, a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety. We can talk about social media, but as a parent, most parents aren't psychologists. It's their kid, so it's a different ballgame.

We need to become people who understand how to help someone who's going through anxiety and depression. I don't think you sit them down at the table and say, "So, you're depressed. What's wrong with you is you're depressed." We have to learn how to treat a person who might be depressed or going through some extreme anxiety.

The harder part is you've got kids today in the 15 to 25 bracket who could be clinically depressed. That's a different kind of depression and anxiety than the kind that is just going on because they're going through so many transitions and changes. If you believe your adult child is going through some type of deeper anxiety or depression, that's when I think you bring in the experts. As a family, don't just put them in, but say, "As a family, we want to talk about all the things that are going on." There are some great books, and obviously you guys have broadcasts on this. My mom didn't have to ever look up social media. We just had the phone with a long cord! Today, we have to learn if our child is feeling anxiety or depression. We have to learn about that and how we help them. But don't be the armchair psychologist. Get the help you need.

Jim Daly: That's good—act on those observations and be aware. A lot of parents aren't aware. What the kids are doing is being depressed and anxious, and the parents think they're just behavior problems.

Jim Burns: Right. You've got to be able to discern that much.

Jim Daly: Jim, we've talked about this idea of loving your child regardless and being the backstop regardless of behavioral issues. Let's move that to the 20-something, maybe even 30-something where that relationship is toxic. It's that dark. There are accusations and just severe negative energy going on in the relationship. How do we as parents deal with that kind of toxic relationship and put boundaries around it, maybe to protect our spouses or other children still in the home? What is that approach?

Jim Burns: There are lots of ways we could go, but one is you mentioned the word "boundaries." It's important that we understand we do need to put boundaries up. If something is toxic, we put boundaries into it. We can say, "Honey, we love you so much, but right now this kind of behavior isn't going to be welcome in the home. Can we take you out on a regular basis and go get coffee, just us two? But we don't want this in the house with the other kids."

Here are some of our boundaries and expectations. "Can you live with that?" If they can't live with that, then say, "Okay, fine." Keep in the relationship, but you're going to have to lower the expectations for a while.

Jim Daly: And perhaps some of the contact time? That's a boundary. It's not estrangement; it's just lowering the expectations. At the same time, when it gets super toxic, there's an elephant in the room. Mention the elephant. If you can, with your adult child, say, "What's going on?"

Jim Burns: Now, again, if it's drug and alcohol abuse on their part, or some really immoral behavior, that's different than if it's just an attitude thing. You want to know what it is. A lot of people in estrangement and toxic relationships say they don't know why their child is acting this way toward them. If you can find that out by simply saying, "What's going on?"

Don't do that in the heat of the battle, and don't try to change your child. The mistake we make is we say, "You're wrong, and I'm right." I think we have to say, "Help me understand how you feel." What's going on? Then we have to bite our tongue. It's not the time for us to get defensive. A parent has to take the lead, and a lot of that is biting the tongue.

Jim Daly: What you're describing is a parental curiosity, which is a good posture rather than being referee or judge. Ask good questions to find out where the angst is. I've found even with people who do not appreciate Christianity, they've had a bad experience. Often those who are most hostile to the faith are people who had terrible situations growing up. "My parents were the worst hypocrites."

When I've sat with them and broken the caricature or the stereotype and we talk, they say, "You're not like the Christians I know." It's unfortunate because they should be saying, "You're like every other Christian I know. Why do you love me?" When you project concern and interest in people, and this would include your adult children, something in the human heart opens up, even for the crusty soul.

Jim Burns: Exactly. I had a guy who was in our home for a birthday party. We did not have the same view on sexuality. He told me his story, and it was a horrible story. His parents were goofy when it came to the faith. Destructive. I was trying to be nicer, but they were. For some reason, I started to well up with tears and said, "I'm so sorry."

He looked at me like, "Why are you sorry?" I said, "Because something that's so near and dear to me and so important to me—I feel like you got a raw deal." I'm sure he did some goofy stuff where his parents could come down on him, but his parents didn't do a good job. What he needed to see at that point was us showing love and care to him, not trying to fix him for his very different thoughts on sexuality.

Jim Daly: Your dad—you put some boundaries around your dad. Was that like, "Give me the car keys because you can't drive"? My dad was an alcoholic, and my grandpa on my mom's side was an alcoholic. Dysfunction in our family was alcoholism.

Jim Burns: For example, Dad—I love my dad. Dad was one of these "functioning alcoholics." He was good in business, he did things, and he came to my games. He wasn't a horrible person. But as he started drinking, I never let my kids drive with him. I didn't even say that to him; I just said, "We're going to do this." I never let them stay there because I was afraid that one day Grandpa would take them someplace.

There were some unspoken boundaries and some spoken boundaries. The spoken boundaries never went well. We did that, but I still tried to stay in the story with Dad. I visited him all the time and did all these things. One day, he was in his motorhome with my mom and almost crashed it. I got him to go to an alcohol and drug rehab center at 68 years old. The other guys were in their 20s! He was the Pied Piper.

Dad never drank again, and he pulled it together. Some of those boundaries I was then able to break away from over the years, and we ended up with a really cool relationship. I'm not saying Dad was perfect, but in his sobriety, he made a lot better decisions. Whenever you deal with adult children, a lot of times as your children are getting older, so are your parents. I had the blessing of having my dad become a Christian and being in a fellowship relationship with him. I never dreamed that was going to happen. I literally did have to set some boundaries that I was not happy about and always felt guilty about.

Jim Daly: Jim, right at the end here, I want to end with that positive story out of your book about your friend Ron. Beach trips with his son and discussions. Describe that because it knits together everything we've talked about.

Jim Burns: Ron had a lot of tension with his son. His son violated his values and strayed from faith. Ron was the type of guy who said, "Sit down. I'm going to tell you what is going on, and you need to pull this together." That didn't work and only broke their relationship. So, Ron decided to go on a week trip.

Ron surfed, fished, and brought bikes. They just did three things that both he and his son liked to do. They vacationed together. They had laughter, went out to dinner, and ate Mexican food every night because the son likes Mexican food. Toward the end, the son said, "Dad, this has been the greatest time I've ever had with you. I know you have questions, and I'm going to be okay. I know you're worried about me and, yes, I've made some dumb decisions. But I'm coming back. I just want you to know this has helped me so much to make the turn because I know you love me. I know every night you'd want to tell me how wrong I was on certain things, and you never did. I just want to thank you for that."

Today, Ron and his son are in business together, and it's almost a Christian business. They do so many great things as a family. It started out pretty bumpy, but Ron swallowed his pride and said, "I'm going to build this relationship on the long haul." That's exactly what we want to end on: the longer arc that you mentioned throughout the program. In your 20s, you're going to experience some things that may be displeasing to Mom and Dad. We get it, and that's okay. But look at that long arc, and like the outcome of Ron and his son, that's what you're aiming for. That was a beautiful way to end. Thank you, Jim, for being with us.

Jim Burns: Always great to be with you all.

Jim Daly: Like we often do, just make a gift of any amount and we'll send you Jim's book, *When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope*, as our way of saying thank you for jumping in and getting a resource that you can apply right now. Part of that package of resources is our counseling team. You can call and schedule a free consult because of our donor community. Donate today at 1-800-A-FAMILY or visit focusonthefamily.com/weekend. Thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we help you and your family thrive in Christ.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family weekend. For more shows and encouragement for your entire family, stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.