New Life LIVE

Brian Perez: Hey gang, what’s going on? It is time for New Life Live. I’m your host, Brian Perez. We’re going to be in the studio for two hours today. Now, tomorrow we’re only going to be here for one hour, so maybe you should call in today if you were thinking of calling tomorrow. No, call today. 1-800-229-3000 is our number. We would love to talk to you about whatever it is that you’re going through.

We’ve got clinical psychologist Dr. Jill Hubbard here in the studio today to answer your questions. Also parenting expert Dr. Jim Burns. His friends just call him Jimothy, but he’s here too to answer your questions. 1-800-229-3000 is our number. Jimothy, what’s on your mind?

Jim Burns: Jimothy. I like that. I’ve been called the creature without a tail, I’ve been Dumbo, I’ve been all kinds of things, but never that. I’m just excited because Jill’s here. Jill is our star. She’s the star of our show and it’s so great to have you. Honestly, so so good. Last week I was speaking at a conference in Mount Hermon. It’s a beautiful spot up in Northern California. I was talking to the people about the fires in LA a year ago.

All of you followed this wherever you were, probably in the world, but the interesting thing about the fires—my brother lost his home. He played for the Chicago White Sox, he has a home in Malibu because those kind of guys can afford homes in Malibu. It’s kind of a rich place. He lost his entire home. That’s another story. The interesting thing is as shrubbery and trees and whatnot started kind of coming back, the trees that came back were the ones that had deep roots.

It’s so interesting. I was there watching this over a few months. Again, my brother’s house is devastated, but it was the deep roots. I want to challenge you today, no matter where you’re at, no matter what’s going on. I don’t care if you’re struggling with whatever issue that we get here—and we get them all—I want to challenge you to dig your roots deep. I’ve got an incredible quote by Kay Warren. Kay Warren is the wife of Rick Warren, who is one of the more famous pastors from our life. Kay’s a friend and she said this. I want you to hear this. This relates to every one of you.

Someone recently asked me how I survived my son’s suicide. As maybe some of you know, that was a very public suicide. Matthew was a wonderful young man and he had a lot of trouble. He committed suicide, so you can only imagine the heartbroken mother and the heartbroken father, heartbroken people who all knew him. She said, talking about God, "I set my spiritual roots deep into the character of God for more than 50 years. Circumstances tried to brutally rip out the tree of my faith, but the roots held deep."

I want you to just ponder that for a minute with whatever you’re going through. One of the things we have to do, we sometimes want to Band-Aid our problems, but really what we also need to do is dig our roots deep. Jesus spoke to this in the end of the Sermon on the Mount when he said we either build our house on the rock or we build our house on sand. Rain and wind and storms are going to come to everybody’s life. I’m sure that some of you who are listening today or who are watching on YouTube, you’ve got some tough things. It may be an estranged child, it may be an estranged husband, it may be a porn addiction, it may be so many of the issues that people call.

What I want to say to you is that really one of the ways to get through this—not saying all your problems are going to go away—but to get through is dig deep roots. Part of that means that we are committed to being devoted to God and in doing that, we’re in alignment with what His purpose is for our life. Never easy, but don’t neglect digging those deep roots as you prepare for whatever is going to come your way, good, bad, and indifferent.

Jill Hubbard: I love that. I’m just thinking of that metaphor and how so often we want the quick solutions. We want out of our pain right now. It does take work. I was talking about this in my small group today. We were talking about discipline. Paul said discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness and discipline takes work.

Jim Burns: I’m going to the gym these days and the resistance actually makes me stronger. So sometimes when tough things come and there’s some resistance, you can get stronger by leaning into it, digging those roots deep. That’s where I was going. I wasn’t paying any attention to the clock. You’re supposed to do that if you’re in radio.

Brian Perez: Well, it is important. That’s Brian’s job. 1-800-229-3000 is our number and let’s talk to Jane in Louisiana, who is listening to us on NewLife.com. Hey there, Jane. Thanks for calling today.

Jane: Hello. I had a question. My daughter just found journals and stuff in my grandson’s room. He’s 14. He appears to want to have a sex change. So they’ve now this has become open conversation with them and he’s relieved that she found the journal so he’s not hiding things anymore. But she’s just—she just doesn’t know what to do or how to find help, how to find her help. I just figured you might have some resources that they could—they could use.

Jill Hubbard: Jane, I’m sorry to hear this. We just are hearing this more and more about so many kids. Part of the problem is that things that adolescents go through—the confusion in growing up, the growing into an adult body, the relationships with peers—is getting concretized and I have had young people tell me, "Well, they say if I don’t like myself, don’t like my body, I can change that."

So there’s a lot of suggestion that is happening to concretize what’s happening on the inside and change things on the outside. The problem is long term, we know it doesn’t really work, but it can feel like it works for a really long time. Families go through devastating losses because really in changing who you are at a physical level, you’re saying, "Okay, what God created isn’t good, and I don’t like that person." In fact, there’s a lot of self-loathing that is a part of it.

Instead of learning to accept imperfection and grow into who they are, I think it’s a delicate balance that you walk with kids and you certainly want to take it seriously. Before you ever—and my hope is that you would never do something permanent—but I think you have to walk through this with a child. Let’s talk about it. Tell me how you came to this. Tell me about your feelings about yourself. What is it about who you were born as that this new person you think is going to give you that that person can’t give you? Let’s really talk about all the ins and outs and we’ll be with you in this. So don’t immediately dismiss it because it’s very real. It’s very real to them even if it seems delusional.

Jim Burns: I love Jill, you changed the narrative because I think there were seasons when this first started happening because this is new. When this first started happening, parents would freak out—and I get that, I’d freak out—but parents would freak out and then they would freak out on their kids and they would shame them, shame, shame, shame and wrong, wrong, wrong and whatever. Now you’ve just not become a safe person.

Jane, what Jill said was you’ve got to be a safe person and your daughter needs to be a safe person. The way you do that is have your freak out, yell into a pillow, scream to somebody else, but with this you have the conversation and you make it something where you begin a dialogue with them. Why? What are you thinking? Whatever. They know—I’m sure that this child knows how his mom feels and what his mom believes. So now is the time to help work through it.

Here is the problem. At 14, when I was a youth pastor in my old life, and my PhD is actually in adolescence so I worked with kids like this. In the old days, they would cut themselves—they still do—they would have an eating disorder and nobody thought that was a good idea. But this 14-year-old is now getting—because of social media and because of other things—they’re getting incredible affirmation that maybe this is what they need. At 14, I didn’t know who I was, what I was going to do, my identity was not wrapped up—I wasn’t a Christian for one thing—and my identity wasn’t wrapped up in Christ. So you’re still looking.

A lot of these people are searching for something that they think is going to be found with a sex change and it’s not going to happen. It just doesn’t happen. What we’re seeing is so many kids who actually go through hormone treatment, go through issues, they get to be about 18 or 19 or even 20 and they change their mind. By this time, they’re already in a mess. So make sure that your daughter understands, don’t rush this. Don’t allow it to rush. Yet she’s going to have the amazing strength and courage and literally discernment to not just be all preachy and lecturing or she’s going to push her child away. Does that make sense?

Jane: Yes. She’s been pretty supportive and the letter that he wrote her was that he’s so thankful to have a mom that supportive. So I think it’s just she wants to make sure he gets help. He’s seeing a counselor, but not in person and it wasn’t for this at the beginning. And she’s looking for her own, but because of finances, it’s just a mess right now. But I just figured you might have some resources for them.

Jill Hubbard: I think the book by Preston Sprinkle, *Embodied*, is a good one. He is a Christian, he has a ministry, I think it’s in Idaho, to the gay community as well as the transgendered and he has a more sensitive approach in not dismissing how they feel.

Jim Burns: You can go on to PrestonSprinkle.com and you can get—like that’s a great book. It gives you hope. He also has interviews, he has a podcast himself. It’s not always just on sex change issues, but he is really, really good.

I’ve got a book called *A Student’s Guide to Sexual Integrity* that actually speaks to that issue. It’s for students and I always challenge parents to read it with their child because a lot of times what the child doesn’t have is they don’t have a grounded sexuality. They’re all confused about their sexuality and like in a chapter on that subject, I talk about gender confusion and authority. Authority is God’s will.

What I say is don’t make a decision in a rash moment because some kid on TikTok said it’s a good idea, but look at God’s authority. We have to understand that the culture changes. So we’re seeing even in England and other places, we’re seeing the culture change away from kids doing a sex change. There’s some big changes happening. In the United States, I think we’re going to see that too. So what happens is that’s culture. So culture—that was the big thing from the last five years, but what’s going to be the big thing next?

The point being is don’t rush it. I think she’s doing a marvelous job if her son is saying, "Thank you for your support." You can support someone—this is what parents have to understand—you can support someone without agreeing with them. It’s possible to do that.

Jill: And so to—like this is the long game that you have to be prepared for. And so it’s like we’re going to explore all of this for a long time before we would ever take it to the next level because—and it’s okay to say because a lot of times people change their minds. I would look at how her son feels in terms of his peers. Does he feel accepted? Does he have a sense of belonging? Has he had a best friend? A lot of times these kids are bright individuals that feel socially awkward. So some of it is just fitting in and so they find that they can fit in with this odd group. But the odd group requires adherence because I’ve known kids trying to get out and then they fear losing their friends if they change the way they dress or decide they don’t want to go in that direction.

Brian Perez: Jim’s book, *A Student’s Guide to Sexual Integrity*, is in the NewLife.com store so get yourself a copy. I’m looking at the back cover, Jim. This must-have book for preteens and teens tackles the tough sensitive issues of sexuality for today’s kids. One of the bullet points: it reveals God’s beautiful plan for sex and sexuality. It reveals God’s beautiful plan. So a lot of people nowadays are struggling because maybe they know that God’s plan is not for them to change their gender. So how do they fit into that because they’re thinking, "Well, I’m struggling with this. I don’t want God’s plan. I want my plan."

Jim Burns: We call God the master designer. So he’s been doing very well for many, many thousands of years. So I think what we have to do is accept that he knows what he’s doing and we don’t necessarily know. Sometimes, Jill used the word temporary and what we’re looking for always is a quick fix to our pain. I’m sure this boy has pain. So the pain isn’t going to be taken away because he changes his gender. God is a loving God. God loves all people. So he loves this boy. The boy needs to hear what in my opinion is what a healthy sexuality is because he probably doesn’t know. So it’s not like he’s rebelling against a healthy sexuality, he probably doesn’t understand. Most kids—think about us. I don’t know about you guys, but my parents never talked to me about sex. So where do kids learn it? From the internet. I’m not sure I trust the internet in that place.

Jill Hubbard: Well, and see, psychologically, there’s a killing off of the self that we were born as. But what kids don’t understand is that the hormones, the changes, the treatment—you are hastening your death. Either way, you’re killing yourself off.

Jim Burns: You know, there’s a woman who transitioned and then she transitioned back and she’s pretty famous and she’s on YouTube and all those kind of things. But what’s interesting is she said she did that because she had so much pain in other issues. It wasn’t even her sexuality issues, but she had pain and she thought this was going to make her—for her to transition to become a man. And then she got to childbearing age and she went, "Oh my goodness, I have an innate desire to have a child." So she actually went the other way. She didn’t get yippees from her community. She got alienated. So that’s the other part that’s so key. We have to be real careful, but I think when a mom does it—it’s so hard and the mom and the grandma need support systems around them to work through this because that’s a hard thing. And of course, they don’t want to talk about it sometimes because they feel shame.

Brian Perez: Jane, thank you so much for calling in today to New Life Live and we’re going to be here for two hours. We would love to help you with whatever it is you’re struggling with or what a loved one is struggling with. Maybe they recently came out and told you something that they’re going through or maybe it’s you. Maybe you were just handed divorce papers or you found out that your spouse has betrayed you. Maybe things aren’t going so well at work. We’d love to talk about that too. Give us a call 1-800-229-3000. If you’re watching on Facebook and YouTube, thanks for watching, but we’d love to hear from you too. So call in 1-800-229-3000.

We are back on New Life Live. 1-800-229-3000 is the number to call and right before the break, I was talking about how you can call in and speak to Dr. Jill Hubbard and Dr. Jim Burns if betrayal is something that you’re going through. Women, we know this happens often and we are so sorry that this is something you’re going through. We have a virtual gathering this coming Saturday. It’s four hours from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Central Time because many women tell us that they feel isolated after betrayal trying to hold everything together while carrying this overwhelming pain.

Rescue is the name of the event and it was created just for you. Laura Mangin McDonald will be there for a powerful four-hour online experience focused on healing, safety, and hope after betrayal. You don’t have to have all the answers, just take that first step which could be to register for Rescue. It’s happening this Saturday. You can get all the details at NewLife.com or by calling 1-800-New-Life. And if you want to talk to Dr. Jill and Dr. Jim, 1-800-229-3000 is our number.

We’ve got a few ways that you can get your question to us. You can leave us a voicemail. You can send us an email. Our favorite way is when you call in to 1-800-229-3000, but we understand that you may not be able to do that, so we’ve created these other ways that you can reach us. You can find the email address and the phone number for the voicemail at NewLife.com/radio. But Marie in Florida sent in this question: Is my husband right in forbidding me not to visit my children or for them to come home to visit?

Marie says, "My husband doesn’t want me to have anything to do with my four adult children or grandchildren from a previous marriage. We’ve been married 18 years and he didn’t start out this way or I wouldn’t have married him, but it has gradually escalated after the first three to four years of marriage. They all live out of state so I was only seeing one or two of them once every two years then once a year when they would come to our area. He wants nothing to do with them and I am not to talk about them. He says they are rednecked and those with a tattoo have a mental problem—which he says about everyone who has a tattoo.

"He said he would compromise and let me see my youngest daughter’s family once a year at Thanksgiving. I would have to fly to Texas. When they come to Florida, they’re not allowed to come to our house even though this was the land they lived on growing up and we have a five-bedroom, two-bath home. My husband doesn’t have a full-time income although he works six days a week at his own business, but he doesn’t take a salary or any income from it. We live off my Social Security and my retirement pension goes directly into savings which we don’t have to use even if or when I take a trip. I went to a grandson’s high school graduation and now in six weeks he’ll be graduating from Army boot camp which my daughter expects me to attend and it is important to me. I don’t get to see my other children because my husband says that would take more time of me being away from him." So guys, what do you say to Marie?

Jill Hubbard: And do they have any children together or does he have children from a previous marriage? It doesn’t say. Okay. Well, this is always the hard one because we love when people write in and we encourage them to do it. At the same time, I’ve got questions galore here because on the surface, she’s in a pretty toxic relationship. Marie, if you’re listening, you’re in a toxic relationship with that man and the way you work through that is to probably get some help immediately if you haven’t. Why? What we would ask you is have you gotten some counseling through this? Is there a counselor, is there a moderator, a mediator through some of this? Because these are your children.

Jim Burns: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like they’ve done anything, right? But he doesn’t like who they are, so he’s very judgmental. He’s kind of doing a no contact. We typically hear about no contact with Gen Z kids or millennials with their parents or whatever. But he’s kind of trying to do a no contact and I don’t think that’s the best way. I mean, it doesn’t sound like they’re—it sounds like they’re safe. I mean, if they were rednecks who he was afraid for his life or something, but I don’t hear any of that.

Jill Hubbard: So some things are standing out to me. First of all, that he’s forbidding her. In a relationship that is supposed to be mutual and you’re supposed to be partners, I don’t understand the word forbidding. So he’s not allowing. They’ve been married a long time. It sounds like with him not working—I wonder, one, is he just retired or is there some insecurity there? Oh, he did say that he works six days a week. Okay, but I’m just wondering about his own feelings about himself and if in some way reminders of a life before him is somehow injurious to him. And that it would take time away from him—it kind of sounds like an all-consuming guy, like it’s all about him and he’s not really caring about Marie. You give birth to four children and grandchildren—you’re biologically tied. Even when they’re adopted, you’re tied to those children. Exactly. I can’t imagine anything worse that a husband could do.

Jim Burns: I don’t understand. They’ve been married 18 years although for a long time this has been his story. I know the music’s gone, but I’ll say it real quickly. I just looked up a scripture that says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That’s Ephesians 5:22. Submit means serve one another. So sometimes you go out of your way to serve your wife’s need of seeing those children. But I agree, they need to get some help. This is a marital issue. It really is.

Brian Perez: *Intimacy in Marriage* would be good for you guys to attend. We will be right back on New Life Live. 1-800-229-3000 is the number to call online. NewLife.com or by calling 1-800-New-Life. You can also text NLM to 28950. And we love that you guys watch New Life Live and you listen or maybe you listen to the podcast, but help us. Help us shoulder the cost of going after the one so there’s always a place for them to land, heal, and start again. If your heart breaks for the one, become a 99 for the 1 partner and stand in that gap. You can learn more at NewLife.com/99for1. To the phones we go. Here is Susan in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She listens to us on Sirius XM Channel 131. Hey there, Susan. Welcome to New Life Live.

Susan: Hi. I have two adult grown sons and they have families of their own. The one though has seven children bio and then he married a gal that has two children, so that’s 10—total of 10. But anyway, I have reached out and my husband and I both would love nothing more, we’re going into our retirement, we’d love nothing more than to have a relationship with our teenage and adult grandchildren, but it just seems like they just don’t have time for us. And we’re having a hard time dealing with this.

Brian Perez: Do they live locally? Are they spread across the nation or what?

Susan: Oh no, and that might be part of the problem. We’re self-employed and both of my sons work in the business and we’re only like five miles away each direction from all of your grandkids. They don’t come over to visit, they don’t call, they don’t text. When it’s birthdays, they did come over—my husband’s birthday was July 4th and they did come over, but you could tell that some of them didn’t really want to be there so they kind of left earlier. But it’s very hurtful. I have wept many tears over this and I don’t know how to deal with it.

Jill Hubbard: Susan, what’s the age range of your grandkids?

Susan: The oldest is 28 and the youngest is 14. And then I have four great-grandchildren as well.

Jill Hubbard: Okay. And when the kids were little, did you have more relationship with them?

Susan: I did because this son that has the seven children had went through a horrendous divorce with his wife because she was an alcoholic and stealing money and whatnot. So I had to be the caretaker for the children then that were left in the home. And I feel like that’s why I feel so bonded to them, but now they don’t feel bonded to me. I don’t know if it’s their ages. I can’t figure it out. And I have other friends that tell me, "Well, you need to be the one to reach out to them. You need to call them."

Jill Hubbard: I do think age does play a role. Little kids are very loving with grandparents and you can do no wrong. But you were also kind of thrown into the mom role and now as they’re getting older, they’re focused on their lives and their friends and their activities. So one of the things is that like we as moms, we make our kids feel young. And so when they’re trying to feel big and grown up, they don’t always want to feel young. So there’s a natural pushing away and moving out into the world.

And you have to be—I always warn people, you have to kind of grow with the kids because we get so much affection from little kids, there’s a tendency to want to hold on to that time period. "Oh, remember when you were so cute and little and we did this and that?" And they don’t always like that. That’s not where they’re at now. Once in a while, but so grandparents have to grow with the kids and you have to show interest in them.

And it’s not that—I mean, I don’t know how your grandkids feel and I don’t know if there’s anything that’s happened that would cause them to push away from you. But kids as they grow up, they internalize their parents and their grandparents. So they hold us on the inside and they often forget to connect with us on the outside. And we still want ongoing relationship. So more of the burden is on you, Susan, because you care more in that way. The need is greater for you than it is for them because maybe they’ve already gotten a lot of good from you. And so it’s nice to see grandparents once in a while, but their life, their friends are important. And I don’t know how your sons—what they do to encourage the contact or not.

And also we have to remember that seven of these kids had an alcoholic mom, right? Is that what you’re saying? The alcoholic mom—when a mom is an alcoholic, it does a number on kids and can really cause them to be more detached and feel like, you know, home isn’t necessarily a safe place.

Susan: This son that had the seven children remarried a woman and she’s totally different than the first wife and she kind of—I don’t know. I just guess I feel like I have to step back. When they first got married five years ago, I determined I was going to step back and let them have their own family. I wasn’t going to be the mom figure. And she has taken over and I guess there’s still things that my grandchildren do. For an example, they went to the county fair and they posted pictures and I swear to God the way they were dressed—we are a believing family. We raised our sons to, you know, they love the Lord. And when I saw those pictures, I just got sick in my stomach. But somebody said, "Well, that’s not your role though. You can’t speak into their lives any longer because you’re not their mother, you never were."

Jill Hubbard: You’re kind of the displaced mom, Susan. And that’s a hard role. You were there when you were needed and now, sorry, we don’t need you anymore. And this new mom and these new ages, right? It’s a whole different chapter of life and it can really feel like you were discarded and that feels very hurtful. And it’s really about them growing, embracing their new family, not discarding you, but they just don’t need you in the same ways they once did. And that’s something you’re having to mourn and grieve.

Jim Burns: Susan, but they still need you. They need you as grandma. And grandmas come alongside and they cheer them on. For the 14-year-old, I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, but if they have an event, a dance recital, a game, grandma can sit there and probably might not even have interest in whatever the sporting event was, but grandma cheers them on. Grandma slips them a $10 Starbucks card to the older ones.

Play that role. Be what I call the party time grandma and as much as it drives you nuts how they’re dressing or whatever, you just let that go. As much as—and I understand you’ve got to have conversations with your friends about that because it is, it’s harmful what’s going on there. But you may have to reinvent your role. You’re now not the mom because you kind of were the mom. When Jill said the discarded mom, because you played such a prevalent and important role, they don’t now know you as grandma. They know you as the surrogate mom for a while. So play the grandma role and pick at them one at a time and don’t expect a 14-year-old to a 20-something-year-old to probably spend a whole lot of time stopping by. I wish I would have done that with my grandmother and I probably didn’t. I loved this lady and she was the party time grandma so she came our way. And when she was there, I was glad to see her, but I didn’t spend a lot of time. I was too busy with my friends and whatnot. But she played a significant role as I look back. She was one of the most influential people in my life. But you’ve got to reinvent your relationship.

Jill Hubbard: Exactly. You have to change your expectations too, Susan. You will do way more of the giving and you will receive a lot less for now, but they will get older.

Brian Perez: *Doing Life with Your Adult Children* would be a good book for you. Jim is also going to be hosting a webinar in a few months called *Doing Life with Your Adult Children*, so stay on the line, Susan, we’ll send you a registration for the webinar. Anyone else, you can sign up for it, get all the details at NewLife.com or by calling 1-800-New-Life. It’s break time. We’ll be right back with more of your calls. April, Cindy, and many more coming up on New Life Live.

We always talk about the intensives that we have here like *Every Man’s Battle*, *Intimacy in Marriage*, and *Restore*. Well, maybe you’ve wanted to attend one, but finances are an issue. We can help you with a financial scholarship. You can get all the details about that at NewLife.com or by calling 1-800-New-Life. I should call it a need-based scholarship, but again, call in for all the details about that because we’d hate for finances to get in the way of you attending one of these intensives that we offer. Back to the phones. 1-800-229-3000. This hour is almost over, but we’re going to be here for another hour after this one, so keep calling in. 1-800-229-3000. Let’s go to April in Columbus, Ohio, who listens to us on NewLife.com. Welcome, April, to New Life Live.

April: Hi. I have a 10-year-old granddaughter who thinks she is a Therian and then she likes girls.

Brian Perez: What is a Therian? Because I’m not always up on these things.

April: My understanding is that they think they’re animals, the spirit of an animal or an animal. She’s walked and crawled in odd behaviors on the ground.

Brian Perez: Does she dress in costume like a furry or something? I’ve heard of a furry. Is that the same thing?

April: Well, it’s like—no, they don’t consider themselves furries, but she will wear ears in her hair and wears a tail.

Jill Hubbard: What grade is she in?

April: Going into fifth. She’s already had a menstrual cycle.

Brian Perez: Fifth grade, 10 years old, thinks she’s a Therian and you said she says she likes girls.

April: Yes. And my response—I listened to the callers before and I identify with the last one—the whole concept of their sexuality. I said to her, "You know, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." That’s all I know. I know that you kids are being pushed into all kinds of weird stuff. When I was a young girl, if I said I had a girlfriend, it meant I had a friend who was a girl. It didn’t mean that I had a girlfriend like a boyfriend. So I don’t know if I’m talking in the right direction. She kind of opens up and then I don’t hear from her. How do I help her? How do I reach out? She’s not a believer. You talk about kids who come from a believing household, well what about the kids who don’t?

Jim Burns: I think there’s a couple things you can do and I love your heart for your granddaughter. The fact is—what we do is we sometimes don’t want to stay in the story, but stay in her story. She’s 10. That means she’s being influenced by a group of kids or she’s being influenced online—and boy, 10 is young to be influenced online, but she probably has access to online stuff. So she’s been influenced by a group that for some reason she identifies with. But if you think about it, like when I was 10, I listened to a certain style of music that I didn’t listen to when I was 12 because my identity had changed. When I was 10, I wanted to be a professional athlete and by the time I was 12, I wanted to be something else.

One of the things is she’s searching—she has an identity. The primary task of like say 10 to even up to 18-year-olds is to find their identity. That’s a big deal in writing when you write about adolescence. 10, interestingly enough, she’s pre-adolescent, but she’s real close. So she has found an identity in something that we all would look at and go, "Well, that’s a little bizarre." But the truth of the matter is she’s got people around her who’s probably going, "Oh how cool you are identifying as this particular animal," and then she also has kids—I mean she’s 10. She’s not even in full puberty yet in terms of her—well then she is in puberty, she’s at least in the process of puberty of course.

And what that means is that she’s just trying to figure out who she is. So sometimes grandma can do an even more effective job than mom and dad at just showing love and understanding, but also understand that she’s probably not going to identify as an animal and wear the ears and the tail when she’s 14 or 15. And actually, she may meet a boy when she gets a little older at even 13, 14, or 15 and she may go, "You know, I don’t like girls anymore. I like girls the way you described liking girls: my girlfriend is my friend." So stay in the story. This is when we stay in the story and don’t just be—be that safe person. Don’t be the person as much as you want to just say, "Are you kidding me?" Be that person who can kind of be that loving grandma who can help her through the process so one day she looks back and go, "Wow, my grandmother really helped me because I was really goofy when I was 10 and now I’m doing better."

April: How about parents who are like accepting or trying not to make it—the mom tends to be like—I said to her, "What are you doing on the ground?" And then the mom goes, "Oh, well that’s exercise and it helps with your abs." And I’m thinking to myself, "No, it’s hurting her wrists if anything." So it sounds like mom’s enabling this behavior a little bit. And then dad’s like, "Okay, I’m going to accept this, but I’m not going to accept that," trying not to push her away.

Jill Hubbard: Right. And so then everybody gets fearful. It’s either the over-anxious trying to shut it down or it’s the fearful walking on eggshells. And I think you have to be somewhere in the middle. I think you’re right, it used to be that kids could try on different personas and nobody had a fear that they would stay that way forever. And with this kind of behavior, she’s again—the friend group, going fifth grade, friend group becomes very important. Girls mature at different rates. Okay, she’s already had a menstrual cycle. This may or may not be sexual depending on maybe some of the influences around her.

And so I think that you can be curious about it. "Well, tell me what it’s like and what do you guys play?" And even say, "You know, I know like for instance, when my daughter was this age, there were a group of girls that she called them the pony girls." And I go, "What do you mean the pony girls?" She goes, "Oh mom, they think they’re ponies and they act like ponies all the time and they’re really immature." Okay, well that was their form of play and those girls to this day are not ponies. Right. And so it’s where she’s finding acceptance. So the more you can get her talking about it so she can hear herself, so that she can know what she thinks and believes, the better. And yet it’s okay to kind of question. "Hmm, I’m trying to understand that. Be curious, not condemning. I’m trying to understand that. That doesn’t completely make sense to me." And then, you know, have a dialogue and have ongoing dialogue with her.

Brian Perez: It could be as she’s answering these questions from grandma that it makes her think, "Oh yeah, why do I think I’m an animal?" But she has to first feel acceptance. You love her and accept her no matter what, but you’re curious about this new thing. We didn’t have Therians when I was little. Tell me about them. All right, April, thanks for your phone call today. We’re going to be in the studio for another hour. If you’re on hold right now, stay on hold, we’ll get to you in just a moment here at New Life Live.