Learning Your New Role as the Parent of an Adult Child

Jim Burns has great advice for parents whose children have grown into adulthood. Now basically we've devoted at least two decades of our life to being in control or at least semi control of our kids and then they became adults and we're not in control anymore. Welcome to today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

I'm John Fuller. Well John today's topic is very relevant to you and me and I think it's safe to say there are a lot of parents listening who are going to benefit from this message from Dr. Jim Burns. Jim's a good friend, a parenting expert and the president of Homeward which seeks to build God honoring families which I applaud and as Jim is going to explain the transition from being the parent of a child to the parent of an adult, I'm laughing because I'm living it, can be a bit tricky and this is new territory for both parties obviously. Our kids are new to adulthood and we've never been the parents of adults so since everyone is new in their role, this is a good time to get some godly instruction from someone who's been there. Yeah and Jim Burns and his wife Kathy have three grown daughters and you'll hear some of their stories here as the show unfolds. Let me mention that Jim is a prolific author and what you're about to hear is based on one of his books called Doing Life with Your Adult Children. Keep Your Mouth Shut and The Welcome Mat Out. It is a terrific resource and get a copy from us here at Focus on the Family where the proceeds go right back into ministry.

Here now is Jim Burns speaking at the Legacy Coalition Grandparenting Summit just a few years ago on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm gonna give you some principles today and these principles are principles that come out of research but mainly out of my own experience having kids who are transitioning and I'll be honest with you, our kids are amazing and they're now in their 30s but they kind of bumped and it kind of shocked us even while they were at Christian colleges and whatnot so here's some principles. Principle number one, are you ready for it? You may not like it, you're fired. You're fired, well actually you're not totally fired but your role as a parent has to change and I want to give you a part of the job description.

Number one is you have to give your kids the passport to adulthood even if they're not acting like adults. You have to also rewrite the script of your life by letting go of control. Like I said that's not easy if you're a control freak and often this will deal with grief and we'll have to deal with some grief.

C.S. Lewis said it best, change always involves a sense of loss and I don't know that Kathy and I saw this as loss until it started happening. I remember the day that that Heidi our youngest we dropped her off at school and we were driving back and we both cried and we were both silent because we realized no we're going through some kind of a loss and letting go of our children has to be counted as one of those necessary losses okay.

Our role changes and so does theirs. There was a woman who I speak with quite a bit. I love this woman. She is 45 years old. She is one of the top execs in the Silicon Valley at one of the main, main tech firms and she has been incredibly successful and she was telling me back in the green room a few years ago that she had brought her mom out from Asia and her dad had died and so she had set her mom up in a very nice home. She named the city and that meant it was a multi-million dollar home and she had her kids over and it was really cold that day and so she was putting on the kids coats and things like that after they were getting ready to leave and her mother said to her at 45 years old honey put your coat on it's cold outside and she said you know what Jim I don't know why I did this but I got frustrated with my mom and so I just said to my mom you know mom I'm very capable.

I'm 45 years old. I bought you this house you know I'm successful at what I do. Why do you keep telling me you know what to do and furthermore why would you tell me to put on my coat? She said it's cold outside and I'm your mother.

So I said to her what did you do and she said I put on my coat see. So again it's not easy. Now that woman had a problem with what I'm gonna call principle number two. Are you ready for this? I'm gonna kind of do the shotgun approach at you but principle number two is this. If you didn't like the first one you're not gonna like this one either.

Are you ready for it? Unsolicited advice is usually taken as criticism. Experience is a better teacher than advice. I think one of the hardest things to do is let our kids make poor choices and then realize that they're gonna have to learn by experience. So here's the deal. Whenever we are intrusive with giving advice what they hear is not the lesson we're trying to give them. What they hear is that you don't trust them to be all grown up.

Even when they're not making good decisions and so it's important for us to understand that. See these scars? You guys can see the scars. That's from biting my tongue right here. Oh my goodness. Just I have the answer.

I want to fix it and then I have to bite my tongue. In fact what I say under this idea of unsolicited advice is taken as criticism is I think it's important for us to ask our adult children for permission to give advice. I remember one time Christy and Steve. Christy's my oldest.

Steve's her husband and the two grandkids they were living with us for two months because they were transitioning from an apartment to Texas and so they you know got done with the release and they were saying can we come and it was the greatest thing for us because we got to hang out with our grandkids and Steve. Christy was driving us a little nuts but that's another story. So they're in an argument.

Now I would call it a full-blown argument but it wasn't totally a full-blown argument. It's awkward when you have your you know grown daughter and her husband having this disagreement and I'm in the kitchen so I'm kind of stuck. They're in the little family room and they're having an argument over the fact that they were moving to Texas and how were they going to move and what was the most effective way to do it and the cheapest way and Steve had a terrible idea in my humble opinion and I always say in my humble opinion Kathy goes in your humble opinion you think you're always right but that's another story. So and Christy's wasn't much better but I had a better idea so I listened and then at the opportune moment I came in and did my advice. I said hey can I give you guys some advice and Christy goes not now dad not now and I went okay people pay me to give you advice but you know they don't. So I go I go to the back room and I told Kathy what my advice was and she said you know that is really good advice they need to take that.

Well they didn't. So the next week after they had gone to Texas I flew in I think I was speaking in Dallas and Kathy was there to help you know get the house set up watch the grandkids things like that and they're talking about the fact that half of the crib had fallen off of the oh this is a horrible idea it was like this crazy thing that he had on the back of a truck and so the crib had fallen off we ended up having to pay for the crib at Target a new crib that was great. Secondly the bed they had lost the screws to the bed so they were not sure what to do and the bed was just on the floor it stayed on the floor of the entire year by the way and then there was one other thing it was a dresser where they they had pretty much killed the dresser and so they were talking about this it wasn't a good trip right and so I said to them well you know you guys that that's hard but you know you kind of chose that way and Christy said dad you had an idea what was your idea and I said oh this is what I would have done dad why didn't you tell us that you would have saved us a lot of money right so I still think it's best to ask for permission but here's the deal your role changes your role changes from mentor and coach that's where it goes so you were in control and you're still mom and dad but now you're a mentor and a coach what I have found in the 30s not so much in the 20s because it wasn't easy for us but in the 30s it's a really great place to be in fact yesterday we were driving we had a weird way of getting here and Kathy was in the car and our daughter called she was in New York she was working in New York she lives in California and she called Kathy just for mentoring and just for some insight and I listened to Kathy handle that and it was so beautiful but that's because the role has changed unsolicited advice is given his criticism but she was able to give Heidi a lot of advice because Heidi needed it and frankly our role changes the Bible says something very interesting the Bible says so blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth you're not thinking about this no not at all but they are that sometimes when you're giving advice you're giving them cursing I'm not talking about cussing now but that you're cursing them and so it says bless or curse what I want to say to you loud and clear is bless them be the people who bless your kids do you agree with everything no we don't agree with everything that our kids say or do but our job is to bless them and when you bless them that changes the relationship so that's principle number two you ready for principle number three oh boy this is a biggie here it is become a student of their culture not your culture what this means is that our kids are either Millennials or Gen Z some of your kids are a tad bit older but pretty much they're living in the millennial world if you would and millennials are different Millennials think different Millennials act different okay and today many of us are saying you know who is this kid and why is it taking them so long to grow up and why aren't they growing up at the same values that we taught them when they were younger well one of the things we have to do is understand their distinctives I'm not saying you agree with their distinctives but understand their distinctives one of the distinctives of a millennial and Gen Z is that they are absolutely shaped by technology we're using technology but they're shaped by technology it's how they work how they date how they meet people and get married 39% now 39% meet online that's huge but here's some other distinctives one of the good news distinctives is that once these Millennials and Gen Z is 24 and under so that's just happening now but once these Millennials get married you know what the number one desire in their life is they have good marriages and have good parents well guess what that's where they need us as grandparents to be you know mentors in their life and that's where they need the church and we're actually seeing some of them who are fleeing the church are actually coming back when when they get married when they have kids because what it was it was it was a good place for them and then they took a time off and now they're coming back and so that's that's good news one of the harder ones is this this is the distinctive are you ready for it they view tolerance as a form of loving so they have problems with a biblical worldview they were raised in the church they don't have a problem with Jesus although they don't agree with everything that Jesus would say sometimes when it comes to within the scripture so they view tolerance as a form of loving this becomes pretty interesting at Christmas and Easter dinners and birthday dinners and when the political world comes in because they may have a different view than you but again we have to be students of the culture and we have to understand how they were raised here's one things that they're raised I call this the cringe factor that your kids saw pornography at age 11 you can google me on this okay and so your kids at that level probably saw pornography so they viewed sexuality different cohabitation 1974 I know that's a long time ago but hey you were here if I'm speaking to young people they weren't but in 1974 75% of the population in America said they would not live with someone before instead of marriage cohabitation today 74 plus percent say that they would live with someone before instead of marriage some of you have kids who are living with people or who did and yet secular research teaches us that if people cohabitate there is a greater chance when they get married of a divorce so the point that I'm saying is our kids have been living with different experiences than the experiences that we lived with gender identity confusion I could spend all day talking about the gender identity craze and the culture is on fire and so they have a different view and you can't understand their view and oftentimes they can't understand your view now that doesn't mean I'm speaking in generalities it doesn't mean all kids are like this but it's important to know that the culture is like this and we've got to ask this question and this is a tough question for a lot of us are we enabling or are we helping them the question we have to ask is if we do that are we really going to help them become responsible adults so here's the principle they will never know how far the town is if you carry them on your back and way too many times as parents because we love our kids so much we want to do that I mean a woman said to me you know my son is 22 years old and I wish he would schedule his own pediatrician appointments now that's just irony on like several levels okay I mean one is that he needs to have his you know pediatrician appointments done by his mom but two is why is he still going to a pediatrician you know that's just another question I have but you know what was she doing she was enabling dependency we have to be careful not to enable dependency there's a phrase that they use in the recovery movement that kind of works for our adult kids you earned it this doesn't mean that you're not being loving we'll talk about that in a minute but you earned it it's that whole idea of experience right is a better teacher than advice so Sean he's a graduate of UCLA he got good grades he and his mom and dad come into my office and Sean just kind of has a smirk on his face and he's just graduated from UCLA spent a summer traveling in Europe they seem to have a lot of money they live in Newport Beach California and now he's back at home but he's getting up at one o'clock and he's playing a lot of video games he's smoking a little bit of pot and he's not getting a job and it's driving the parents nuts and he's a vegan and they're not vegan so the mom cooks a vegan meal for him and then cooks their meal please don't do that okay I mean vegan if you want to your kids want to be vegan fine but let them figure that out so he's sitting on the couch and the mom and the dad are on the also on the couch but she's hugging one side the dad is hugging the other and Sean just has the whole middle couch and he's just thinking this is the funniest thing because the mom and dad are in a fight and I'm standing I it's they're out of control I am doing a terrible job counseling because both of them are out of control and they're blaming each other and they're saying how bad it is and how Sean is finally the dad just goes Sean has a problem Sean kind of looks at his dad and I said can I be can I just jump in here for a minute I said I don't think Sean has a problem I think you have a problem Sean has a great life you're paying for everything Sean all of a sudden looks at me and I said who's paying for his pot well not us well how does he get money well we give him a some money you're paying for his pot you need a a plan to help launch Sean and he's got way too good of a deal so he doesn't have a problem you do so what do we do we have to land the helicopter we do we need to land that helicopter and we still sometimes have the helicopter you know when I wrote the book doing life with your adult children I'm so shocked and honored what a best seller it is on Amazon and whatnot but I laughed because I was speaking in Hawaii there was a group about 4,500 they interviewed me and then there was a little signing and there would be not a you know parents of adults well they they came through and they wanted me to sign the book you know who it was it was like 28 year olds and I'd go you can't be a parent of an adult they oh no this is for my mom she really needs this her name is Claire you know now what's fascinating is this next one is the biggie and the next principle is the one that we probably get the most response from our you know courses and small groups at church issues and all this and and they're always they write me every day on this stuff okay and it's basically this when your grown child violates values now I realize everybody in this room does not have grown children who are violating your values I totally understand that but what I'm hearing more and more is that we're in shock right and that's again like I said it's the biggie and here's the principle you can't want it more than they want it it's so hard I love this this phrase good thing Easter is a season and not just a day because some miracles take time and I want to say to some of you who have your kids who are violating their values I want you to know that kids do come back and sometimes maybe if you have a younger adult who's still kind of going through that process you know sometimes it is when they get married some of the issues that we're dealing with in in empty nest work and in grandparenting work is that when kids have a troubled situation and the parents aren't letting you connect with the grandkids for church or things like that I totally get that but in many ways there's some good things coming out of it and especially people who live with these principles so let me give you some under this principle number five you can't want it more than they want it let me let me give you some good advice number one is you've got to offer them tough love now please do not mix tough love with being mean or getting angry and getting frustrated always at them no tough love means you allow the consequences of their poor choices to happen they're adults there's nothing you can do about that a woman asked me one time you know what do I do with this and I said does she know what you believe she was living with her boyfriend does she know what you believe yes does she know how you feel yes then expand the relationship because she's not going to stay with this guy odds are saying and if it crashes then you need to be safe that doesn't mean you have to agree it means you can be in a relationship loving god honoring relationship with them and still expand the relationship you can't be a one-topic parent is what I'm saying because too many times when our heart is breaking because a kid is violating a value and it could be drugs it could be that they're living with somebody it could be that they've walked away from faith and the list goes on but when that's the case we become one-topic parents and so we pour our energy and our time and our effort just into that when in fact we've got to expand the relationship because they still like to go get coffee they still want to talk about snowboarding or surfing or whatever it might be see and so it's so key for us and yet it's hard I remember when our daughter Becca was going through some tough times Azusa Pacific University a Christian school and I would go up most Tuesdays Kathy teaches a Bible study on Tuesday and so I would go up on Tuesdays and have dinner with her and I would always have something in my pocket I'm always prepared and it was like a long list of things I wanted to talk to her about and there were days we had that conversation and days we didn't days I'd listen to her talk about boys and life and you know school and complain about this or whatever but what I realized was that once she did crash and she kind of did that I needed to be that safe person so again she knew what I believed no doubt she knew how I felt but constant criticism even if it's true breaks the relationship apart as long as they know what you believe okay and I think that's a real got quiet in here by the way and I think one of the reasons got quiet is because we know we even know this but sometimes we don't do this so we can't bail them out I have a friend who had a daughter who in college had an open container really a neat girl I've known this girl most of her life and she had an open container she was just barely at the intoxication level probably semi-safe to drive this guy has so much money that he could have easily had an attorney get her off of it they decided not to they didn't bail her out so here was a woman who was caught he picked her up at jail talk about a bad experience for him and it was mainly the open container that was the problem so she had to go to DUI school she had to pay her insurance which went up like two thousand dollars it was on her record at school it was on her record in business for 10 years best decision they could have ever made guess what she doesn't do that so they didn't bail her out now he had the capacity to do that but he chose not to that was good parenting okay and also you just can't dump your anger and your frustration on them so in a in a time when all of us are probably concerned about certain issues with our adult children one level or another I mean we still are it's what we talk about I mean Kathy and I've been together for a couple of days trying to get here and what do we talk about we talked about our adult kids we talked about our grandkids we talked about our fears we talked about the culture we talked about what are our grand what kind of culture our grandkids going to be growing up in even with our kids growing up in a culture that wasn't all that friendly to god-honoring values so again for us it's so key that that we realize that we can't want it more than they want it here's the bottom line the bottom line is if your kids are you know messing up and you have heartbreak here's the bottom line you know what they're asking just one question do you still love me do they know that you love them even though you don't approve of some of their actions who's the safe person in their life who's the cheerleader because there's other things that you can be cheering about and I know stories are really really tough last principle find joy in the empty nest and I think it's important for us to understand this concept that when your child leaves home and their life fills up with fresh experiences follow their lead and do the same thing you've got to find fresh experiences part of those fresh experiences is that what has happened in our emptiness is it's given the freedom and and the excitement to put energy into our grandkids learning from things from the legacy coalition from me I've read through the bible three times with James who's my grandson and my namesake and my heart is wrapped around his I've read through the children's bible three times I didn't do that with my kids I wish I could say I did but I didn't but all of a sudden it's gotten much more serious in that way a successful life and a well-lived family life is never accidental lean into this you have so much time now on your hands to build a legacy of faith between your grandchildren and you and I know sometimes it's complicated I like to call it a love affair between generations and it is a love affair between generations Kathy retired from working with kids who have autism so that she could be a fully engaged grandma and I respect her so much for doing that there's sometimes when we are exhausted but it's good there's a scripture that I want to leave you with and it's a scripture I kind of just found in my own life and I found it through the message version and it goes like this it says be alert be present don't you see it there it is I'm making a road through the desert and rivers through the badlands and I think our job is to be alert be present because God is not finished with you yet and I'm sure you've heard that in almost every session this is the time for us to lean into our legacy and make a difference from generation to generation to generation what wisdom from Dr Jim Burns speaking at a grandparenting summit hosted by our friends at the Legacy Coalition on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I love that vision Jim's giving us there to let go of control and have a respect-based relationship with our adult children and by extension our grandchildren and I know many of you might have a prodigal adult child and if there's grandchildren involved you might not have access to them and my heart breaks for you if that's the case give us a call here at Focus on the Family our friendly staff would count it a privilege to listen to your story and pray with you and if needed you can request a call back from one of our Caring Christian Counselors it's all free and we provide that service because others have helped us financially to be able to do that yeah and our number is 800 the letter a in the word family 800-232-6459 and if you'd like to learn more about having a healthy relationship with your adult child I'd highly recommend the book by Jim Burns called Doing Life with Your Adult Children Keep Your Mouth Shut and The Welcome Mat Out it's a great book title but putting it into action could be tough the book will give you encouragement for all of the changing seasons of your child's journey through adulthood with much more detail than what we can cover today and we'll send you Jim's book when you make a monthly pledge of any amount to the work here at Focus on the Family it doesn't have to be a large amount it's the consistency that really helps us budget throughout the year if you can't make that monthly commitment I get it if you can make a one-time gift that would be really helpful too and please don't view this as a transactional thing it it is but much more so it's investing in the work of the kingdom I think last year alone John we had 193,000 decisions for Christ half a million couples helped so be a part of that let that accrue to your account in heaven yeah get your copy of the book Doing Life with Your Adult Children when you call 800-A-Family that's 800-232-6459 or you can donate online and request that book at focusonthefamily.com slash broadcast and remember when you get the book from us today we'll include a free audio download of the entire presentation from Jim Burns with extra content on behalf of the entire team thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly take a moment please and leave a rating for us in your podcast app and then share this episode with a friend who might need some encouragement in their parenting journey I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. God wants true disciples ones that think like him talk like him walk like him disciples that bring shalom to the chaos of this world pursue that path with the RVL discipleship series Bible scholar Ray Vanderlon will give you the tools to understand the Bible more deeply and inspire you to be a passionate follower of Christ watch the first episode at rvldiscipleship.com