Healing Parent and Adult Child Relationships (Part 1 of 2)

Tony really struggled in his marriage.

He and his wife seemed incompatible and headed toward divorce. Focus on the family many, many times is just very encouraging. Very encouraging for us to stick together, to pull through, to work it out, to go the distance.

I'm Jim Daly. This season, help us give families hope. And when you give today, your donation will be doubled.

Donate at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash joy. About nine months ago, she sent me an email stating that she was going to be cutting me out of her life, which she did. I've reached out to my children on various occasions, including the death of their grandmother, and there's been no response. I've not spoken to my dad in two years and haven't seen my mom since last year. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do to repair our relationships? A broken relationship between a parent and adult child is a painful reality for far too many families today.

And sometimes those relational challenges lead to estrangement where there's very little or even no communication anymore. Today on Focus on the Family, we're going to be exploring those kinds of tough situations, and our guest is psychologist Dr. John Townsend. Thanks for joining us.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, every family has to deal with differences and difficulties because we're fallen people. I mean, we don't live perfectly and therefore we create chaos in some way.

Some create more chaos than others. But one of the top calls we receive here in our counseling team comes from parents of adult children. It's a growing category for us where these relationships are broken for one reason or another. But you can apply it to, you know, every relationship that you have in marriage, in relationships with your adult children. Probably your teenagers too. The point is we hear often about feelings of resentment, sadness, anger, grief between the parents and their children. And it's heartbreaking because it makes life feel so much heavier. And today we're going to focus on giving attention specifically to those areas of relationship.

And I think, again, these principles are going to apply in every direction. Let me say this. God has created the family as the key social unit. You know, this is an institution not created by government or by man. It's created by God. And that's why we at Focus on the Family defend it vigorously because we believe this is the beginning.

This is where you learn as a child those moral values, those principles about God, and then how to treat others. And we have a wonderful guest today who's going to help us do that even better. Dr. John Townsend is a nationally known leadership consultant, psychologist, and bestselling author, and he's the founder of the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling. He and his wife have two adult children, and he's written a number of books, including the one we'll talk about today, called Boundaries.

It's a bestselling book that he co-wrote with Dr. Henry Cloud. John, welcome back to Focus. Thanks, guys. Now, on this, the Boundary Bundle, if I could call it that, all the Boundary materials, you've hit nine million units sold. That's incredible.

Nine million. Yeah, it's been a blessing. The funny thing is, Henry and I always thought when we wrote that stuff at the beginning 25 years ago that, okay, people learn about boundaries. They all have good boundaries, and we'll move on. But it's work to do it, and so they're selling more than they were then. And now the 25-year-olds are getting the book because their parents raised them with boundaries, and they're trying to teach their kids the same thing. Yeah. Let's move to the estrangement issue and what we set the program up to talk about. This conflict between parents and their adult children, I mentioned at Focus we're getting a lot more response with people that are experiencing that. Are you hearing the same? And why do you think the intensity of that relationship breakage between parent and the 20-something child is happening?

Yeah, I am hearing it and seeing a lot of it, Jim. And I think there's a reason for it is that, you know, God created us to be people who were full of grace and truth, like he is, like it talks about in Ephesians. And that means to be able to connect but also to be able to talk directly when you need someone without freaking everybody out. We're supposed to be loving people but truthing people. But there's been some family breakdown over the last 30 years where a lot of times the parents don't feel like they should do that. That might be a mean thing.

I want to keep the self-esteem good and all that. And so they've sort of like shied away from hard truths with their children. Now we've got a culture that's kind of the same way, that if you say something that you disagree with, you're out of my life. So the 25-year-olds, they had a background maybe where there wasn't a lot of truth and love. We call it integration in the clinical world. They weren't, truth and love weren't integrated. So maybe their background wasn't very much that way. And also the culture is saying, yeah, write anybody off that you disagree with instead of let's have a talk about it.

That skill is no longer present like it used to be. Which is so sad because that's how conflict gets taken care of, right? Absolutely.

It's the only way. And dealt with. You speak to that issue. You do a lot of counseling with people.

Describe that person and the why, how you could have this disconnect, this estrangement between you and your adult child. And it's kind of like that saying when you keep hitting your head up against the same problem and you deal with it in the same way. And you get the same result, which isn't where you want to be.

Definition of insanity. Right. Why do we do that as God's creatures? I mean, why aren't we learning from those mistakes?

Jim, I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One of them is a thing that we call in the clinical world defensive hope. And defensive hope says if it's first you don't succeed, try, try again. In other words, there are some times we're doing the same thing several times. You know, beating a nail into the wall can help. And so we do that. But then we take it to an extreme thinking, well, it's just not loud enough.

I'll tell them a million times. And then the adult child just alienates more. The other is because I think that they feel a bit helpless. You know, like, I've got no other skill here. And I feel like I'm going to, even if it threatens to alienate you, I want you back so bad I'll even do the wrong thing because that's better than doing nothing. Because the helplessness for an adult parent is so sad because this is the person I love the most. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, when you care about that person so much and you see... And you can't reach them.

It's so hard to be a parent and you can't reach them anymore. Well, and maybe that's a good question. Describe what has been the precedent there that has allowed this relationship to become so sour. And you get to that point where nothing's working now. You have heard all of it, I would think. So what happened ten years before that and eight years before that and five years before that?

Yeah. And it's always a combination in varying ratios between what I did as a parent and what my adult child did, right, from ten years ago. What's their part and what's my part?

It's never 100%, very, very rarely, it's 100% anything. So a lot of times on the parent's part is either when it was time to discipline little Sammy, I didn't do it at all because I didn't want to make him feel bad. And then that means hard talks later, they don't have the ability. Or I came on too hard with Sammy and I disciplined, you know, the punishment didn't fit the crime and I was way, way too strict with him and he's alienated. So that's kind of me on the parent part. And on Sammy's part, it's like, okay, I didn't get perfect parenting but I don't want to forgive and it's a lot easier to blow him off. And here I am also developmentally in the launching stages. You know, the Bible says in Genesis 2 about leaving and cleaving.

And here I'm in the leaving and cleaving stages, my mom and dad aren't the center of my life anymore. Right. They're just not. I'm laughing because I'm living it. Right.

And so they're kind of like oatmeal to me. It's just not interesting anymore. I've got all these friends and things I want to do when I want to travel. So I've got that pressure in my head plus we're kind of like at odds with some issue. It's way too much brain damage for me to try to go in about and have the hard talks. I'll just live my life. So they've got that launching energy saying it's just too much trouble. No, it's so true.

The one thing too and I think this would be the most common issue is, you know, when we're raising our kids in the single digits, they're five, eight, nine. There's a lot of control. You know, don't run out there. Don't light that on fire. We're dictating behavior. Right. Don't do this.

Don't do that. And then they get into the teen years and they're trying to express themselves and become more independent in their choices, et cetera. And we're still using controlling younger parenting approaches that inflame that situation. So describe that controlling parent, I guess, is the question. Yeah.

I think it's really clear to say that the way you phrase it, the way I look at it, Jim, is I call the years one to 11-ish, maybe 12, as the, you know, really controlled parent years. And that's a good thing. And that's a good thing because they don't know the rules of life. Their brain isn't formed.

They need to know, don't run out in the street. And if you do, I'm going to pull you back. Right. Right. But then the other years are what I would call the more gentler de-parenting years. I'm going to give you choices now, not every choice, but I'm going to let you, you know, start to think about values and consequences because I'm looking at the launch, your own leaving and cleaving launch.

So I parent with more control, first half, the de-parenting with less control than them. By that time, they know who they are. They know who God is.

They know what their skills of life are. Yeah. And it's so critical. I would think that's probably one of the greatest parenting errors that we make.

Yes. And that's a good thing for us to describe. The other thing there is then we hit those teenage years and because we don't know how to de-escalate or de-control, as you're saying, we can tend to then manipulate. And boy, teenagers, they have a nose for parental manipulation, don't they?

They can read that a mile away. Oh, so when did you shower last? Wouldn't it be nice to take a shower? It feels so good. I'm guilty of that with two boys.

I mean, it was half of my parenting. And we really think that the child's going to go, great idea. Hadn't thought of that. Bingo. Right between the eyes, you know, dad, it's time.

Thanks for the reminder. I didn't usually get that response. But what about that manipulation and how dangerous that can be as a parent? I think it's actually worse than direct control. It's not as bad as abuse. Nothing's as bad as abuse. But in terms of direct control versus manipulation, because if you're directly controlled, the child can say, well, you're too harsh or not harsh enough, but I know where you are.

I can trust you because you're this solid object saying, you'll be in time out for this. The manipulation, my favorite is when the mom says, do you know how long I was in labor with you? I've never heard that before.

Aren't you? But you want to go out with your friends again. It's just my wife actually had a friend say that it was a very effective tactic with her child to say, I gave birth to you. I can tell you what to do. And at some point in time, that doesn't really work.

Are you third party people here? Or the classic is I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it. Yeah, there's a good one. All that stuff. But in terms of manipulation, then the child goes, oh, I can't trust you. You're going to gain me and I don't feel like you're going to be honest with me. Direct control, you can say you're crazy or not crazy, but they trust. Manipulation, they go, how do I know what you say is for my benefit?

So it's a bad thing as you said. But I guess the flip side of that is then how does that adult child, again, let's just picture a 24-year-old whose parent is manipulative or controlling, how do they self-assess? How do they protect themselves? Let's speak to the other side of it, not just the parent side.

What mechanisms do they have to minimize the impact of that manipulation? Yeah, suppose you're listening to the program and you're thinking, well, I'm that age and my parents have been doing that to me. The best approach is to go to them with love and honor and say, I want to make things better.

You see all the way through the Bible when it talks about speak the truth in love and this sort of thing, confront your brother or sister. To go to them and say, thank you for what you've done for me, but there's some things that don't make it better. I always start off positive.

It's not as good as it could be. Could we communicate in a different way and here could be my part? And a lot of people, then their defenses will go down because you're not saying you're the person at fault.

You're just saying the ground's all level at the cross here. Here's what I've been doing that's crazy. Here's what you're doing and I want to make it better. It's really hard to say no to that invitation. John, let me play a clip that is from a mom who has struggled in her relationship with her daughter and have you respond. Hi, Dr. Townsend.

I have a question for you. In the past I have been divorced and there's been a lack of communication within the family and so I have an estranged daughter, an adult daughter who can't seem to find a way to forgive me. So my question is there's just how can I get that trust back and for her to find grace and mercy within herself for me? First off, my heart just sank when I heard her story and it's one that I hear way too much.

I'm sure you all hear it way too much too. Where a parent is in those years where you want to enjoy the relationship and you're growing up and flourishing and find your own way, she doesn't have that and all these years seem gone. I built a structure for situations like that and it's pretty simple. It's not easy but it's simple. And when she said, well, how do I get her to trust me, there's a step you've got to do before trust and it has to do with building a bridge. This is how you build a bridge. In whatever way, when you've got an adult child who's estranged, whatever way they get communication, phone call, text, snail mail, Zoom or having lunch and if they'll meet you at any way, you send them that communication and you say something like the following, I'm so sorry about where things are and about how you feel about our relationship and I miss you and I would like for us to be connected again and I want to be sure that I know what I've done to hurt you.

So I'd like to propose this. I'd like for us to meet, phone, Zoom, in person and I want you to tell me everything in your experience I've done to hurt or alienate you and I'm just going to be sitting there with a legal pad and a pen and I'm going to write down everything you say and you can take as long as you need to because if it's a lot, I want to know a lot. And one thing I promise you is I'm not going to interrupt you and say, well, you misunderstood that part or well, I was having a hard time or well, how about the things you did?

I promise I won't do any of those things. I might say things like how did that feel or tell me more or is there more information but I want to hear from your heart what your experience is of the hurts I caused you and then I'm going to take that and I'm going to go home and you're going to go home and I want to sit down and pray and write and think through and everything you've narrated that I've done that's true, I'm going to change it and I'm going to change it by the time we meet again if you'll give me a second meeting. And in that second meeting, I'm going to show you how I've changed and I'm going to stay changed and that is all I ask of you and that's because you're worth that to me.

Is that something you would be interested in? What I have found with this approach is that if there's any hope at all, that's the one, is that they feel like you're not done to change me, you're not saying, well, here's my side of it, here's your side of it. You do have a side and that comes later. Once you've built the bridge and you've taken a few hits and you've repented some things, that comes later, that's fine, but it's not your day because you're the grown-up.

And they say, they've never asked me how it felt or they've always interrupted or they've always made excuses and then they really want to know. It's the best chance you've got. Yeah, and John, I mean, it sounds so tender and so right and being the parent swallowing resolution for yourself and absorbing how you can repair the relationship is a great first, second, third step and then hopefully eventually you can get to some of the things that may have hurt you. I love that.

Speaking of first, second, second, third, it does sound a lot like what Jesus said about the first, second, and third mile. You're going the way the grown-up should go. Right, that's so true, but we also need to cover that, that parent that they haven't perhaps done things that are egregious, yet their adult child is in some serious trouble.

It could be drugs, it could be promiscuous relationships, whatever it might be. I would think that that situation might be a little different when there's self-harm occurring. How does a parent engage that adult child in that discussion without damaging or severely damaging their relationship? Yeah, it's one of those kind of no-win situations in a way, Jim, because you think about parent, that means I've got a certain amount of leverage and control, but I'm a parent of this person who is also an adult. So authority, I'm your dad, I'm your mom, that's kind of out the window now. I'm just this older person that you've got a history with that I hope that you love.

That's all I got. And so the leverage has to move from, well, I'm the dad or the mom to influence, influence a relationship. So let's suppose you've got somebody out of the home, for example. There's out-of-the-home problems and there's in-the-home problems, depending on where the young adult is. Out of the home and you see them, like you said, maybe they're on drugs or maybe they're acting a promiscuous lifestyle or lots of other things. The best approach you've got is to certainly meet with them because we all have a responsibility.

I mean, it's not just the responsibility as a parent, it's also the responsibility as a Christian who loves somebody and all the passages there apply. And you go to them and say, I always say, you have to have a dedicated talk. You don't do it while you're watching Netflix or rock climbing. Right, you've got to look at each other in the eye. You have to look at each other and you say, so you set it up, I believe in setting it up, and you say, I'd like to have a meeting with you about some things.

Well, what are they going to be about? Well, it's about making things better between us, and I'd like to go into it. By the way, I'm going to take the principles from a book that Henry Cloud and I wrote called How to Have That Difficult Conversation You've Been Avoiding because it's about a difficult conversation. And so you go to them and you say, first off, you visit, how's life? Then you say, let me tell you why we're meeting and thank you for being here. And by the way, and I always start with it, and by the way, if I ever do anything to alienate you, upset you, make you feel not good or whatever, I would want you to tell me, or do you feel free to tell me?

And most of the time, the adult child will say, sure, I do, and that's good. So they know that this is a one-way thing. I want to know what I'm doing wrong. Well, here's some things I want to talk about that concern me. One is your ex, and first off, I want to know the why. I'm interested in you, so before I tell them to change, I want to know the why. Why are you taking drugs? Why don't you get a job?

Why are you promiscuous? That's going to take a while because they have lots of reasons. They probably thought it through.

Christian or non-Christian, they're all over the map these days, but you listen well and don't take an opinion. You just want to understand. I want to get to the why. And then once they get to it, they say, thank you, do I get it? And you have to make sure they say you got it. They say, no, you didn't get it. You keep preaching at me. Okay, let me try it again.

It sounds like you do it because you don't think there's anything wrong and it makes your life better and you're under stress. Do I get it? Yeah, you get it. When they say you get it, you've got permission to say the following. Can I give you my perspective on that? Not to be a controlling person, but I owe you that perspective.

One out of a hundred will say no. The rest of them will say, you kind of earned it. You sat here and listened to me talk, and here's my perspective. And you do your homework before you do that. You find out what the Bible says. You find out what good psychology says. You find out what reality says.

Get statistics if you need to. I'm concerned about your life and I love you, and I'm looking down the corridors of time over the you that you're going to become at 30, 35, 40. And here's what it says, and I don't want that for you.

I don't think it's good for you. It's not just because it's a right or wrong, certainly that, but there's also bad consequences and fruit for your life. And I would like for you to think about it. And then you say, regardless, I'm your dad or I'm your mom and I want to be friends with you, and I'd love to have other dialogue if you'd like to. That's your best first approach. Yeah, that's good, and relationally driven, which is good, respectful.

And outcome driven, so they're thinking about time. And John, in that scenario, after that conversation, as the parent, you have to walk away and not worry if they change or not. That's not easy. Well, you can worry.

It's okay. You've got to let go of controlling that. That we have to do. We have to walk away knowing that they may say, oh, my crazy mom, oh, my crazy dad, that's just who they are.

I'm going to go back to my ways, and you have to walk away from that. And whenever people tell me that, and I feel it too, I always say the following. Yeah, you know how God feels.

Yeah, right. He tells you the truth. He does everything he can for you. He makes it winsome. And then he walks away and says, hope you make the right choice.

Choose you this day, as it says in Joshua. It's so hard, but he goes through it every day. I'm sorry, I'm kind of jumping around a little bit. I'm thinking of the parent of a teenager right now. So they're 10, 12 years away from potentially having a broken relationship with their adult child. Speak to the importance and the application of healthy boundaries in that time so that your kids can learn the right thing.

Speak to that. Yeah, a little more while, they're sort of in wet cement in their brains, and it's not hardened yet. Because in those years, you know, if you look at the neuroscience, they kind of don't know who they are, and they know a lot more of what they don't want, which is controlling parents, than what they really do want.

And it's sort of a developmental, sort of a sloshy time for them. So when I wrote Boundaries of Teens, I gave four steps for the parent, no matter what the problem is. If it's anything from disrespect to eye-rolling to drugs to, you know, acting out to violence, to little things and big things, there's four steps that you have to take that really work. The first one is called love.

Well, that's kind of an obvious one. You have to convey that you love and care for someone, and convey that you love them on their terms. And that means listening, that you care.

Because you can't tell them the rest of the stuff until they know that you do. Second one is, past love is truth. And truth means, here's our house rules. In the Smith house, we don't do drugs. In the Smith house, we don't do promiscuous sex. We don't do disrespect to your parents. You can disagree with your parents, but slamming doors and this sort of thing, whatever it is, that's in our house rules. And sometimes I have parents kind of write them on the fridge. I'm a big believer in the writing on the fridge thing that we've been doing for 30 years. So there won't be any misunderstanding, because teenagers are kind of attorneys. They'll say, well, you didn't put a comment there, right?

So it's up there. So you got the love, now they're in the house rules, and you also know the consequences. If you don't do this, if you do do these things, we're all happy.

Good grades and you're behaving well. If you don't do things, you learn these privileges. And you make sure the consequences fit the crime. Things that are important to them, whatever the things are that you're taking away. A lot of times it's easy, because the social stuff and the digital stuff, they are addicted to. So you take that away, and that's a big deal after a couple of times.

The third one is the hard one for Christian parents. It's a thing called freedom. Meaning, you can disobey these if you choose.

I can't monitor you with a nightstick around the house at night. You can break out and go do stuff, and you can do these things. I won't stop you. Now, at three-year-old, you got to stop them. You pull them out of traffic. But at 14, 15, I just can't monitor all the time.

So you're free to do this, and Christian parents go, what are you talking about? I say, well, hold onto my system here. Here's the fourth one. The fourth one is reality. We will give you the reality, the consequences. I will follow up.

I'm not just going to threaten the neck. I'll follow up with taking away the phone, anything digital, the car keys, social or whatever. And you follow up, and that's their training.

So if you do the four steps, love, truth, freedom, and reality, you've got your best shot. And that is good. I want to speak for that parent that has to brace for the response.

Yeah. You have to put on your big parent pants and have no need for the child to like what they're hearing. I often tell parents, you've got to do the support sandwich here. I'm going to talk to Susie about the hard thing. And so would you pray for me and tell me I'm a good person? And so they'll say, yeah, go for it. I believe in you. All those kind of psych up things.

They kind of coach you in a good way. Get ready, and I know you're ready for it. And you normalize it. And you say, I know from 100 times trying this, she's going to be mad and blame me and explode and get emotional. So you normalize it. So you've got the support and you've normalized. Then you have it with her and you still feel bad.

Right. So then you call your support person afterwards who's on call and you say, it was awful. I felt like a bad parent.

She hates my guts. It'll never be good. And the person says, give it time. I love you.

I'll be praying for you. You've got to have that sandwich and you've got to normalize. Yeah. And that is good advice, John. And this has been so good.

This is day one. We want to come back tomorrow, if you're willing, continue the discussion and actually give parents even more hope that it's not lost. We just need to apply the right principles. And if we can remember that inside the heart of every teenager and adult child, there's still a part that says, I want the relationship. They may be so far inside, they don't have access to it. But that voice is still saying at some point, under all the rebellion, all the hatred and all the, they don't get me.

I still want them. And we have to capitalize on that. And that is such a good reminder and an encouragement, really. And to the listener, let me encourage you to get a copy of Boundaries. This is a New York Times bestseller. I think, again, the whole bundle, we started there mentioning that about nine million copies of the Boundary materials have been sold. So people have resonated over the years with this content. It's evergreen. It's for every generation.

These are tried and true principles that Dr. John Townsend has identified, and they're biblically rooted and supported by science. I mean, you can't get any better than that. If you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send the book as our way of saying thank you.

Yeah. Join the support team today. Make a monthly pledge if you can or a one time gift, and we'll send a copy of that book, Boundaries, to you.

Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or click the link in the episode notes. John, again, it's been great having you here with us. Let's come back and keep talking. Sure. And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once more talk to Dr. John Townsend and help you and your family thrive in Christ.