Preview:
Dr. Jim Burns: So, you can have standards, you can have biblical standards, but you do it in the midst of showing an incredible depth of love. You can accept them without accepting their behavior.
End of Preview
John Fuller: Well, that’s Dr. Jim Burns sharing about the complex dynamics that parents and their adult children often experience. And, uh, if you’ve got grown kids, you’re gonna find this conversation to be of great interest. Welcome to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: Let me just speak to the parents directly. Are there days you’re going, “What am I doing? Everything I do is wrong.” I, and just filling yourself up with guilt and trying to figure out a better pathway. I think parenting, it’s not easy, but it is rewarding. And I can tell you now, with two boys in their 20s, I’ve really enjoyed every aspect of it. When they were little, man, watching those home videos now and laughing, them pretending to be French chefs. (laughs). Working with pepper, water, and mustard and mayonnaise. (laughs).
John: It was delicious, I’m sure.
Jim: The best part was they didn’t turn to Jean and I say, “Would you like a bite?” We didn’t have to do that part. But man, it is so funny watching those videos. Up until now, where, you know, the 20-somethings, it’s full of serious questions about school and about vocation and about spouses and other things. So, it’s really been great, but it isn’t easy. And I’m sure some of you are dealing with even greater difficulties with your adult children. It’s one of the most common, uh, calls that we get here at Focus on the Family for counselors, and we welcome those calls. We want you to get in touch with us.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Call us. John will give details to do that in just a minute. But that is the question. “My kids aren’t following the Lord. They’re not walking with the Lord. What do I do?” And it’s almost as if the more control you wanna administer, you’ll probably drive them further away. And we’ll talk about that today with our great guest, Jim Burns.
John: Mm-hmm. And Jim is the founder of HomeWord, which, uh, is all about educating, equipping, and encouraging parents to build God-honoring families from generation to generation. He’s got a book on this topic called When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope. And, uh, by the way, Jim mentioned our counseling team, and, uh, they’re a phone call away. 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.
Jim: Jim, welcome back to Focus. It’s so good to see you.
Dr. Burns: Always great to be with you. I feel like I’m in a family reunion when I hear you.
Jim: Yeah, and always… I can feel light and lifted up. Yeah.
Dr. Burns: I’m a little disappointed you didn’t eat the mustard, pepper, salt thing. (Laughs).
Jim: Well, no, I would have tried it just a little sip.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: But, uh, they never pressured us, which I thought was great.
Dr. Burns: Yeah, it’s true.
Jim: It’s very kind of them.
Dr. Burns: Yeah, now I just saw Trent as a 20-something and he’s, you know, a lot taller than you and a lot bigger than you. He- he could have forced you at a certain time.
Jim: (Laughs) He could today. “Eat this.” But again, you’re, you’re developing character in your sons and daughters that won’t do that.
Dr. Burns: That’s what we’re trying for.
Jim: And I’m proud to say he’s never done that. But hey, let’s go there. When parents think about raising toddlers or teenagers, uh, they can expect challenges. Yeah. I, what I said was true. I loved… Somebody gave us great advice, Jean and I. They, they said, “Love every stage.” Yeah. And we were kind of like, “Okay, what will that mean?” Well, I think now on the back end, we get it. And there are different challenges. Man, terrible twos are terrible. It’s like, “Kid, do you not hear me?” You know, about the tantrums and getting their own way and all that. Then they get to teenager hood, and they want to be independent. And you work through all those things and then it happens.
They go off for their vocation or for college or for whatever they’re gonna do. And there seems to be, in some situations, this great drift that occurs. So, let’s go there. Uh, why do you say parenting adult children can actually be one of the hardest seasons compared to terrible twos and teens?
Dr. Burns: Right. Well, we do have to embrace that stage, but they’re moving from dependence to independence very rapidly. So, they get to a stage, it might be even 18, and they say, “Well, I’m an adult.” And you’re going, “Yeah, and I’m paying for their cell phone and I’m, you know, paying for college and I’m, you know, still paying for the insurance.” And they’re saying, “But I want freedom.” And at that stage, when they go into adulthood, a lot of times, uh, they don’t know how to be an adult, so they’re making some goofy decisions. And we don’t know how to parent adult because we got these other stages down, but now we’re in a new stage. And I don’t think most of us saw that coming.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: Most of us, again, who raised kids in the church or who had kids, um, you know, who were great.
And all of a sudden, they started violating values and they started straying from their faith and they started drifting from the family, you know, story. And we didn’t see it coming. Or we said that’s gonna be somebody else’s kid, not ours.
Jim: You know, Jean and I, we did foster training. Uh, John, you and Dena have done that as well. And, you know, one of the things I was amazed at, and, uh, you know, we probably started this when our boys were nine and 11 that we did foster care. But the requirement was 40 hours of parental training every year.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And I’m thinking, man, they don’t do that with bio kids.
John: (Laughs).
Jim: Whoever they are.
Dr. Burns: No.
Jim: But I mean, we’d sit there and do, you know, in-home videos and we had to check them off and we had little quizzes that we had to respond to about parenting children.
Dr. Burns: Right. Right.
Jim: I thought… And it was good stuff. Yeah. It wasn’t, uh, far afield. It was really good basic stuff about how to build in resiliency and character into your children. I thought every parent should have this, but we don’t.
Dr. Burns: No, we weren’t sent to parenting school. So, you know what? We’re having parenting school.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dr. Burns: This is what happens at Focus on the Family every day. It’s not just, you’re talking about marriage, you’re talking about other issues too. But it’s parenting school. So, when people like my wife says, “I raised my kids the way Focus on the Family told me to in some ways.” Well, that’s parenting school. Yeah. And that’s the incredible thing about this place, but it’s also the fact that we have to keep learning. And so, as parents, we’re, you know, we’re going, “Great. They’re going away.” You know, maybe we’re going into the empty nest. Um, some are very depressed about that.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dr. Burns: Some are thinking it’s good. But now we have to learn a whole new language. We have a, a no- a whole new way of doing it. And so, we weren’t prepared for it either.
Jim: You have a story in the book about a woman named Amber. I’m sure you’ve changed all the names.
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: But, uh, what was Amber’s situation?
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Uh, her, uh, dad is one of my best friends.
Jim: Okay.
Dr. Burns: And a great guy. He’s actually been in the office with me here at Focus talking with you. And, uh, Amber, beautiful, wonderful, uh, had some tough things happen that they didn’t know about when she was in junior high. And the way she coped with that was to do some drugs and got to become sexually promiscuous and, you know, just a tough life. And rebelled. She, I mean, this was the kid who was, you know, in the junior high was, you know, leading the Bible study type of a thing.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And, uh, she went from drug rehab to drug rehab. They stayed in her story. And, uh, today, I happened to have breakfast with them last week. You know, she’s 40 months sober. And she’s actually working for the drug rehab center, and it’s not perfect. But just, you know, through that process, and I thought this was a neat thing that they did, her parents did.
They gave her a necklace. And, uh, the necklace said, uh, “Peace, joy, hope. Peace from your past. Joy for today, and hope for the future.” And, uh, I said, “That’s beautiful.” He said, “You know, that was for her, but it’s also for us.” So, what they did was they stayed in her story. And it wasn’t easy.
Jim: What does that mean though?
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Stay in the story means that there’s a mess, and they’re in the messy middle. They don’t just agree with her. And so, they’re not parenting to just go, “Hey, whatever you wanna do.” But they’re also allowing- it was tough love. They were allowing… And tough love just means you allow the circumstances of her poor choices to actually take place. So, they had to allow this beautiful kid, and I’ve known this girl all of her life, this beautiful girl to almost be homeless and make some horrible decisions that go against the grain of, you know, their belief system. But they still stayed in the story. They didn’t agree with her. So, you know, they said, “Here’s what we believe. Here’s what our boundaries are.” But they stayed in the story of the mess. So, guess what? They were always safe. Yeah. So, if she had a problem, she was gonna call back.
Now, she might not call that day. (Laughs). But she, she would call back, she would come back into the situation, and they didn’t enable her. You know, you can enable kids like Amber, uh, to dependency on you. But they didn’t enable her. They helped her. They loved her.
Jim: Yeah. Jim, let me, you know, uh, we need to ask these questions on behalf of those listening-
Dr. Burns: Sure.
Jim: And watching. And so, I’m thinking of Amber’s situation. But how do parents balance, you know, what we’ve tried to express to them, unconditional love, the love of Christ-
Dr. Burns: Right, right.
Jim: With this idea that, uh, affirming that destructive behavior-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Or not addressing it or not speaking to it or temperaments as parents, it can be legalistic.
Dr. Burns: Sure.
Jim: Or the opposite. Just love at all costs.
Dr. Burns: And, and either one of those are good, Jim. You have rigid parenting. What does that equal? Rebellion. You have lenient parenting. That equals no. They’re rudderless. So, there’s times we’re gonna have to take the hit. My friends had to with Amber and sometimes say, “This is not appropriate, and actually you can’t bring that into our home because of the other kids.” And that was hard for them.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: But, you know, and you, you mentioned Christ. Christ led with love. He practiced kindness, but He also had no patience for (laughs) hypocrisy and He had boundaries around there. So, it’s weird to think that we’re talking about boundaries with your adult kids, but yeah, we need to have, you know, some boundaries sometimes with our adult kids. And that means we’ve gotta talk to them about expectations. “Here’s what we’re expecting. If you’re gonna live in our house, here’s what we’re expecting.”
And, you know, it’s better when you do that not in the heat of the battle, but when you’ve kinda thought through it and when you’ve done it when, you know, you’re having a g- good conversations. Adult children also, they- they will support what they help create. So, if you can bring them into the picture-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … that’s really beneficial.
Jim: Yeah. Talk with them, get their opinion.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: You- you mentioned this transition, you know, from kinda hands-on parenting-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Uh, you know, through kinda 17, 18.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Hopefully as a parent, you’ve been giving them more and more independence-
Dr. Burns: Yeah, right.
Jim: … as they’ve gotten older. Yeah. And then there’s this massive transition where you’re no longer, hopefully, the hand holder-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And the, and- and the all-in parent-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: But you’re now coach or influencer-
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim: In their 20s.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Some parents struggle with that. Uh, I remember a story we received here at Focus where a professor had contacted us and, uh, they were complaining that the classroom, this is a university where, you know, a parent, it’s illegal for the professor to share test results with a parent at that age because they’re an adult, right? But this one young man in a class didn’t like the grade and got his mom on the phone during class and gave the phone to the professor and began to chew the professor out to say, “My, my son would’ve done better than that one.” And he’s like, “I cannot talk to you.” What an- again, describe that situation and what the error is.
Dr. Burns: No, that-
Jim: Like she’s ready to fight every fight for her son.
Dr. Burns: No. Exactly. And she might have helped write that paper. You never know. I mean, honestly.
Jim: “I couldn’t have done that poorly.” (Laughs).
Dr. Burns: “That I- I have an MBA from some…” No, so we, you know, again, parents have to be careful. I mean, a woman said to me, uh, she said, you know, “I don’t understand why my son won’t make his own pediatrician appointments. He’s 22 years old.” And I thought, on two levels. Yeah. Why is he going to the pediatrician? But why… We have to allow our kids to sometimes fail. And that’s really hard for us. Yeah. But that’s a generation of parenting that was what we called in 1989, it came out, helicopter parenting. We’ve just continued to try to do that with our adult children. And- and we can’t do that. So sometimes we have to allow our kids to fail. A five-year-old, they’re gonna fall off the bike and they’re gonna get a skinned knee and they’re gonna learn how to ride that bike.
And sometimes, and they’re tougher issues, but sometimes we have to allow our adult children to fall off the bike, skin their knee, and still be there to pick them up and love on them, but in a different manner.
Jim: You know, yeah, and I so agree. It is hard because we wanna be protector provider.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And- and the point is, you can overdo that. Um, and to their detriment.
Dr. Burns: Well, then they have a failure to launch.
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: We have a generation of some adult kids who are, you know, kinda entitled and they’re not launching and they’re not launching because we literally have continued to enable. You know, there’s a difference between helping and enabling. And most parents would say that “I’m helping. I’m not enabling.” But if you’re buying them a new house and they can’t afford the payments in the house, you’re actually enabling them to be dependent on you. You can help them with different ways. And, uh, you know, that’s the big difference. So as parents, we have to have that mindset. What does it mean to come alongside them?
Jim: Yeah.
John: Jim, how do we do that? How do we… I mean, because we’re talking about the relationship with adult kids, and sometimes I think we put it all on them. But it’s really us that you’re talking about here. So how do we make that shift to being kind of an influence, a mentor, not the person saying-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
John: You should do this or you shouldn’t do this?
Dr. Burns: For one thing, we have to give our kids what I call the passport to adulthood, and that’s not easy for them, and it’s not easy necessarily for us. But in doing that, we need. It’s almost a ritual of, okay, they’re now going to be in charge. And so, for us, to do that right, we then move to mentor. We’ve been, you know, as older teens, I mean, we’re their consultant. Most of their day-to-day decisions are done by themselves. They’re, we’re, they’re not always around. We were coaching them at younger and obviously in control, but we’re not in control anymore. So, when we now give them the passport to adulthood, we have to take a deep breath and keep a welcoming mat, you know, type of a relationship with them.
John: Hmm.
Dr. Burns: At the same time, we have to be strong with what we believe our values are. But it’s very possible to, in the context of this culture, be in a relationship with people who we don’t agree with. We do that in every aspect of life. That’s gonna be the case we do with our adult children at times too.
John: Yeah. So, is it ideal then for that child to be out of the house if we have different values?
Dr. Burns: Yeah. That’s a great question. And I think you personally tailor it. I think some kids do need to get out on their own and feel it. Experience it a bit. And I think other kids, it would be better for them to, you know, stay a bit, a little bit longer. And so that’s where parents need the discernment. But, you know, the Bible says, “Where there’s no counsel, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.” That’s why we need what I call a circle of support around us to give us wisdom and counsel. And when we do that, each kid is different.
John: Yeah. Regardless of where you’re at in your parenting, we have resources for you here at Focus on the Family. Give us a call, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. That would include all sorts of great parenting resources, like the book by Jim Burns, When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope. Uh, we’ve got copies of that book here. Give us a call or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Jim, you describe in the book, uh, a couple, and you say they’re church leaders who tried to fix their daughter when she made some bad relational choices.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Uh, what strained the relationship between them and their daughter, and then what helped their relationship? And I think critically here, it’s really the spiritual element to it.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: You- you said they’re church leaders for a reason.
Dr. Burns: Right. Church leaders meaning a lead pastor of a major church in America and his wife. And this girl went everywhere. I mean, she tried a, a same-sex relationship. She was involved with other things. She rebelled. She walked away from Jesus. And- and we kind of teased because they said, “Guy, we used to… We didn’t like the guy that was doing cocaine, but at least this guy only does marijuana.” You know, we would kind of tease-
John: Right.
Dr. Burns: As a couple. Yeah. But what happened was, they still stayed in her story, even though she knew that they were not happy about the choices she was making. And they had to make some of those hard decisions, John, that you talked about. Maybe she’s not gonna live here. And to do that, is she gonna go move in with the guy or whatever it might be? So, they stayed in the story, and she ended up, um, actually being with a guy who was addicted to marijuana.
He was open to faith. And they kinda cut a deal that he would start coming to church and, uh, you know, he’s just, he was so different than they were. And they had one, two things in common. He loved h- the daughter, and they could see that. Two, the Los Angeles Dodgers. My friend who’s the pastor loved the Dodgers, and this guy loved the Dodgers. And you know what he did? He started spending time with them and taking them into Dodgers game, and they got to know each other. And the story is, is that this young man, um, made a commitment to Christ. He kept going to the church and, uh, they wanted her to marry a youth pastor. They didn’t want this, the guy. And he stopped smoking marijuana, but now he’s their youth pastor.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dr. Burns: And he’s doing a great job. He’s all tatted out and, you know, he looks so different than what they assume.
Jim: But he’s living for the Lord.
Dr. Burns: But he’s living for the Lord. And yeah, are there bumps and bruises in this thing? Sure. There’s actually some stepchildren in this thing. But what I appreciated about them was they said, “Look, we have one thing in common. We, we both love this young woman. So, we’re not gonna just bag on this thing.” And, you know, the ending of the story is a great ending. It’s not always an easy ending. I mean, I wish I could say every time there’s gonna be an easy ending. There’s not. But they stayed in the story as we talk about. They- they showed love and they, and actually, my friend, the pastor, honored the relationship with this young man, and the young man appreciated it.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And, uh, was open to it.
Jim: Well, and again, the net net, they were praying for, hoping for their son-in-law to be a youth pastor, and then ended up with-
Dr. Burns: It all comes around.
Jim: With this guy smoking pot.
Dr. Jim Burns: Right, right, right.
Jim: And, you know, but boom, then he becomes the youth pastor.
Dr. Burns: We didn’t think he was gonna be that… And by the way, he’s a great youth pastor.
Jim: Oh, that’s good.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Um, it does beg the question about parental expectation. I mean, this happens in marriage. Yeah. It happens in parenting. And it certainly happens with 20-somethings because you have your perspective-
Dr. Burns: Oh, my goodness.
Jim: On who they will be. Yeah. And you’ve thought of this since you held them as a beautiful bundle on your chest.
Dr. Burns: Sure. Sure.
Jim: And you knew what the story would be, but all of a sudden, they’re not following that blueprint.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And speak to the angst that begins to create and then how we as the parents, you gotta let go.
Dr. Burns: We have to let go, but we also have to deal with the grief, you know?
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: It’s a necessary loss. When a child becomes an adult, it’s a loss. You know, you spend two decades of your life basically in control or semi-control as they get older. And then now you’re letting them go. And so, you have to embrace that grief. C.S. Lewis says that change is loss. Change is good. I mean, we’ve all changed. I’ve been, I’ve known you guys for enough years where, you know, we’ve ch- I’ve changed on my weight, but I don’t wanna talk about that.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dr. Burns: But the point being is that change is loss.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: And so, as a parent, you have to deal with the grief. And sometimes we feel, and you talked about this at the beginning of the, of the broadcast, you know, we feel pain. We feel shame.
We should’ve prayed more. We should have done Bible studies around the table. We should have gone on more mission trips. All these, we shoulda, shoulda, shoulda. And so, in the middle of that, we do that, and then we do it quietly. When everybody else in the church is also going through these same things, but they’re not talking. So, it goes back to us making sure that we have an authentic relationship with people who will, you know, help us get through it. Yeah. It’s a very important aspect of it.
Jim: What, as a pastor and speaker, and of course, HomeWord, you’ve worked with, you know, thousands of couples as well in a whole variety of ways in their marriage and their parenting. And in many ways, we see it here too. I think I’m gonna know the answer to this, but I’ll leave my eyes open and heart open to your perspective. But it- it seems there’s a bit of a formula that occurs that when you’re a stringent parent as a Christian-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And we do have expectations for our own lives-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And for those of our children to live to a higher standard. And sometimes I think we even expect our teens and our 20-somethings to certainly live at a standard that we may not have been living up to at that age. You know what I mean?
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: But it, it can be so counterproductive for the rebellious-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … child that, that they are sending a message.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And in your experience in those situations, what are those common things that you see that the children are actually rebelling against?
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: If we’re honest.
Dr. Burns: Right, right. Well, I think a lot of them felt like we were doing shame-based parenting. We didn’t think we were doing shame-based parenting, but I think a lot of times when we have high, you know, uh, the Focus on the Family parent has high standards, has beautiful standards, has God-honoring standards, has biblical standards. So, we need to share those. But at the same time, in doing it, we, it’s how we share them. We need to make it attractive. We need to make living life, uh, with faith and living life in- in alignment with God more attractive. And we have to be careful that we’re not making it so rigid that they break those standards. So, when they break the standards, then they change their morality or they change their belief system. So really only two things happen. If, you know, if a kid strays, violates values, sins, goes off the, whatever the biblical worldview is, they either come back to Jesus or they change their values in their mind.
So now they don’t believe in the morality that we have because they had to rebel because they’re gonna live that out. So, it’s important for us to understand that as the- the father and the prodigal son story that Jesus told was so great, is he showed a depth of love to his son who had wasted money on prostitutes and parting, so says the Living Bible. He didn’t change the deal with his elder son. Rem- You know that. He showed love.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: But if the son says, “Hey, so, you know, I’ve been working with you this whole time.” He said, “All that I have is yours.” So, he didn’t change the financial setup, and we miss that sometimes. So, you can have standards, you can have biblical standards, but you do it in the midst of showing an incredible depth of- of love. You can accept them without accepting their behavior.
John: Hmm.
Jim: But again, the problem is in our control as parents, our control issues, our anxiety issues-
Dr. Burns: Sure.
Jim: Our guilt issues, we, those start dominating our reactions to them. And it’s totally opposite what the Lord, I think, would want.
Dr. Burns: What some of these kids are telling me, adult kids, is they’re saying, “My parent’s just a one-topic parent. I moved in with my boyfriend and, and I still want a relationship with my mom, but she’s only a one-topic parent. That’s all she talks about. I’d like to go shopping with her. I’d like to do some other things.” And you know what I would say to the woman? “Does she know how you feel? Does she know what you believe?” “Yes.” “Then expand the relationship because probably the relationship that your daughter’s in right now isn’t gonna last. And you want her to come back to you, and you want her to come back to your values.”
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And we’re seeing that with a lot of, of young adults today. I mean, you guys know this so well. I mean, there’s some things happening in the Gen Z movement.
You know, five years ago, I probably was on this broadcast saying, you know, it’s really quite possible that, you know, twice as many atheists are Gen Z. And who are we seeing coming back into the church? Gen Z, especially guys. Well, you know, there, God is doing a work. God’s not gonna let this go. So, we just have to stay in that, you know, messy story.
And again, going back to it, we’ve gotta have our help. Moses is battling the Amalekites, and Moses has the rod. And he picks up the rod, and then the Israelites start winning. And then he gets weary and tired. We as parents get weary and tired. So, then he has to sit down and then the Amalekites start winning. So, what does he do? He brings people around him in his weariness and helps him by holding up the rod and the Israel wins the battle.
Well, we have a battle for our kids’ soul. And our kids are forfeiting their spiritual purpose at times, sure. But, you know, the battle, A, belongs to the Lord. They should do a song on that. That’d sound good. (laughs) But secondly, the battle is a long-term battle.
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: So, you know, I led my brother to the Lord three days before he died. I mean, I wish he forfeited a lot of things-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: In a negative way, but he came back. Okay? And I think that sometimes happens too.
Jim: Well, and that’s the desire to have this, again, expectation that as a extended family, we’re all in Christ. We’re all experiencing the joy-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Of this life together.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Let me ask you this in terms of that scripture. I don’t think these words are lost. I don’t think the Lord misplaces a word in scripture. So, when the scripture says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old-”
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: “… he will not depart from it.”
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Isn’t that interesting that that word old is in there?
Dr. Burns: No, I know.
Jim: Now, we want something to happen sooner.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: But it’s almost like if you’ve done your job, if you have pointed them toward the Lord, you’ve given them a compass.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: You’ve, uh, made known what it is you believe-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … hopefully in the context of love, not demanding it in some kind of militaristic thing.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: But you’ve done that, then you know what? The Lord is gonna honor this.
Dr. Burns: Right. And what we have to say, I wanna cup every listener and, on their face and just say, “Really good parents have kids who make poor choices.” You know? And that’s true. So, there are parents who have made great- they’ve done a great job. Not a perfect job because nobody’s perfect. They’ve done a great job, and their kids are making poor choices. I’m seeing some of those kids come back, especially you mentioned the 20s. It’s an interesting time because some of them come back and then they- they meander toward marriage or they meander, uh, towards some responsibility. But once they get married and have kids, guess where they come?
Jim: Correct.
Dr. Burns: They come back-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: To the community that they had once in the church. They come back to faith. Now, they may not come back to our church. Fantastic. They’re just going to church. But what we have to understand is that if we do the training, and nobody thinks they’re perfect parents, so nobody trained them perfect, but when we do the training, that I honestly think God honors that-
Jim: I do.
Dr. Burns: In a, in a beautiful way.
Jim: Yeah, I do.
Dr. Burns: I don’t know what it looks like. I’m not God. That’s way beyond my pay grade. But I honestly think that, you know, for the people who have younger kids, no, we do that. We, we do the training. And we for- you know, training is an athletic term. You know, Paul and others, and the Bible in that particular scripture is Old Testament. But, you know, they use the word training much more as an athletic term. So, this-
Jim: Yeah, run the race.
Dr. Burns: Run the race. So, we’re, it’s perseverance, it’s endurance. So that’s, we need a- a dose of perseverance and endurance, uh, as we’re, you know, running the race with our adult kids.
Jim: Well, I hope this is a drop of water for your thirsty parenting souls, the listeners and the viewers, because we’re gonna continue. Jim, if you’ll stick with this-
Dr. Burns: Absolutely.
Jim: And we’ll come back for a day two. But we’re scratching the surface. We wanna get into more of the detail about how to do this and how to do it well. And again, Jim’s great book, When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope, that’s a better place to be.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Heartache is not a good place to just land and sit there. And I think, uh, Jim’s book can equip you to have a better attitude, that loving attitude that we’re talking about today, so that you don’t lose the tether with your child, your adult child. And, uh, and that will be the hope of the future. So, get ahold of us.
As we often do, make a gift of any amount. If you can do it monthly to help us with our budget, that’s great. A one-time gift is also great. And, uh, as our way of saying thank you, we’ll send you a copy of Jim’s book.
John: Donate today. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or visit focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. That’s focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Jim Burns. And once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
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Part 2:
Preview:
Dr. Jim Burns: You can still find something to say I’m sorry for. “You know what? I’m sorry you feel that way. I really wanna hear from you what you, you know, believe about this, because I wanna be a better person and I actually want our relationship to work.” That goes against the grain of saying, “You need to clean it up. You need to fix it.” Because when we do that, that’s actually just moving them away from us as opposed to, uh, moving them toward us in a safe manner.
Jim Daly: Mm.
Dr. Burns: And we wanna be that safe parent.
Jim: So true.
Dr. Burns: You can be safe by being authentic.
End of Preview
John Fuller: Well, that’s Jim Burns, and he shared last time here about navigating the joyful, sometimes heart-wrenching role of parenting adult children. Thanks for being with us here on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller.
Jim: You know, John, more and more parents are facing a reality that they never expected. And that is their adult son or daughter is questioning, or maybe even walking away from the Christian faith that they were raised in. And it becomes such a disappointing burden for the parents. Like, “What did we do wrong? How did we not communicate effectively? If we did our job right, I’m sure the Lord would’ve done His job right.”
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: So where is the breakdown? And you know what? It often is right there in this little thing called free will.
John: (laughs)
Jim: Like, you know, God was a parent, Adam and Eve, and look what His kids did.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And we’re all, you know, part of that connection of a sin-filled world. So, the point is, we can do everything well. We’re never gonna do it perfectly. But, uh, kids have their choices. Teens make choices. Adults, uh, our children in their 20s make choices that we might see as harmful, but they don’t see it the way we see it. Today, we wanna continue the discussion with Jim Burns. And if you missed last time, uh, get the app so you can download it and, uh, get access to all the programs, but especially the discussion yesterday.
Dr. Burns: Mm-hmm.
Jim: So, you can catch up or you can go to the website and do that from, uh, the focusonthefamily.com website. All in all, we’re here to help you. We’ve got counselors, we got so much help, and we want to continue this discussion for parents of adult children.
John: And, uh, Jim Burns is the founder of HomeWord, a ministry that has been equipping parents for a long, long time. He’s really got an authentic, uh-
Jim: I think he’s saying you’re old Jim.
John: (laughs)
Jim: I don’t know.
Dr. Burns: I, I am old. (laughs)
John: Well, you’ve got an authenticity-
Dr. Burns: A long, long one.
John: … and an approachability to you that I think-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
John: … just really connects with people. And, uh, Jim has captured his thoughts about this topic in a terrific book, When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope, and we’ll encourage you to get a copy of that from us.
Jim: Jim, welcome back.
Dr. Burns: Great to be back with y’all.
Jim: Continuing the chat. And it was so good. You know, I just … Uh, many of us are living in this and it’s become-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … one of the dominant, uh, questions that we receive online or through phone calls here to the counseling team. “My 20-something is doing this.”
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: And fill in the blank. And it’s all over the board. It’s sexual issues, it’s decisions to live together.
Dr. Burns: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And, you know, parents to that opening, I mentioned, we wear that pretty roughly because-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … what did we do wrong?
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: What happened here? Respond to that.
Dr. Burns: Well, we played the shoulda game. “We should’ve done this. We should’ve done that.” And I know Cathy and I did that. Our kids bumped in college. They didn’t take the major step that we even talk about in this, you know, particular book we’re talking on today. But when they did it, we took the blame as if only we would’ve done something differently. And, uh, I think too many parents do that. I think too many parents play that, “I, I should have done this,” when we’re not in control. And that’s where we have to relinquish our kids to God. And that’s a hard thing to do.
Jim: If you were to describe the parents’ prototype that you see are most successful, what do those parents look like? What are their attitudes? You’ve seen these over the years.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: These parents that now have 20, 30-something kids.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And they’re generally healthy. What are the attributes of those parents that you have seen?
Dr. Burns: I actually don’t think they know they’ve done this, but this is what they’ve done. In those first two years, they’ve kind of catered to them and they’ve just loved on their kids. And then they controlled them to, for protection till about 10. Then they moved to coaching where, you know, coaches are still in charge, but they started to let the kids make some decisions. They became consultants from 15 to 18. And in consulting, most of those day-to-day decisions were done by the kids, and they embraced that. You know how many weeks that is? 936 weeks from the time they’re born till the time they, you know, become an adult.
Jim: Man, that sounds so finite.
Dr. Burns: I know.
Jim: 936 weeks.
Dr. Burns: That’s, yeah, that’s-
Jim: Go!
Dr. Burns: That’s it. Right. But these were ones who prepared. The ones who didn’t prepare for this, they were still in control. They were telling their kid what to wear at 18. But the point that I’m saying here is that it’s those parents that allowed … And then they bought into the fact that their kids were now adults, even though they didn’t act like adults and they didn’t always make good adult decisions, but they were gonna treat them. They had moved from an a- a parent-child relationship to a parent-adult child.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And that’s a big difference.
Jim: Well, listen, a lot of young people in their 20s, especially right now are reexamining what they believe. So often, you know, we’ve had conversations with experts talking about deconstructing-
Dr. Burns: Sure.
Jim: … the Christian faith.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: So, they get it down and they disavow it because they deconstruct it.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And then there’s others that are actually in the process of making the faith their own.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Parents need to allow that. Uh, John Lennox, the great, uh, mathematician at Oxford now retired, but a tremendous thinker. He said, “The best thing that my mother and father did for me was to allow me to read books.” And this is like at 13, 14. Karl Marx.
Dr. Burns: Mm-hmm.
Jim: They said, “No, read it. You need to know about it.”
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Not to be intimidated by it, but, you know, John Lennox is a brilliant man. He became, you know, the head of mathematics at Oxford. But he said his parents willingly and wanted him-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … to be familiar with things. And then they would challenge it at the dinner table. “Now, tell me what you learned about communism.” You know, those kinds of thoughts. Um, speak to that.
Dr. Burns: Okay. What I love about him is that he did that when the kids were still in the home.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: So, what we do is we sometimes don’t do it that way. We won’t let them have a doubt. We won’t let them have a struggle or share a struggle, or we won’t let them read a book that goes against something. And then they get away to college, or they go into the workforce or whatever. They’re killed because they’ve never even heard this stuff.
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: So, I think the best thing we can do is teach them to become critical thinkers at even a young age. And I’m saying, you know, my little 10-year-old grandson, you know, I’m beginning the process as grandpa to help him think critically about something. And what I’ll do, uh, on that is he’ll tell me something that the kids are doing at school. And I go, “What do you think about that?” Now, I’m, you know, at this point, I haven’t read, you know, communist books to him, but I think I’m a lot safer to have him read some of that stuff, you know, under my wings than, you know, what he’s gonna get when he goes away to school.
Jim: Right. And, and of course, his example is just that what he perceived out of that is that my father didn’t fear those things-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … in his faith.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: That’s a great thing to communicate.
Dr. Burns: It’s a great thing. And with our faith, we shouldn’t fear a lot of the stuff … We’re so fearful. Our God is bigger than any of this stuff.
Jim: Yeah. That’s so true. You have a story about Christy, your daughter-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … which illustrates this, uh, difference between rejecting faith and forming an independent faith. So, what was her story?
Dr. Burns: (laughs) Her senior year, she wrote a column. And the column in the school newspaper said, “I had to disown my parents’ faith to own my own faith.” And I’ll tell you, I still get chills thinking about that because I was like, “Oh my gosh, Christy’s gonna blow it and she’s gonna do all this stuff.” It was the best thing. She did deconstruct it in a positive way. Too much of her faith was really the faith of mom and dad.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: And again, we did Bible studies at home and we prayed together. We did all these kind of things. So in a sense, she had to kinda disown us-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … in the faith department to own her own. Now, guess what? We go to the same church. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, but she does have a faith that’s her own now, and it’s a strong faith. And she … This thing she reads are a little different than the things I read.
Jim: And even in that description, what we’re saying is don’t yank the chain so quickly that, uh-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … d- don’t be fearful to-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … allow them to wonder-
Dr. Burns: No.
Jim: … about the world around them.
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Well, when you look at faith formation, Jim, one of the aspects of growing in faith formation is that you can actually live in a world that you don’t understand everything about it. I mean, I always will laugh and just say, “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask God when I get to heaven because I have no idea.” That’s actually a stronger thing than, you know, buttoning it down for our kids. So, we found that with Christy going through this time of, of searching, that, yeah, it was deconstruction. That’s when deconstruction can be good.
Jim: As a parent of adult children, one of the things we … Well, the whole journey, they know you better than anybody. Your spouse knows you best.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Then your kids are gonna know you.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And I think in that context, how do we live up to the reality that we’re not perfect?
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And we’re gonna try hard. We’re gonna try to live a Christian faith-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … very well-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … but we’re going to blow it. I’m gonna say things-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … that you’re scratching your head to my son or my daughter.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Speak to the healthy nature of that.
Dr. Burns: Yeah. No, it’s-
Jim: Because we’re all sinners.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: Full of sin, and we’re saved by grace.
Dr. Burns: Right. Well, I think it’s a very healthy thing. And I actually write and talk a lot about it with people, with parents of adults, is that sometimes we have to embrace, “I’m sorry.” (laughs) You know, to say, “You know what? I’m, I, that was all about me, and that wasn’t about you, and I got stuff going on at work or, you know, your mom and I are feeling some pressure here, um, and so I blew it. I, I was out of line on that conversation.” Or “I did this,” or “I did that.” I think sometimes we just have to admit, we admit our sinfulness. I mean, we- you can say, “I’m a sinner and I’m saved by grace.” Sure. But sometimes we just have to simply say to them, “I’m sorry.” And lead with the, “I’m sorry.”
Jim: And be sincere.
Dr. Burns: Be sincere. And again, you can’t s- lead … Let’s say you’re in an estrangement and they’re saying, “It’s all about you.” Well, and you don’t think it is. You think it’s kind of about them too. You can still find something to say, “I’m sorry for it. You know what? I’m sorry you feel that way. I really wanna hear from you what you, you know, believe about this because I wanna be a better person and I actually want our relationship to work.” That goes against the grain of saying, “You need to clean it up. You need to fix it.” Because when we do that, that’s actually just moving them away from us as opposed to, uh, moving them toward us in a safe manner.
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: And we wanna be that safe parent.
Jim: So true.
Dr. Burns: You can be safe by being authentic. Yeah.
John: Mm-hmm. Jim Burns is our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And we’re talking about, uh, one of the most requested topics that we have here at Focus on the Family. When Your Adult Child Strays is the name of Jim’s book, uh, Trading Heartache for Hope. Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry. It’s a phone call away, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
And Jim, as we do this kind of work with our adult kids, sometimes they make decisions that upset one parent.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
John: (laughs) But not necessarily the other.
Dr. Burns: Right. Right.
John: And so there have been frictions, uh, in some marriages, I know-
Dr. Burns: (laughs)
John: … uh, regarding adult kids of ours. And so how do we navigate that? How do we stay on the same team? Because it’s really critical-
Jim: That’s good.
John: … that we don’t let that child get in the way of our relationship.
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Well, first of all, you’re gonna have to accept, because this is just parenting 101, that we’re not gonna agree on everything. I think when they get older and we don’t agree, it’s harder.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: You know, I would say most of Cathy’s and my strongest intense discussions, um, how’s that for not saying arguments?
John: (laughs)
Jim: Same terminology. (laughs)
Dr. Burns: Right. Right. But I would say it’s over our kids still.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And Cathy and I do have a different way. Uh, I have this book on, on doing life with your adult children, and the second approach is, um, unsolicited advice is taken as criticism. And Cathy will sometimes say, “You need to work on principle number two right now.”
John: (laughs)
Dr. Burns: ‘Cause I’m giving advice and it sounds like criticism, right? So that’s where I think as a couple, we have to, “What do we agree on?” I mean, for Cathy and I, we probably agree on 85%, but it’s that 15% that drives us nuts. There are times when I just have to say, “You know what? I’m gonna let Cathy do her thing a little different than I’m gonna do.” There’s times when she has to say that to me. But if people can’t get, you know, on the same page, then that’s where I think we need a moderator. And I think we come in and, you know, there’s great Christian coaches out there. There’s some great Christian counseling. And I actually think that this is a stage that it’s very few of us can get through without the help of other people.
So, we have a couple, Terry and Sharon. They’ve raised their kids. Their kids are not perfect. They are amazing people. And, uh, we meet with them about six times a year. And, you know, I have a little … Notice in my pocket where I have about five questions I wanna ask them.
John: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: And that’s where we get some of our counsel. Now, he, you know, he’s a health executive. He’s not a therapist. He’s not a pastor. He should be. He’s a, he was the chairman of, of an elder board at a church. But they have helped us big time.
John: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: And sometimes they’ll just say, “No, we, we don’t see eye to eye on that one either.” So-
Jim: And then rest in it.
Dr. Burns: Yeah, I think you have to figure it out. Yeah. So, so it almost goes back to what I was talking about in terms of our own self. I find that I do better with Cathy if we’re at odds over one of the children’s decisions or how they’re raising their kids or … Oh my gosh, tons of-
Jim: You’re touching all the hot buttons.
Dr. Burns: I know. I know. And we have them. So, what I’m better when we go on date night and looking at each other’s eyes and, and recommit our relationship, when we really do put the discipline into making sure that our marriage is not … We haven’t buried the stuff under the mat.
John: Mm.
Dr. Burns: And so, it’s funny because it almost goes opposite to it. I don’t have to convince her that I’m right.
Jim: (laughs)
Dr. Burns: Um, she doesn’t have to convince me that-
Jim: That’s good.
Dr. Burns: … um, that she’s right. How do you live with the fact that you’re gonna disagree? You know, our spouses are humans, and they are smarter than us sometimes, and they’re sinners. Um, and, you know, all this. And so, we live with that complication. That’s the nature of it.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: We can’t expect to always be on the, on the same page. But try to get on as much as you can.
Jim: You know, Jim, I wanted to bring this up at the … I think last time we spoke on this yesterday. But the issue of anxiety and maybe even tipping into depression.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: I think that CDC said 15 to 25-year-olds, at least one report that I read-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … from the CDC-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … said that that community, it’s about, you know, I don’t, uh, probably about 14 million I think, that are in that demographic-
Dr. Burns: Right. Right.
Jim: … 15 to 25. 50%-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … are experiencing anxiety-
John: Mm.
Jim: … and/or depression.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: That’s a whole different parenting issue that crops up.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And, you know, given what we’re talking about, you have to now have that capacity as a parent-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … to work with a child maybe as, as high as 50% in that age group, 15 to 25-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … that are dealing with that. How do we go about-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … discerning it, understanding it, and helping?
Dr. Burns: So, I’m really glad you brought it up. And I believe you’re right. And I, and it’s the largest demographic right now of that age group-
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: … we’ve ever had. So, yeah, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety. There, and we can talk about social media from them being raised.
Jim: Yeah. It’s all the contrast-
Dr. Burns: We can talk about-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … all these other things. But as a parent, you know, we’re not a psychologist, okay? Most parents aren’t psychologists.
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: You know, you have psychologists who listen to the broadcast and fine, but it’s their kid. So, it’s not, it’s a different ball game.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: So, I think we need to become people who understand, how do you help someone who’s going through anxiety and depression? But I don’t think you sit them down at the table and say, “So you’re depressed. I, what you’re, what’s wrong with you is you’re depressed.” I don’t think we do that. I think we have to learn how do you treat a person who might be depressed? How do you treat a person who’s going through really some extreme anxiety? The harder part is you’ve got kids today who are in that age bracket, the 15 to 25. You- and older too. But you’ve got kids in that bracket that they could be clinically depressed.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: That’s a different kind of depression and anxiety than the kind of depression and anxiety that, uh, is just going on because they’re going through so many transitions and so many changes.
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: So, if you believe that your adult child is going through some type of deeper anxiety or depression, then I, that’s when I think, you know, you bring in the experts. And as a family, don’t just put them in, but say, “Hey, as a family, we wanna talk about-”
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: “… all the things that are going on.” Um, and, you know, there are some great books and there’s … You know, obviously, you guys have broadcasts on this. There’s a lot of great things to learn on it. But it’s … You know, my mom didn’t have to ever look up social media. I mean, we just had the-
Jim: (laughs) Right.
Dr. Burns: … we had the phone with a long cord, and she was always mad at me-
John: (laughs) Yes.
Dr. Burns: … because I’d take it into my bedroom. Well, today, so she didn’t have to learn this stuff. Today, we have to learn if our child is feeling anxiety or depression, we have to learn about that.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: And, and how do we help them? And there are things that we can do. But don’t be the armchair psychologist. You were not made for that. Your mom and your dad get the help you need.
Jim: And that’s good. Act on those observations too.
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: I think that’s another thing.
Dr. Burns: And be aware of it.
Jim: Yeah. It-
Dr. Burns: And, and a lot of parents aren’t aware.
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: So, you know, what the kids are doing is they’re depressed and (laughs) anxious, and the parents think that they’re just behavior problems.
Jim: Right. So, you gotta be able to discern that much.
Dr. Burns: Yeah, exactly.
Jim: Uh, Jim, we’ve talked about this idea of, of loving your child regardless and being there-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … being the backstop, regardless of behavioral issues. But let’s move that to the 20-something, maybe even 30-something where that relationship is toxic. It’s that dark. It’s no longer that easy, if I could put it that way.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And people can fill in the blanks as to what they might be dealing with.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: But there’s accusations. There’s-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … just severe negative energy going on in the relationship. How do we as parents deal with that kind of-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … toxic relationship and put boundaries around it, maybe to protect our spouses or other children that are still in the home?
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: What is that approach?
Dr. Burns: Well, I think there’s lots of, uh, ways we could go, but one is you mentioned the word boundaries. And I think it’s important that we understand that we, we do need to put boundaries up. If something is toxic, then we put boundaries into it. And, and we can say, “You know what, honey? We love you so much, but right now, this kind of behavior isn’t, you know, gonna wel- be welcomed to home. Can we take you out on a regular basis and go get coffee? Just us two, but we don’t want this in the, in the house with the, with the other kids or whatever it might be. So, here’s some of our boundaries. Here’s some of our expectations. You know, can you live with that?” And if they can’t live with that, then say, “Okay, fine.” And, and keep in the relationship, but you’re gonna have to lower the expectations and, and whatnot for a while.
Jim: And perhaps some of the contact time-
Dr. Burns: Exactly.
Jim: … is the point.
Dr. Burns: And that’s a boundary. Right.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: It’s not estrangement. It’s just lowering the expectations, lowering the boundaries. I think at the same time, when it gets super, uh, toxic, you know, there’s an elephant in the room. So, mention the elephant. And just, and, and if you can with your ch- adult child, say, you know, “What’s going on?” Now, again, if it’s drug and alcohol abuse on their part, or it’s some really immoral, crazy behavior or whatever, that’s different than if it’s just going crazy on the attitude thing. So, you’ve gotta, you wanna know what it is.
A lot of people who are in estrangement and toxic relationships, not … I mean, estrangement is a toxic relationship, but there’s other toxic relationships. But a lot of people say they don’t know why their child is acting this way toward them.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: So, if you can find that out by just simply saying, you know, “What’s going on?” Don’t do that in the heat of the battle. And don’t try to change your child. We, the mistake we make is we go, as I said, you know, “You’re wrong and I’m right.” No, I think we have to say, “Help me understand how you feel.”
Jim: Right.
Dr. Burns: And I know that sounds like a therapist, but I mean, “Help me understand how you feel. What’s going on?” And then we have to bite our tongue. It’s not the time for us to go and get defensive. So, a parent has to take the lead, and a lot of that is biting the tongue.
Jim: Yeah. What you’re describing though is kind of a parental curiosity.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Which is a good posture to be in at that point.
Dr. Burns: Curiosity isn’t-
Jim: Rather than being referee, judge, whatever descriptor you have.
Dr. Burns: Take that job description.
Jim: Ask good questions.
Dr. Burns: Exactly.
Jim: To find out where the angst is.
Dr. Burns: No.
Jim: You know, one of the things I found with even, uh, people that do not appreciate Christianity, they’ve had a bad experience. And often those that are most hostile to the faith-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … are people that had terrible situations growing up.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Or something like that. “My parents were the worst hypocrites.”
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: You know? And you get this and it formulates in them this angst toward a Christian.
Dr. Burns: Exactly.
Jim: They don’t even know you, you know?
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And yet when I’ve sat with them and broken the caricature or the stereotype-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: … and, you know, we sit and we talk and they’re going, “You’re not like the Christians I know.”
Dr. Burns: No, I know.
Jim: And it’s unfortunate because we all should be-
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: They should be saying, “You’re like every other Christian I know.”
Dr. Burns: Right, right.
Jim: “How, why do you love me? Why do you care about me?”
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: But when you project concern for people-
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: … and interest in people-
Dr. Burns: Yes.
Jim: … and this would include your adult children.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: Something in the human heart opens up, even for the crusty soul.
Dr. Burns: Exactly. I had a guy who was in our home. We had had a birthday party for him. He, we did not have the same view on sexuality. And, um, he told me his story. And it was a horrible story.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: I mean, I mean, I’m sorry. His parents d- were goofy when it came to the faith and whatnot. I mean, just really goofy.
Jim: Destructive. Yeah.
Dr. Burns: Yeah. (laughs) I was trying to be nicer.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: Um, but, but they were. And for some reason, I started to well up with tears, and I just said, “I’m so sorry.” And he looked at me like, “Why are you sorry?” And I said, “Because something that’s so near and dear to me and so important to me, I kind of feel like you got a raw deal.”
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: And I’m sure that he did some goofy stuff-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … where his parents, you know, could come down on him, but his parents didn’t do a good job.
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: What he needed to see at that point was the us showing love and care to him, not trying to fix him for his weird thoughts on, very different thoughts on his-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … on his sexuality.
Jim: Your dad, you put some boundaries around your dad.
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim: Was that like, “Give me the car keys because you can’t drive?”
Dr. Burns: (laughs)
Jim: Or what, what were those boundaries?
Dr. Burns: Well, he took the car keys the first day because I hit a trash can the very first day I got my license. But-
Jim: Oh, I was just thinking when you were older.
Dr. Burns: No, no, no. No.
Jim: But you’re 20 something? And-
Dr. Burns: My dad was an alcoholic.
Jim: Oh.
Dr. Burns: And, um, my grandpa on my mom’s side was an alcoholic. So, our dysfunction in our family was alcoholism.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Burns: And so, for example, dad, I love my dad. Dad was one of these guys who, some people don’t like to use the term functioning alcoholic, but he was. He was good in business. He did things. He came to my games. He wasn’t a horrible person. But as he started drinking, I never let my kids drive with him. And I didn’t even say that to him. I just kinda go, “Oh, we’re gonna do this.” I never let them stay there because I was afraid that one day grandpa would take them someplace. You know, I just didn’t. S-
Jim: So unspoken boundaries?
Dr. Burns: Some unspoken boundaries, some spoken boundaries. And the spoken boundaries never went well. And, um, and so we did that, but I still tried to stay in the story with dad, and we did lots of things, and I visit him all the time, and, you know, did all these things. One day, he was in a motor home, his motor home with my mom, and he, he almost crashed the motor home. And I got him to go to a alcoholic drug rehab center at 68 years old.
John: Mm.
Dr. Burns: The other guys were, like, in their 20s, right? And he was the Pied Piper. And Dad never drank again, and Dad pulled it together. And so, some of those boundaries I was then able to break away from over the years, and we ended up with a really cool relationship. Now, I’m not saying Dad was perfect, but Dad-
Jim: Yeah.
Dr. Burns: … in his sobriety, he made a lot better decisions. That’s a hard one, because ev- whenever you deal with adult children, a lot of times, as your children are getting (laughs) older, so are your parents. I had the blessing of having my dad become a Christian. My mom had died. Having my dad become a Christian, um, being a, you know, almost a fellowship type relationship with him. I never dreamed that was gonna happen. And I literally did have to set some boundaries that I was not really happy about and always kinda felt guilty about too.
Jim: Jim, right at the end here, uh, I wanna end with that positive story out of your book about your friend, Ron, who, uh, you know, beach tripped with his son-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … discussions. Describe that because it, it, I think it knits together everything-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … we’ve talked about.
Dr. Burns: It really … You know, it does. And I hadn’t thought about that for a long time. Ron, uh, had a lot of tension with his son. His son didn’t … He violated his values, and he strayed from faith, and he did all these things. And Ron was the type of guy that said, “Sit …” He’s kind of a man’s man. “Sit down. I’m gonna tell you what is going on, and you need to pull this together.” That didn’t work. And it, you know, it only broke their relationship.
Jim: Mm.
Dr. Burns: So, Ron decided to go on a week trip. Ron surfed, fished, and they brought bikes. And so, they just did three things that both he and his son liked to do. And they, they vacationed together. And they had laughter, and they went out to dinner, and they ate … I think they had Mexican food every night because the son likes Mexican food, right?
Jim: (laughs)
Dr. Burns: And, uh, kinda toward the end, I s- the son, you know, said, “Dad, I, this has been the greatest time I’ve ever had with, with you, and it’s been so good. And I know you have questions, and I know you have … And I’m gonna be okay. Uh, you know what? I know you’re worried about me, and yeah, I’ve made some, you know, dumb decisions, and I’m probably in agreement with most of those that you would say are dumb, but I’m coming back, and I just want you to know this has helped me so much-”
Jim: Wow.
Dr. Burns: “… uh, to make the turn, because I know you love me, and I know every night you’d wanna tell me, you know, how wrong I was on certain things, and you never did. And I just wanna thank you for that.”
And today, by the way, this is an ongoing story. Today, Ron and his son are in business together, and it’s kind of almost a Christian business, and they do so many great things as families. So, you know, it started out pretty bumpy, but Ron swallowed his pride and said, “I’m gonna build this relationship on the long haul.”
Jim: Well, that’s exactly what we wanna end on-
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: … is the, the longer arc that you mentioned throughout the program.
Dr. Burns: Right.
Jim: And the idea that in your 20s, you’re gonna experience some things that may be displeasing to mom and dad, and we get it, and that’s okay. But look at that long arc, and like the outcome of Ron and his son, that’s what you’re aiming for.
Dr. Burns: Yeah.
Jim: And that was a beautiful way to end. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for being with us.
Dr. Burns: Oh, always great to be with you.
Jim: And like we often do, just make a gift of any amount, monthly or a one-time gift, and we’ll send you Jim’s book, When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope, as our way of saying thank you for jumping in, getting a great resource that you can apply right now, and then helping other families to get those resources as well.
John: Mm-hmm. And part of that package of resources is our counseling team. Uh, you can call and schedule a free over-the-phone consult with one of our caring Christian counselors because of our donor community and, uh, their generosity. So, donate today. Contact us if you need to connect with one of those counselors. And, uh, our number is 1-800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or you’ll find details at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
And coming up next time, Christian financial advisor, Russ Crosson will be answering questions about finances like, “How can I honor God with my money?”
Preview:
Russ Crosson: So, I can put it in retirement. I can put it in another piece of real estate. I can buy a second home. I can, you fill in the blank, but I could also invest in my family. And that’s been a paradigm shift for me.
End of Preview
John: Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.
