192: Jim Burns: When Adult Children Stray

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Blended®

This content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

Season 8, Episode 192: When Adult Children Stray

Guest:Jim Burns

Air Date: June 15, 2026

Jim (00:00):

In the Bible, it’s the story of Moses and the Israelites battling the Amalekites. And Moses got weary and he got tired and he had had the rod up and the Israelites were winning and he put it down and then the Amalekites started to win the battle. So what Moses did was he pulled people around him and his weariness was there as we feel that with adult children sometimes. And he had these other people hold his arms up. It’s a beautiful story in the Bible and Israel won the day. We need that. We’ve got to find that place where we can be authentic and where we can be open and honest. If we don’t do that, we’re trying to fight a battle that’s too big for us to do alone.

Ron (00:48):

Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. And why do we do that, you ask? Well, because we think there’s great joy in loving God and loving others and it makes the world a better place.

We got an email from a listener who needed help with finances. I told her that stepfamily finances can be really tricky and problematic, especially when feelings of insecurity and loyalty rise to the surface. And then I reminded her that we’ve done some podcasts around this, believe it or not. Episodes 19 and 136 come to mind. I think there’s more than that. And we wrote an entire book on this subject, The Smart Stepfamily Guide to Financial Planning. We don’t talk about it a lot, but we should because this is very real for a lot of folks.

(01:42):

The Smart Stepfamily Guide to Financial Planning. And then that got me thinking, “Hey, we’ve addressed a lot of blended family topics on this podcast over time, dozens and dozens of different topics. And we have online articles and multiple video series and multiple books that address all of these in depth.” So if you’re looking for something in particular, just browse around, just scroll through our topics. Whether you’re watching on YouTube, there they are. They’re all right there. Just keep scrolling or you could search on your podcast app. Just like we helped this woman, we want to help you. So let us know. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can always email us, blended@FamilyLife.com, blended at FamilyLife.com and tell us what you need. We’ll try to help.

My dear friend, Dr. Jim Burns, is back with us again on the FamilyLife Blended podcast.

(02:42):

Jim is founder of HomeWord. He’s an author. He’s a speaker. He’s host of HomeWord with Jim Burns. He and his wife, Kathy, live in Southern California. They have three married daughters and four grandchildren. Welcome back, Jim. It’s good to see you.

Jim (02:57):

Ron, it’s good to be with you. I tell you all the time that at our seminars, when somebody comes to me and talks about blended family, I say two words, Ron Deal. Move them on.

Ron (03:06):

Those are the two words.

Jim (03:08):

I am your fan.

Ron (03:09):

Well, I appreciate that. I’ve followed your work for so long and we have worked together so many times and I never get tired of it. I just so appreciate your life wisdom, the experience and all the work that you put in. This latest book, When Your Adult Child Strays, man, it is important. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know if you have any stats. I think the last stat I saw, Barna said 64% of youth leave the faith after high school. I know there’s lots of different ways of looking at that. Did they come back later? All kinds of different perspectives here, but it seems to me this book on when your adult child strays is really important for this day and time.

Jim (03:54):

You’re so right. I wrote a book six, seven years ago called Doing Life with Your Adult Children. And I had six pages talking about your adult child straying. That was it. But I never dreamed I would spend the rest of my life answering questions about adult child, children straying, adult children, being estranged from their parents. And ones who are violating values, and these were kids who were raised in the church, they were raised in Sunday school, they were youth group leaders, and then they did what you said. And I think the Barna statistic is right. There’s two parallel tracks though. It’s really interesting. And good news is you’ve got kids who are straying and then you’ve got a Gen Z who’s coming back. And just maybe the last time I would’ve talked to you about something like this, I was saying that there’s twice as many Gen Z atheist, which is true.

(04:40):

So you got that parallel track going that way. And then you have this new group that’s really coming back and they’re coming back because they’re dying for community. These were COVID kids who didn’t have friendships and they got on social media, and they didn’t spend as much time. And so there’s a positive side to this. Parents need to hear that too, because so many parents feel so much shame, “If we only would have,” “If we wouldn’t have gotten that divorce,” “If I would have married somebody else”—it’s not all blended family issues—”but if I would have married somebody else instead of that guy that I thought was so going to be so great and he’s not good with my adult kids.” And you’re saying that, and yet at the same time, some of these adult children are moving in really good directions.

Ron (05:21):

Okay. It’s interesting. I know for the parent who is staring down a situation that’s real in their world, this is really, really painful. Let me just say a quick word to our listener, to our viewer. We’re going to cover a lot in this conversation. I just want you to hang on. We’re going to be talking about maintaining influence with your adult child at some point. We’re going to be talking about what if your child deconstructs their faith? What do you do? What do you say? What do you not say? We’re going to talk about how the other home sometimes plays a role or did play a role in the experience of your child growing up, and now you see that sort of demonstrating itself in them as an adult moving away from faith. We’re going to talk about when your child cancels you, because that’s a big thing going on right now.

(06:06):

But I always want to start with this pain thing. Jim, Proverbs 10:1 says, “A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son, heartache to the mother.” It’s not gender specific. It’s to both. It’s hard. It is so hard. It weighs heavy on a parent’s heart when their child steps away from the faith. It’s a grief, it’s a sadness and that pain, wow, it’s so palpable and it really, I think it clouds our judgment as parents. Do you think?

Jim (06:43):

I do think so. I’ve worked with families for my adult years and I’ve never seen the pain until I start talking about adult children. I’ve never seen the depth of pain. And it combines, what’s even harder is it combines with shame because a lot of times as parents, we take the blame; because again, back to the thing of saying, “If we would have prayed more,” “If we only would have done this,” or “I wouldn’t have yelled,” “Maybe I shouldn’t have worked so hard,” “If we wouldn’t have,” like I said, “gotten that divorce.” And so you have this depth of pain where you’re watching your kids go a direction that you never dreamed they would go. Even with Kathy and I, we have three daughters and they’re great and they bumped a bit in college, but I don’t have a horrible horror story. So I’m not writing out of my own personal depth of pain.

(07:30):

But I remember Kathy saying, “Didn’t see it going this way when our kids started going, “Wait, I’m an adult. Treat me like an adult.” And we’re going, “Well, then act like an adult.”

Ron (07:39):

Yeah, that’s right.

Jim (07:40):

“We’re still paying for your cell phone. We’re still paying for insurance and we’re paying for your college. So we want something in there.” And the kids are going, “No, we don’t want to hear that.”

Ron (07:47):

Yes. There is a tension there. It’s really, that’s very, very real for people. And it’s one thing when it’s pain over a cell phone, it’s another thing when they’re making life choices that it just pains your heart.

Jim (07:59):

Oh, right. No, I know. It’s so hard. And what I oftentimes say is you have to stay in the story. And there’s some messes out there. And I just said to somebody last week, I said, “You know what? God is okay with messes.” He’s saying to you, “I’m okay with this mess. I specialize in messes and I can help. If you want, I can help you clean this mess up, but it’s not going to be a sprint. It’s going to be a marathon sometimes with adult kids.”

Ron (08:25):

Nan and I in our book The Mindful Marriage, talk about how pain and difficulty spawns reactivity in us. And for parents, I’ve spent some time with some folks as well talking and listening and hearing their story. Sometimes the pain over their child’s choices leads that parent to become argumentative, angry, withdrawn sometimes from their child. It sort of takes—sometimes I move towards you with anger, sometimes I move away from you in desperation. None of those things are really helpful when you’re trying to bring your child back, so to speak. And that’s the crazy thing is that’s what the parent’s doing when they get argumentative or angry at their kid. They’re trying to bring their child back.

Jim (09:04):

No, they are. I mean, they have the right intent.

Ron (09:06):

Yeah.

Jim (09:07):

And I say to them, “You got to be the adult in the room here.” And Jesus led with love. He didn’t agree with people. He didn’t agree with the woman who was a prostitute. He didn’t agree with the tax collector. He didn’t agree with different people, but He still led with love and He practiced kindness. So the hard thing is we’ve got to learn to zip the mouth sometimes and show love. They know how you feel. They know what you believe. So as long as they know that, then we’ve got to keep the relationship, and we can still love them but not agree with how they’re living. And that’s a hard discipline. That’s why people who are struggling in that; they’ve got to have what I call the circle of support. They’ve got to have a circle of support around them. And things change. People change. Experiences happen. And I see these people, some of them, not all of them, you said 64% with Barna, but I see some of them coming back at marriage, coming back when they make babies, coming back when they need community, and they’re coming back to the church, and that’s a good thing.

Ron (10:06):

That is a good thing.

Jim:

Maybe they’re coming back with some bruises or they’ve got-it’s like they’ve got a cast on their arm, not literal cast, but a cast meaning, “Wow, I’m coming with something because of some poor choices.” It’s hard for parents. Yeah. I get it. I identify with their pain. It’s a tough, tough thing.

Ron (10:23):

Let’s press into lead with love. I love that. And at the same time, the devil’s in the details. Okay, so I don’t want to be approving of life choices and decisions or somehow send a message that we’re okay with you just never going to church ever again or worshiping Jesus or having any faith expression. So I don’t want to communicate that, but at the same time, I do want to be in their lives. I do want to move toward them. I still want to engage, talk, dialogue about other things in life, what we do agree on. Wow, that is a tightrope.

Jim (10:59):

It is. And yet at the same time, there’s something called tough love. And a lot of times we think of tough love means that we’re supposed to be mean to our kids or all that stuff that you had just mentioned. Tough love just simply means allowing the circumstances of their choices to take place because experience is a better teacher than advice. So when your kids are five and they fall off the bike or they put their hand on the burner, they experience pain and they’re going, “I’m not going to do that again.”

Ron (11:25):

That’s right.

Jim (11:26):

The harder part with adult is that adults kids are a lot of times making poor choices with bigger stuff because you’re now talking about their faith, but you’re also talking about drugs or alcohol or different things that we just disagree on. So we can’t be that one topic parent and that is really hard. So we have to allow the tough love is key and critical. And you even see this in the Bible. In the story of the prodigal son that Jesus talked about, it’s just such an incredible story in the Book of Luke, the father was waiting. He showed love to the prodigal who had left. And in the living Bible, it talks about he wasted his money, the dad’s inheritance that he had given him on priorities and prostitutes. I love The Living Bible. I’m not sure that’s exactly the Greek, but there you go.

(12:15):

But when his elder son confronted the dad and said, “What are you doing? He’s wasted all of our money.” He said, “All that I have is yours.” So in other words, he didn’t change the rules. He didn’t say, “Now I’m going to give half of your money to this prodigal son.” He said, “But this son,” he still called him his son. And so that was tough love because he was saying, “I’m not going to give him this money again. He’s going to have to now change the arrangements.” And we miss that in the story. It’s the beauty of the father welcoming the prodigal, but he didn’t give him back his money. That one sentence is a pretty interesting sentence to the elder son, “All that I have is yours.” And that’s a sense of more of a tough love. So we become one topic parents because we’re so frustrated that our daughter moved in with her boyfriend or we’re so frustrated that the guy seems to be with lots of girls or he’s left school or he’s experimenting with weed or whatever it might be.

(13:13):

Those are concerns, but to stay in the story means that we’ve still got to be that safe person. So if we don’t stay in the story, then when they want help, they’re not going to come to us because all they’ve gotten is luxury preachy stuff. And so this is where it has to be so careful. I said to a woman not too long ago who had written her son a horrible—it was all probably true, but it was kind of a horrible text. What a way to communicate. And I said, “Well, how did that work for you?” And she said, “Well, he dropped me from getting any more mail from him and he’s not speaking to me.” So in reality, she gave him truth, but she didn’t do it in the right way.

Ron (13:55):

I want to push in on tough love. I don’t know how I missed it, but recently I discovered that when some people say tough love, what they really mean is not what you said. It’s not just allowing consequence to be the teacher; it’s you need to make your child suffer so they will change and be different. And again, that’s an approach some people take to parenting when a kid is five or 35.

(14:24):

I don’t agree with that at all. And I want our viewers and listeners; I want you to stop and think about this. For you to say, “Okay, what I need to do is emotionally withdraw myself from my adult child because they’ve done this thing, made these decisions, stepped away from the faith, and what’ll happen is they will suffer because they don’t have access to me, because I don’t talk to them anymore, because I give them the silent treatment, and then they will come back to Jesus.” First of all, let’s just say, okay, that’s just another control tactic, and that diminishes your influence. It does not increase your influence, right?

Jim (14:59):

Exactly. And you can do that without approving of their behavior. That’s the big deal. But I mean, I’ll give you an illustration. It’s actually somebody that we both know. The guy is incredible ministry guy and his daughter, he’s had trouble with his daughter, and she was dating some guy and then it kind of went quiet. She called dad and she said, “Hey, so I want you to sit down. I’m going to get married. I’m marrying somebody who’s 42 and it happens to be the same sex.” So the dad didn’t know what to do and called me and said, “What would you do?” And I said, “Well, this is where you got to really listen.” He said, “If I shun her, she’ll never talk to me again.” And I said, “Well, the truth is, is she’s 22, this person’s 42, it’s the same sex. The odds of that, them staying together is pretty slim.”

(15:46):

“And so if you don’t stay in that story when they crash and they will, they’re not going to come back to you.” Three months, Ron, and in three months, the girl calls and says—Dad stayed in the story. And it was a hard story, and it was terrible and he wanted to do all the things that we just said. He wanted to shun, he wanted the lecture, he wanted to—he didn’t agree, and she knew it, obviously, but three months later she comes back and she starts living at home and she gets involved in celebrate recovery and some other things because there’s usually other things that go with that. Today, I’m not telling you that she’s ready to be on your podcast. What I’m saying is she’s working through it. She actually has a boyfriend. She’s working through a lot of that stuff. She’s getting wise counsel.

(16:31):

She’s going to church. She’s involved in a more or less a 12-step program because of Celebrate Recovery at the church. And there’s hope for her. I agree with my friend that I don’t—if he would have shunned her and just ignored her and yelled at her and did all the things that you want to do, I don’t know that she would have come back to him.

(16:53):

But she did.

Ron:

That’s right.

Jim:

So I think he’s pretty courageous and pretty brave because again, I mean, he’s a public figure and it’s not a well-known story because they didn’t make it—for her sake, they didn’t make it a huge deal, but he’s a public figure and he probably had to take a hit or two from somebody from what took place. Good job for him. He stayed in it and he showed love and yet at the same time—and even like she really, really liked—funny enough, because it’s a girl, but she really, really liked baseball. And so he would take her to Major League Baseball games, and they went to a couple of different places during this time, and they would just eat and have fun and watch the game. And he said, “I had such an agenda, and I never brought the agenda up.” And I went, “That would be hard for me.”

Ron (17:39):

Absolutely.

Jim (17:40):

He said, “It was hard for me.” But what he was doing was saying, “Even though I don’t agree with you, I still love you and I still want to spend time with you, and you are my child.” I think God does that.

Ron (17:49):

Yes. Yes. You brought up the story of the prodigal son. It’s a really good illustration. We’ve talked before on this podcast, we think influences about direction, distance, and how much stress or anxiety there is in your relationship. Direction, this father—your great story—he kept his face pointed toward his daughter, right? To turn about face and show her his back and walk away means he is diminishing his amount of his influence. The distance thing has to do with, are you moving toward them or are you moving away from them? Are you closing the gap that may be there and doing what you can? And sometimes our kids won’t let us close that gap, but at least you’re available like the story in the prodigal son. The father’s moving toward his son initially, but once the son leaves, we got a big distance problem, right? The son’s at a far-off country, but the father remains on the edge of the property, so to speak.

(18:41):

He is ready and willing and open to closing the gap when his son wakes up and begins to close the distance. I think there’s so many great images in that story that it’s ultimately about this is how we keep our influence. We may not have much, but we got to keep what we have. And if we just add to the distance or turn our direction, then we got nothing.

Jim (19:10):

Right. And that’s why we need to work on our own stuff. We’ve got to rise above these circumstances. And you do that by literally having what I call a circle of support. But you do that with people who are around you who are going to lift you up, hold you up because you’re not going to get the kind of support from your kids. Sometimes even when you’re in a thing like this, you go, “Wait, I want support from you. ” That’s not going to happen. So we need outside help. And this is where we can go to the church and be honest and blunt and open. And I find a lot of times people, even specifically speaking about the blended family, that I find they don’t feel comfortable in the church because they’ve got a story or there is things going on and yet the church should be the place where they feel most loved and most welcomed and most supported so that they can go on with this.

(20:02):

And even with, in a blended family, it’s even harder because let’s say one of the children, and we’re talking about adult children in a blended family. With adult children in a blended family, sometimes they say really bad things about the new mom or the new dad or whatever.

Ron:

—stepparent or whoever.

Jim:

So now you got kind of everybody’s angry at everybody, and this is where we have to rise above it. We kind of can’t do that on our own. This is where we need counsel. The Bible says where there’s no counsel, the people fall. A multitude of counselors are a safety. We got to bring counsel. We’ve got to have wisdom. And then we also need replenishing relationships, a support system who’s going to help us through that, maybe even a mentor. And there’s people out there who can help us. It’s not easy, but you guys have amazing amount of resources and that’s a good start to find where do we find those kinds of resources to help us through this little mess.

Ron (21:07):

You mentioned your previous book, which is so great. We quote that often around here. I want to push in on something. One of the things you say is keep your mouth shut as a parent and the welcome mat out with your adult children. It’s a great strategy. I get it. Love that. Are there limits? Like what if you see your child walking towards the edge of a cliff? When do you not keep your mouth shut and go ahead and try to say something?

Jim (21:31):

Right, right. And people ask me that a lot. And I don’t mean in that cutesy little thing, keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out. I don’t mean that we don’t—like I said to a woman not too long ago, she was talking about her daughter and I said, “Does she know how you feel?” Yes. Does she know what you believe? Yes. Okay, you’ve done that. You’ve taken the hit. The daughter doesn’t roll her eyes and didn’t go, “Mom, you’re amazing.” The daughter was mad. Yes. But that’s okay because you’ve built enough of a relationship that you can do that. So if you have an adult child who’s going to that cliff—and it could be abuse, it could be addictions, it could be mental health issues. I mean, there’s tons of things like that—for goodness sakes, don’t just keep your mouth shut, but do it in a welcoming mat way.

(22:18):

And also now you’ve told them what you think. You’ve told them what you believe. Don’t be a one topic parent. Now broaden the relationship to safety because you want to be the person that if they do go to that cliff, you want to be that safety spot or the safe person. And you don’t do that by just pounding on them. So you don’t have to do it every day or tell them how bad they are or how right you are. And that’s with every issue with adult children. That could be from deconstruction, talking about deconstructing their faith, or that could be from something that they’re doing very toxic. Sure, talk to them about it. And they know how you feel. Broaden the relationship. And I think it puts adult kids in disequilibrium where they’re like, “You know what? I know my mom and dad don’t agree with what I’m doing, but they still are showing me love.”

Ron (23:07):

Yes.

Jim (23:07):

Wow.

Ron (23:07):

And that is such a powerful paradox right there that you just pointed out. And that should be our goal, I think as parents is to—and it’s delicate and sometimes we overstep and got to step back and sometimes we don’t do enough, I think. But yeah, that’s the goal. That’s what we’re shooting for is for them to have this clear sense of, even though my parent doesn’t agree with whatever, they’re still here. They’re not going away. They still love me. They’re still committed. That’s really crucial.

Jim (23:38):

That speaks so loud. That speaks volumes to them because they think of when you don’t like something, you walk away and they don’t see that. And that’s a great story just in terms of a blended family too. I mean, sometimes you just go, “Look, we’re going to work through this.” I have a friend who, she has a book coming out and you have a—I know you endorsed it and she calls it her smoothie family. Their names are Franklin, the Franklin Smoothie Family. She said to me, they live near us and she goes, “There’s some rocks in the smoothie family.” When we blended, there’s still some rocks. Well, okay, that’s life. When did we start thinking that there was going to be perfection in all this stuff? There’s not. So when you accept that and you build around it, it’s going to work through.

(24:27):

And I’m not saying every kid who’s strayed from their faith comes back or every kid who’s violating your values is going to come back in the way you want them to be. They still may vote different than you. I’ve got a daughter who we cancel each other’s votes out. I’m going to talk about politics today, but I just laugh at it because I go, “Man, we’re getting our votes canceled here because she votes this way and I vote that way.” And yet, okay, move on. I love this kid. I go to church with her. We sit next to each other. We worship Jesus together. She trusts us with her children as grandparents and things like that. But yeah, we disagree on stuff. We just can move on through it.

Ron (25:05):

I like that. Don’t be a one topic parent. Speaking of cancel, cancel culture is alive and well.

Jim (25:12):

Oh man, and it is with adult children big time.

Ron (25:14):

And so when your child moves away for whatever reason, then that happens. Parents get canceled. What do we do? My goodness. I mean, first of all, I just want to say emotional cutoff is such a harmful strategy. We shouldn’t cut ourselves off from our kids. Our kids shouldn’t cut themselves off from us. Let’s just say that out loud. But when it happens, it’s painful. It’s difficult. You got any thoughts?

Jim (25:40):

Yeah, I do. I actually think we as parents take the lead to come back and I don’t think we—we take the lead by kind of letting them even take the lead on the timing and things like that. And when you talk about counsel culture, there’s an amazing amount of counselors who say to Gen Zers and Millennials, “Walk away from your family, walk away from your parents.” I totally think they’re wrong on that.

Ron:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim:

And I think that’s going to damage family relationships for decades, generations, the trajectory of where families are going. I don’t think it’s a wise idea. So I do think you lean in. But I think the parents have to say, “Help me understand.”—if they’re talking. If you’re in a deep estrangement, you’re not even talking, but help me understand and then be empathetic. Listen to this. Some people disagree with me on this.

(26:28):

Be empathetic to whatever they’re saying. Say, “You know what? I kind of don’t agree with everything, but I do understand your pain.” Because when you begin to understand the pain of whatever the child’s going through, even if you think it’s wrong, you are now welcoming them to have some dialogue because you want to get to that dialogue, but you don’t start by saying, “Here’s how,” as I said, “here’s how right I am and how wrong you are. Now let’s talk about this cancel, me getting canceled. Why did I get canceled? I wiped your nose. I did this and that.” We get too defensive. So I think we kind of tiptoe back into the relationship. And I know some people disagree with that, but that is what works. That’s what the authorities on estrangement are saying today, whether they’re Christian or not, by the way. They’re saying, “No, you take the lead as a parent but be very delicate.” And if your child says, “I don’t want to talk to you,” say, “Well, can I text you in three months and just see if there’s any way we could have coffee or whatever?” Because again, you leave it open enough.

(27:33):

Estrangements don’t last forever if you do this thing right. And again, I’m saying that generally speaking, okay? But I really believe that, that a lot of times what we have to do is just let them at their pace. So how hurtful for a parent that you want to just make it all better and get it together and you’re waiting three months and then you text and you say, “Any chance we could have a cup of coffee.” And when you have that coffee, this is not the time for you to talk. It’s the time for you to listen and hear their pain because there’s deep pain going on with them for them to do that estrangement. By the way, if any of your people are in an estrangement and through the cancel culture and other things, 27% of families in America have at least one person who’s estranged.

(28:13):

You can Google me on that. It’s the latest report. I looked at it yesterday.

Ron:

My goodness.

Jim:

That’s remarkable when you start thinking about 27%; that’s one out of four people who come to your amazing conferences or come when you’re speaking or who are reading your books or who are—same thing in terms of my world. And so I’m looking at the world differently today. In fact, you helped me years and years ago look at the world differently; that when I’m looking at an audience, it’s a blended family audience in terms of the statistics and things. It really helped me how I frame certain things. But now even with estrangement, I’m so aware that—I was at a church this last weekend and I was speaking on complicated families, and I realized some of that complicated family thing is, they’re estranged from some—it could be dad, it could be the adult children.

(28:59):

Those are kind of two of the biggies. Dads and adult children get the estrangement thing the most.

Ron (29:03):

Wow. That is really something. It’s a high percentage. Pressing in on looking past their external behavior, things they’re saying and doing and trying to listen and empathize with their pain, that is such a good thing. Not long ago, I had a conversation with one of my adult children and it was similar to that. It wasn’t estrangement. It wasn’t loss of faith. It wasn’t any of that, but it was something’s going on with this kid and right now he’s kind of a pain in the butt and not very likable.

Jim (29:39):

Every parent just identified with that phrase of yours. I just want you to know that.

Ron (29:44):

And what is so tempting, and by the way, this occurs to me, this is marriage too. When your spouse gets to be a pain, what is so tempting is you want to focus in on their behavior, the externals, the stuff we’re seeing and going, “What are you doing? Why are you—that’s ugly. Knock it off. You’re saying got to look past that. Got to go, man, what’s underneath this? What is this kid hurting over that’s leading to this externals?

Jim (30:11):

Right, right. You’re right. And I think the bottom line when our kids violate values, stray from faith, things like that, the bottom line for them, do you still love me, Mom? Do you still love me, Dad? And actually, a lot of the work in—I interviewed you on my podcast with your book with Nan and The Mindful Marriage and was great. And a lot of some of the conflict stuff that you’re talking about in marriage, I think you could just remove—you need to now write this book. I think you could just move that over to learning how to do conflict with your adult children because it’s very different to do a conflict with a 28-year-old or a 30-year-old, 35-year-old, 40-year-old, whatever, than it is with a 12-year-old. And we sometimes try to do conflict with the 38-year-old the same with as we do with a 12-year-old.

Ron (31:01):

You’re absolutely right. We get parental with a 38-year-old.

Jim (31:03):

Exactly.

Ron (31:04):

And we shouldn’t.

Jim (31:05):

No, right, right, right. And we have to understand their pain, and we have to understand where they’re coming from. You guys have some really good illustrations in the book, and I think it’s my marriage book of the year that I’m telling people about. But it’s so authentic, but it’s also talking about pain, getting into the feelings and the pain of them. And if we’re being preachy and luxury, we’re not going to get into the feelings of pain because they’re going to close up. I mean, I do that with Kathy. Kathy and I have been married 51 years. So I mean, we got married at six, but when Kathy says something where she’s kind of more trying to correct me or do that, I back away. When she says, “Man, I just feel for you right now,” I move toward her.

Ron (31:51):

Yeah. Of course.

Jim (31:52):

Well, that’s in marriage, but it’s the same with our kids.

Ron (31:54):

I think that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And it’s just so hard to put on that self-control, that discipline to say, “Nope, don’t react to the externals. Look past it, look beyond it, look underneath it and try to respond to that.” You got a phrase in your book, live above your circumstances. Is this kind of what you’re talking about?

Jim (32:13):

Yeah, it is. And what I say is that your circumstances may not change, but your attitude can change and that makes all the difference in the world. Now for me, the way I work on my attitude toward my kids or what I’m trying to help others understand is that part of it for me is looking at kind of doing a reset with my mind, prayer, being thankful because I had a daughter who kind of bumped along the road. She was at a Christian school and got involved with all these pastor’s kids, which I laughed at. I’m like, “Good pastor’s kids.” They were all wild in this place.

Ron (32:49):

We’re the worst, man. I’m a PK.

Jim:

Yeah. Okay, you. It’s all your fault. But what I realized was I had to, with her, because her circumstances were just driving me nuts. Pain, I think you said it right. You were talking about being a pain in the posterior.

Ron:

—in the patootie, in the back of the front.

Jim:

But with her I had to still practice what I call thank therapy. God, I’m so thankful that she knows Jesus. I’m so thankful that she’s going to school, I think. She’s so thankful. And so I was just so thankful that she was doing some of these kinds of things and about her. And it caused me—my circumstance didn’t change. I was still worried like crazy with her with a boy and I was worried like crazy with other things.

(33:32):

But my circumstance didn’t change at the moment, but my attitude did. And I think it helped me stay in the story with her. And so I think it’s really important that we understand we have to rise above our circumstances. That’s a spiritual discipline, by the way. Paul said to Timothy, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. It’s kind of a metaphor of a literally more exercise, if you would. But that’s true with us, with our adult kids. Sometimes we have to discipline. And sometimes I have to discipline myself. For me, you can’t see it as you and I are talking, but I have a scar on my tongue from biting my tongue so much with my adult kids. And some of it’s not the worst stuff. Even the way our—we have two daughters who have our four grandkids and one not yet. And I’ll go, “I can’t believe they let them eat that much sugar.”

(34:23):

I can’t believe that they’re using a screen again.”—those kinds of things. And I just have to, as Papa J—

Ron:

Keep biting.

Jim:

I just have to kind of go, okay, I’m going to love on these kids. If they ask, great, I’ll be their mentor. But if not, I’m not going to go.

Ron (34:50):

I want to extend what you just said about your daughter’s friends being that influence because a lot of the blended family couples listening right now know that your child’s other home is sort of that influence in your child’s world or they were during the growing up years and now as an adult, you’re seeing the outcome of that. And you just know in your soul that there was a negative influence on your adult child’s faith because of the other home. And boy, is that frustrating? It adds so many layers because you have a connection to these other people. You have a co-parent there. There’s old pain and resentments perhaps that are lingering. And it’s so hard not to want to try to fix everybody. Your adult child is one thing. Your ex-spouse is another, and all of those layers just add to the level of complexity in it all.

(35:43):

What I would want to say is, as Jim’s talking about, bite your tongue more often than not, and zero in on your influence with your child, don’t try to fix, negate, control the other household or the parents in that household. Is there anything you would add to that?

Jim (36:01):

No, I agree with you 100%. And I do believe, and I tell people this all the time, because I think it’s one of the number one things—HomeWord is the largest provider of parenting seminars in the US that I know of. And I always get what about that other home? I mean, the kids are doing kind of okay, but the dad is living with the girlfriend or they’re watching porn. I mean, just unbelievable stuff. You hear it more than I do. But what I say is, stay strong, build the foundation. The kids might even be enticed by money or enticed by some of the crazy things for a while, but as they mature, then they’re going to come back to what’s steady and what’s right. And so, and this may be years in the making, especially if you have younger kids. But the point being is that I’ve seen over the years that the children who become adults tend to gravitate toward the family that’s firm, the family that’s doing well.

(37:04):

And again, this may be the family that has more discipline in it when the kids were younger, but you can’t just react in a blended family, you can’t react and all of a sudden be the harsh parent who doesn’t do any fun because the other parent is the Disneyland dad or Disneyland mom. So what they’ve got to do is make sure that they have serious fun in their family as well, because we tend to sometimes react and go, “Okay, we’re not going to do any of that stuff because that’s all you get over at that house. At this house, we’re going to do the law.” It’s kind of law and grace. We’ve got to make sure that we’re a fun place to come to too.

Ron (37:40):

Yes. And that is such a good word because I think it’s easy for people to just do reactive parenting.

Jim (37:45):

Yeah.

Ron (37:46):

We’re going to do the opposite or we’re going to set all the rules and teach you everything that’s right while they’re doing everything that’s wrong. No, you got to have some balance.

Jim (37:54):

Yeah, you do. And you can’t talk about it as so much. You can’t say, “Your dad is a complete yo-yo, blah, blah, blah.” They will learn that as it goes, but you can’t tell a 12-year-old boy how bad the dad is because he’s still kind of a hero, even if he’s made some really poor choices, or vice versa of course. And so I think you let that run out. So you be the steady person, you be the person who’s safer, you be the person who gives them that kind of guidance and they’re going to pay off. That’s when in the adult children thing, it’s a good deal because you kind of go, “I didn’t have a good relationship with them when they were teens because really, they wanted to go with the other family because it was a lot more fun, a lot more loose, a lot whatever,” but now they’re coming back to some of that structure.

(38:36):

They’re coming back to that really true north love. They’re coming back to the faith because they can see by the time they’re adults, they understand that, no, the other family’s a little bit crazy here. We’re going with this family.

Ron (38:53):

Life and perspective really help. You’re exactly right about that. I want to echo that for our listeners and viewers. And I also want to acknowledge a lot of time passes before you see that happening. And my goodness, that is a long, lonely road for a parent who’s deeply worried about their child. That reminds me, what do you call it? A circle of—

Jim (39:15):

Circle of support.

Ron (39:16):

Circle of support. If that’s your situation, you absolutely have to have a circle of support somewhere where you can go to just sort of vomit all the pain that you’re experiencing so it’s not coming out on your kid and find prayer and people who will come alongside you.

Jim (39:33):

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been in a small group, Ron, for 24 years with these men. There’s six of us. And when our Becca especially, when she took a bump in the road, and she had ended up now, she was a missionary. She traveled with me for four years. I mean, it’s a different story today, but back when she—it was very, very trying, I went to those men immediately and I just opened up my kimono and said, “Here’s what’s going on.” Now, I write books on parenting as you do. I write books on marriage and the guy who writes the books is going, “What in the world is going on?” But I needed those guys. And none of those guys went, “Well, how’s shameful? I mean, you’re the expert. You’re supposed to pull this together.” No, they came along. They even then opened up—we were just talking, it’s been years and we were just talking about that season in our life as a group and how important that was.

(40:26):

And Kathy and I, I can remember going to dinner one night with one of the guys in my group and his wife who we adore, and we just see them almost as mentors and they were so helpful to us. And you know what? Their help was like, “Oh, we understand.” They didn’t give us advice. We didn’t walk out with more insight. We walked out with empathy, and we walked out with understanding. And I remember Kathy was saying something about what Becca had said to her and Susan, a tear rolled up in Susan’s eyes and she goes, “Oh, that’d be so hurtful, Kathy.” So we get in the car and Kathy just goes, “I love Randy. I love Susan.” I mean, honestly, they’re so good. They didn’t give us advice. Funny enough. We were looking for advice because we knew that they’d had a son who’d kind of strayed a bit.

(41:13):

We didn’t get that advice. What we got was more. And that’s what you get when you have a circle of support. But if you’re thinking that a circle of support is just going to surround you, it’s not. Who are your mentors? Who are your peer support? Are you in a church? Our church is a circle of support for us. It’s not like we’ve gone to them with all of our adult children’s stuff or just life, but it’s just we’re here, we’re home, we’re worshiping. So that’s a circle of support. A family member can be a circle of support, or a family member can be the least of the circle of support. So if you have one, then how blessed you are. So you find people who do this. It’s a story of—in the Bible, it’s the story of Moses and the Israelites battling the Amalekites and Moses and how they battled in those days was so interesting because they’d be on two hills and they just duke it out in the middle in the valley.

(42:05):

And Moses got weary and he got tired and he had had the rod up and the Israelites were winning and he had his rod and he put it down and then the Amalekites started to win the battle. So what Moses did was he pulled people around him and his weariness was there as we feel that with adult children sometimes. And he had these other people hold his arms up. It’s a beautiful story in the Bible and Israel won the day. We need that. And yet we have to go past shame. We have to go past the embarrassment of saying, “Yeah, my kid isn’t like your kid. My kid didn’t finish college. My kid does smoke pot. My kid does this or that.” And kind of be okay with it in a private setting. I’m not saying you announce it. It becomes part of your voice because I think that hurts the kid big time.

(42:55):

But I think we do it in a smaller group setting, that circle of support. And typically we’re not going to get preached at, we’re going to get loved on.

Ron (43:09):

It occurs to me; we all want to have control when our kids make decisions that we don’t feel like are good for them. And so we go in search of more control and that need for control will also make us blame ourselves and feel ashamed and isolate. And we won’t allow others to come alongside us and hold our arms up because we’re so afraid that this is all our fault at the end of the day. And it’s not. They’re making choices. We care about them. We just can’t isolate ourselves.

Jim (43:42):

No, you’re right. And that runs in every circle. In the world that you’re living in, in the blended family, it runs that way too, because you’ve got to be able to talk to people about what’s going on in this blend. And people tend to not want to talk about that. So then they don’t get any help, and they think they’re alone out there when in fact, there are tons of people, even in their local church that are going through the same thing. They just don’t know it. So we’ve got to find that place where we can be authentic and where we can be open and honest. And if we don’t do that, we’re trying to fight a battle that’s too big for us to do alone.

Ron (44:18):

It takes a lot of courage, but once you go first, other people are going to come alongside you and you’ll help one another. Jim, thank you so much for being with me today. I appreciate you. Thanks for writing another book. You got another book in the works?

Jim (44:32):

I’m thinking about marriage. I haven’t written a marriage book in a long time, and I think I got another one in me. I don’t know if it’s going to be as good as yours and Nan’s because I love your book, but I think I’m going to jump that way. HomeWord, we have these refreshing your marriage conferences. I speak on marriage regularly and I’ve been holding back on some content that I’ve been given. And I don’t know if anybody else is going to like the content, but I’m going to love it. But you know when you’ve just, as you well know, you’ve just finished a book. So I’ve just finished this book on adult children straying. I did this with sports. I would go, “I don’t want to throw a baseball again for—” And then I’d move on and I’m like, “Okay, I got to go throw a baseball,” whatever it is.

(45:16):

Well, it’s that way with me. I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, but it’s going to happen.

Ron:

It’s going to happen.

Jim:

It’s not if. It’s a when, but I’m ready to not write. As you know, writing is, it’s just so emotional.

Ron:

It is.

Jim:

It takes so much energy out of you and people don’t think that. They think it—well, maybe it’s easy for you. No, I want to vomit after I’ve written.

Ron (45:37):

I had somebody the other day say, “Hey, we really need you to write another book.” And I said, “Well, the last one took five years. Give me a minute. Would you please just give me a minute?”

Jim (45:46):

Right. And when you look at some of the books that you’re writing, even what you and Nan did, that didn’t take you five years. That took you your marriage life.

Ron (45:56):

That’s right. That’s right—40 years.

Jim (45:56):

So people forget that when we’re writing, we’re writing out of our experience. And sure, research is okay. You can do research, but it’s more when you’re ready. I didn’t write a book on—I wrote a book called Understanding Your Teen a number of years ago after my kids were teens. Because I’d been a youth pastor and I went, “This is easy. Why are parents having trouble?” Because the parents would go, “Oh, this is hard.” We then had teens and I went, “Oh, oh, oh.”

Ron:

It humbles you.

Jim:

“Okay, now I understand.” So I wrote the book afterwards with deep empathy for what can be going on, but that’s kind of how it is, I think, with a lot of the books. Yeah.

Ron (46:35):

Well, when you write the marriage book, send it our way because I’m definitely going to want to see it.

Jim (46:38):

I’ll send it and I’ll be quoting you in it.

Ron (46:40):

All right. Jim, again, it’s good to see you. Thanks, brother, for all you do.

Jim (46:44):

Great to be with you.

Ron (46:46):

If you, our listener or viewer, want to learn more about Jim and HomeWord, check the show notes. You really need to check them out. If you haven’t subscribed to this podcast, the YouTube version, the audio version, whichever works for you, I want to encourage you to do that, so you don’t miss any future podcasts that are coming out. And if you think of a friend right now, like right now that you could share this conversation with, why don’t you do that? Just send it to them. It’ll be helpful.

A quick reminder that FamilyLife is a donor supported ministry. All gifts are tax deductible and you can give directly to FamilyLife Blended, our division of FamilyLife. Just use the link in our show notes. And if you want to know my speaking schedule, you can go to FamilyLifeBlended.com. FamilyLifeBlended.com, click the find events.

(47:36):

Man, you’ll see them on a map. You can see marriage events, parenting stuff that FamilyLife’s doing. You can see our blended family events. Just click around. There’s a lot to see.

Okay, next time, I’m going to be talking with Matthew and Joanna Raabsmith about restoring trust after sexual betrayal. And that’s trust whether that betrayal happened in a previous marriage or this current marriage. I have to tell you that was such a great conversation with Matthew and Joanna. Don’t miss that. It’s next time on FamilyLife Blended.

I’m Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching and thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

FamilyLife Blended is part of the FamilyLife Podcast Network. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you’ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?

Copyright © 2026 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife.com