Navigating Life with Adult Children, Part 2

Chip: When your grown children violate your values, you can't want it more than they want it. And so we're talking about their cohabitating, maybe they have a, a porn or alcohol or drug addiction, or they've chosen an alternative lifestyle. Or they've just said, you know what, you, your faith, Jesus -forget it You call this the cringe factors.

Jim Burns: You know, it's easy to say you can't want it more than they wanted, but of course we want it to go a different way. And so many parents who really raised their kids in the church and their kids were, you know, in the youth group and whatnot, and they strayed and they, have continued to stray. Yet I think there's some principles that we can learn from this that can help us navigate it, and it's not a simple thing. Because how do you show love and grace and hold to a biblical worldview that is different than where they're going? Plus, you're also dealing with your own grief. When one of our kids bumped, and not in world's, worst way, but you know, Kathy and I said, oh, we should have had 'em more at, youth group, or, you know, if we would've prayed together more as a family or we put it all on us. And one of the things I say in this case is that, You know, really good parents sometimes have kids who make poor choices.

Chip: Yes.

Jim Burns: And I think that's really important for us to hear, as we deal with this. But when someone does this , you've gotta give them tough love. Now tough love Chip is not, meanness. I think some people think, oh, we, we have to be mean and we start emptying all of our frustration, anger at our kids. Tough love is allowing the consequences to take place.

Let me tell you an illustration. Friends of ours, their daughter raised in the church, great people. She went away to the University of Virginia and she moved in with her boyfriend. Her parents were paying for college, and they went out and said, look it, here's the deal if you want to live with your boyfriend, you're acting like an adult. So that, means we're not gonna keep paying for this. And she said, but you call yourselves Christians and I can't believe that you would do this. And you know, we love each other and it's a new world and understand the culture and you know, all the things. And they held their ground.

Basically this woman had no money now, and so she figured out how to kind of navigate through school for a little bit. She eventually called back and said, "We've broken up. I wanna come home and, have a conversation with you." And I love that. So they showed love, but they also had, well, there's consequences to that. So because you moved in, we're not gonna keep paying for school. That's part of the deal.

Chip: I heard you say something though that I think is really important for people to hear is, You know, this wasn't like a spiritual ping pong. "You moved in? Okay, no more money." This was, "We care about you. You're an adult. You can make your own decisions.

Jim Burns: Right.

Chip: Whether it's about your sexuality, or education or others. At our house, we always talked about these two things go together: decisions and responsibility. So if you get a hundred percent authority to make all the decisions, you get all the responsibility that goes with it.

Jim Burns: That's a great point. One of the things we talk about is that you can't bail them out, if they make this decision. This is what's tough, especially when addictions and straying from faith and, you know, cohabitation all these things and there are consequences to that. But the non bailing out says, I love you so much that I'm not going to enable you to make, poor choices.

Chip: Well, I will say having been a pastor for, over 35 years, what you're describing is what people intellectually may agree with, But the average Christian parent...

Jim Burns: Oh, I know,

Chip: is saying: I just can't do that. Where do you get the kind of courage because, my observation and the many emails and letters we get are train wreck after train wreck after train wreck of people bailing their kids out. And they don't learn and there's not the consequences.

Jim Burns: Right.

Chip: What do you say to that parent who says, okay, I paid for one rehab, nothing's changed. We can't get on the same page even as parents, which is a big one about what does tough love really look like?

Jim Burns: Well, it's hard and I think sometimes maybe you do pay for it more times. But the mistake we make is we continue to, to go in that direction. I just don't think that works. When they blow it, I think you say, here's what we can do and here's what we can't do. But I don't think it happens in the heat of the moment. I think you try to do it beforehand. If, if you choose to live in that lifestyle, then we're not going to pay for this. We, still love you and we still are gonna have a relationship with you, but here's what some of those consequences are gonna be, and we're not gonna bail you out.

Chip: There's such a tension of truth and grace. And I think being able to say, I don't agree with you. You can make that decision, you're an adult.

Jim Burns: Right.

Chip: if you wanna live with your girlfriend, the research is that 10 years later, only one out of 10 people, even if you marry, will ever be together. I'm for you. I love you, but these are the consequences of that decision.

Jim Burns: Yes. I Had a woman asked me last week, what would I do? And it was a situation where a kid had definitely strayed from faith. And I said, does she know what you believe? Yes. Does she know how you feel about where she's going and the direction she's going? Yes. Well then have a relationship with her if she likes to shop, shop. Don't be a one topic parent in this place.

Chip: I think even in Bible believing circles, we're seeing a, a tremendous movement away from some core Orthodox, morality. Well, you just have to love and accept people. Yeah. And I think love is giving another person what they need the most, when they deserve it the least at great personal cost. When I think of the cross what I needed the most, forgiveness when I deserve it, the least, I was rebelling, I was an enemy of God. At great personal cost. And I think sometimes the cost is us as parents, there's a distance in the relationship.

I've got a close friend whose daughter, entered the gay and lesbian lifestyle and you don't love me and why aren't you doing this, and why are you doing that? And he said as kindly as he could, who moved. I love you. And, and he took initiative and he cared and, and did all that he could, but unless he would agree with her lifestyle for a season she cut him out. And sometimes tough love, it's harder on us than it is on the person.

Jim Burns: And we really need support and counsel and wisdom. And then I mean this sounds simplistic and yet it's so important. I think we have to relinquish our children to God.

Chip: Yes.

Jim Burns: You know, and I prayed this prayer I release and relinquish my children to your loving care and your tender mercies because you love them more than I do. And I still don't understand that 'cause I love my kids so much.

Chip: I don't know where you're at, but I can only imagine that you or someone you love knows someone that has a grown adult child whose lifestyle, whose faith or one of these cringe issues is a part of their life. Let me encourage you, don't give up on them. You keep as many doors open and you are that prodigal. Father waiting. And yet you keep the consequences. And I think that's where parents often cave in and actually end up enabling the very thing because they don't like the feeling of being called unloving or the distance with their child. Let me encourage you. Don't be all love, no truth; don't be all truth and no love. Build a relationship where possible. I mean, that's the principle.

And I'll just tell you all the word navigate is chosen very, very carefully because sometimes the waters are smooth and sometimes they're rocky, and sometimes you're in the middle of a storm. And Jim, we really wanna talk about I think what people feel the most, and I love this principle: they will never know how far the town is if you carry them on your back. We talked about launching them and we get to know their culture and values, and now it's like, are you really helping them or are you enabling them? And you shared a great story that I think really pictures this. Share that with us.

Jim Burns: And it's actually the failure to launch story in some ways because I think if we are enabling them, we're not gonna help them launch. So Sean walked in to my office and I have a couch. It's not that big of a couch, but Sean is on one side and his mom and dad are on the other. And they said, we have a problem with Sean. And the problem is that he graduated from school, UCLA, great school. He did well with school, but he's come back home. He's getting up late, about one o'clock. plays video games. He's a vegan, so my wife fixes him a vegan meal. And then we eat our meal at dinner, but he doesn't really eat with us. And then he kind of parties out, most of the night and comes back and sleeps till one. And now when Sean came in, he had a smirk on his face.

He looked kind of happy. The mom and the dad were mad. They were mad at Sean. The mom and dad were mad at each other. The wife was just struggling like crazy as a mom, her heart was broken. So they kept going on and on and, and finally they said, Sean has a problem. And I said, actually, I don't think Sean has a problem. I think you guys have the problem. Sean has a pretty good life. You're taking care of him, you're even cooking him a different meal.

And, the point was, is that they were actually enabling Sean. He still had the family credit card. They were still paying for his gas. They were paying for all of this stuff and Sean was saying, you know, I'm gonna get around to, finally getting a job and whatnot, but he didn't even have a job. We have to look at it if we're carrying him on our back, we've gotta firmly take them off of our back and place them, where they can make some of those decisions. We use a phrase in the recovery movement for people who are alcoholics and addicts, it's, you earned it. You know, there's, there's pain in life.

It's either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. We have to teach our kids that. (Chip: Right.) And what I like to say, and somebody once said this to me, a man named Dr. Bill Hall, "When the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing, that's when they'll change." And that's good for me, that's good for my own relationship with God. It's good for my relationship with my wife, but it's also good for my adult children that it is okay for them to have pain, and in fact, we have to look at sometimes their pain as, as something that's good. You know, in, in many ways it's the biblical, principle that says you reap what you sow. (Chip: Right.) We have to allow some of that negative to happen so that you're not enabling them, but you're helping them to become the responsible adult who does not have a failure to launch.

Chip: And it really ties back into, you can't want it more than they want it. I think of Hebrews 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet those who have been, here's a key word, trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. And training is not, talking to your kids and saying, you really need to get out there and get a job. You need to get up earlier. You need to do this, you need to do that.

Jim Burns: And it is different, we have a different relationship with our adult children. If they live outside of the house, or if they live inside the house. Even if they're gonna college, they're young adults, then I think it's pretty key that we put some expectations and boundaries. And I think as parents, you know, we talk about everything else. We talk about their education, we talk about this, why don't we put some expectations and boundaries? And I think they have to be pretty simple. But if we do have those, expectations and boundaries, they at least have a roadmap. Be productive honor our moral code when you're in the house. Now again, you can't follow your kids all around, we'd like to sometimes, but you can't. But in our house, this is how you're gonna, you're gonna do it. I, I know somebody who, they wanted their girlfriend to come and sleep in the same bedroom with them at their house. And the parents said, no, this is our home and you're gonna honor our moral code even though you're not honoring our moral code outside. Way to go, you know, parents on that. I think also they have to be financially responsible. If they don't. it's time for them to move on.

See, you give them even more than the passport to adulthood. You give them the passport to financial responsibility. But if they don't have boundaries and expectations, the mistake we make is that we make it mushy or we don't talk about it.

Chip: Could we have you as our expert address, some couples who are one is saying, oh, you know, he'll end up homeless. We have to keep paying for this or doing that. And another going, how long are we gonna live in this? And it's ruining our home. What do you say to that couple?

Jim Burns: Well, for one thing, I would say to the couple that they're not alone. When we talk about the issues ahead of time, it's easier for us to follow through. It's hard. I remember when our kids were little and you know, they would grind on us, and finally we're tired and, you know, we're stressed. We'd go, okay, yeah, 20 cookies, we don't care, we're just tired. You know, if you'll just be quiet about it. That was not a good decision, obviously, 'cause then the sugar high would kick in. But it's the same with adult children. we have to get on the same page. You don't get on the same page in the heat of the moment. You get on the same page before when you set up some of those boundaries and expectations. But I think, people support what they help create.

So not only is it that you and your spouse are creating it But you're also bringing your adult child into it. And saying, let's create a plan that's gonna work. And at the same time, if we have to create an exit plan, we're gonna, you know, create an exit plan that'll work. When you do that, that gets you closer together. But you're still gonna have to live with the fact that sometimes, at least the way we parented, Kathy and I, we're gonna have to agree to disagree. 'Cause she was gonna go in this direction and I was gonna go in this direction. We realized that our differences, when we embrace them, we made a pretty good team.

Chip: Here's what I'd recommend come up with a plan. First, identify what is the problem in your home, what are the real, issues that are surfacing. Second is get on the same page, not just as a couple, or especially as a single parent- you might need some outside help- but get your adult child and sit down together, not during an argument, but at a time when you can really say, we need to resolve this. And the final thing I would say is Jim, some people need some help on the outside. (Jim Burns: Right.) And the only way you do that is you go to the pastor of your church or an older couple that you trust.

Because if you had, figured it out and it was running smoothly, then you wouldn't need the help. I mean, some of these things are heavy and difficult. This is one of those where we need to get some outside help to help us first and then help us deal with this issue with one of our adult children.

And just before we jump into this, final principle, we've covered a lot. And it's rooted in a book that, Jim wrote, Doing Life with Your Adult Children. And I love the subtitle, Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out. So Jim, thanks for writing this. And we're here because I read this book and I applied it. And then I realized how many letters and emails we get around this topic and, and we're gonna talk about something now that I think, is one of the very biggest ones. It might be one that we do the worst, but it's actually one of the easiest to fix, if you have the courage to do it.

And so this is the principle: Financial independence and responsibility is the goal. How do you help your adult children become financially independent?

Jim Burns: Well, we're not talking about wealth or deep capacity or whatever, but we are talking about, for them to be responsible adults, they're gonna have to be financially independent. And I think we have to keep in mind the high cost of money to a relationship. So I think it's important that we keep it simple, but I don't think we make it complicated. I think sometimes we do make it complicated, and lemme say from the beginning, 75% of parents do put some money into their adult, children's lives. I mean, one time or another. But again, with the thought in mind that they're gonna become responsible adults, I think it's important for us to help them have a clear plan, and actually an exit strategy. Meaning, okay, right now we're paying for some of this, but what's the exit strategy?

Now, obviously that happens when the kids are in those emerging adult years, those younger years, maybe there's still some money there, but at all costs, we've gotta help them have that exit strategy. You know what they want that, too Chip. They really do. But it's, part of developing the plan. You know, this sounds so unspontaneous, but that's what good parenting is. Parenting is training, parenting is discipline. You know, when Paul said to Timothy, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, he used an athletic term, Meaning, you're gonna have to discipline yourself. And he was talking about godliness, but part of our godliness is how we handle our money. And What I like to say is,when you say I love you, you may still be saying no to giving them more money.

Chip: Flesh that out for me, that's a good one.

Jim Burns: Well, sometimes people think, well, because I love my kids so much, I want to help them get that great car. I want to help them get, this new house or whatever it might be. And we think that's love. But sometimes love is saying, 'No, I can't do that for you' -even if you could. You know, I know of a couple who, they help their, their children get into a house. I don't have a problem with that. But what they did was their kids wanted this amazing house, so they actually helped them get into a house that was more expensive than their house and they took it out of retirement funds. 'Cause their plan had been to retire at a certain stage, and, they needed those funds. Well come to find out even the kids couldn't afford this dream home. So now the parents have not only put money outta the retirement fund to do it, but they're also now paying a little bit monthly to help them. And finally the thing blew up. What they should have said at the beginning was, "No." Or said, "You know what? We got into a starter home. It wasn't as snazzy as the home you want, we'll help you with this much.

So I think part of what a parent can do for their adult children, and I think it starts even sometimes younger, is actually teach them to be good stewards of money. Things like have a budget. a lot of parents have never taught their kids how to have a budget, and then they just expect them to be, okay. Well, why aren't we helping them create a budget? Now, some parents don't have a budget either, right? But, you know, help them have a budget. Help them understand that, debt can be slavery. In fact, the Bible's pretty clear about debt. So again, we've gotta teach 'em good stewardship.

Chip: I think it starts really early. The passage that my children heard Luke 16:10 says, he who is faithful in a very little thing, will be faithful also in much. And the context of that is money. And so you have to have this plan where, I mean, even Okay, you're 19, you need to pay for your phone. You pay for this, and I'll pay for the insurance on your car. So we're graduating it. If you think that they turned 23 and are outta college. And they have the skills, probably not a good plan.

Jim Burns: No, and the question you have to ask yourself, am I providing money to help them launch or am I actually providing money that's going to prolong dependence on us? And so, we're setting them up for failure, if they have been bankrupt or if they have huge college debt or whatever, now they get married. Well, you know, 31% of marriages say that the number one reason they got divorced was because of money problems. So do we teach them, delayed gratification? Do we teach them to give and to save. The people I know who give and save, those are young couples who really have done well. And you know, one young couple said to one of these mentors well, how do we become good financial stewards? And he said, two words, good decisions. Well, how do you, make good decisions? One word, experience. How do you go through experience? Two words, bad decisions. And so again, let your kids learn on their own. Cheer 'em on, but don't enable them. Way too many parents enable their kids and it gets complicated and they get angry and then the kids don't pay back. now you got a relationship problem. As opposed to just a financial problem.

Chip: I would just say, this is one where, again, you might need some outside help because the fact is most of their parents aren't on a budget. Most of the parents have a lot of debt, and this is one where you, I think, have to look at yourself and say, we need to get our house in order and resist this, I feel, like, I'm a good parent because I'm buying or taking care of things. Often going into debt to do it.

Jim Burns: I have a friend who actually was kind of in that realm. They weren't working on a budget and they were struggling themselves with their adult children and they were giving their adult children money, not thinking about it. And they ended up going to a class at a church. Financial Peace University. And so then they work together to get, they're acts together, both of them. And you know what, both of them are now debt free and, you know, that improves the marriage. So they actually helped the marriage of their son and daughter-in-law because they took the courageous step for them to get healthy financially first.

Chip: Well, I will just tell you that of all the things as a parent you can do is help your children get financially stable, independent and trusting God.