Learning to be a parent of adult kids is proving to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn.
As I write this, I’ve been relegated to the back seat of our car while my youngest child, now a 21 year-old, engaged adult, drives us home down I-65 after gathering for Christmas with our other 3 adult children (one expecting a child of her own) and their spouses. I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t strap me into a backward-facing car seat like I did last year…oh, wait…that was 2004.
The experience has revealed I’ve got a lot to learn about parenting adult kids.
The problem is I like to drive. I like being in control. I like thinking I’m the smartest person in the room. I like it when others look to me for answers to their questions. I like the feeling that comes with knowing that others' lives are dependent on me. I need to be needed. It feeds my oversized ego.
Parenting little kids meets this need. It’s easy to think you are the smartest person in the room when you are the only one in the room who can spell ‘cat’, tie their shoes, or read a Bible.
But two decades later, gathering with your offspring who have matured into highly intelligent licensed drivers with well-reasoned opinions and observant conclusions has me feeling like I’m back in elementary school. I’m no longer the smartest person in the room…and my adult kids seem to enjoy reminding me of this fact.
With each passing year they seem more eager to gather to teach me a thing or two. I wish I was more grateful but, more often, I just feel humbled – or humiliated.
They seem to take a little too much enjoyment in rehearsing stories from the past where they have healed from wounds I created while exercising too much or too little parental control in an attempt to keep them alive long enough to celebrate their tenth birthday.
It’s my pride that makes it seem that way. I have no doubt they are grateful for the role I played as their parent. But they need me to play a different role now. They are smart enough to keep themselves alive now without my help. And in most cases they are smart enough to decide how to live without me telling them how I think they should.
So, I’m going to commit myself to five pivots every parent of adult kids must make if they would like their children to continue to invite them to family Christmas gatherings.
More curious. Less agitation.
Colossians 3:21 is a verse every kid wishes their father would commit to memory. “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”
I learned somewhere that the word “provoke” means “agitate.” It is derived from a word that connotes violent movement of air like a hurricane or movement of ground like an earthquake.
This is a dilemma for us parents. Isn’t our job to arouse, stir up, and motivate our kids to live for something more than themselves? I’m sure there is a window of time when responsible parenting involves creating a sense of urgency in our children. But I’m learning that the window closes quickly. Adult kids can easily feel agitated by intrusive parents to the point of discouragement.
Instead of being an agitator, my adult kids have invited me to be more curious about their lives and perspectives. Questions are powerful tools to open a heart. But if we aren’t careful, even our questions can be perceived as agitating integorations.
Here are a few I am going to ask more often.
What are you most grateful for?
What has made you laugh recently?
What has made you cry?
What is your greatest pressure?
Where have you seen God at work recently?
The answers to these questions reveal our kids' heart longings and how they are seeking to get them met. They may or may not trust us with the answers to these questions. Before they do, they will probably need us to drop our guard by revealing our answers first.
More compassion. Less criticism.
Like a good battlefield medic, adult parents must learn to triage the wounds of their adult kids. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 identifies three heart conditions our adult kids may be experiencing. Each diagnosis requires a different treatment.
And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
Did you notice the three diagnoses: idle, discouraged, and weak. Each call for a response of compassion, not criticism.
Idle kids need a compassionate warning. “Hey, let me help you avoid the damage I caused when I did something stupid.”
Discouraged adult children need compassionate comfort. “I am here for you and we are going to get through this together.”
Weak adult children need compassionate help. “I am committed to using my resources to make you stronger.”
And every one of our adult children, like all of us, needs our patience. Until we are together in heaven, we will have to remember that love is patient.
More empathy. Less anger.
The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is one of the clearest examples in the bible of parenting adult children. Like many children, the prodigal son made choices that cause heartache to his father.
Like the prodigal son, our children may make choices that cause us deep pain.
Deconstructing their faith.
Irresponsible financial decisions.
Refusing to accept responsibility for themselves.
Destructive relationships.
Divergent sexuality. (His older brother accuses him of partying with prostitutes.)
Rather than anger the father’s response demonstrates empathy.
He releases his son to the providential care of God.
He generously blesses him beyond what he deserves.
He doesn’t try to rescue him from God’s hand of discipline.
He welcomes him back with compassion and celebration.
Empathy, unlike anger, keeps the door open to welcome an adult child when God opens their heart.
More conversation. Less confrontation.
Parenting is one, continuous, life-long conversation with our children. Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
As a pastor-dad, I have wrongly believed that if I have communicated a biblical truth on any given subject it has, no doubt, penetrated to the depths of my children’s soul and has been warmly welcomed as irrefutable wisdom. Foolishly, once I’ve checked the box on that topic I have moved on to the next topic.
I’m learning that conversations with my adult kids have much more power than my sermons. My adult kids don’t need more confrontational sermons. They need more conversations.
I’m learning to value relationship with them over compliance from them. Conversation is the currency of relationship.
The gospel teaches us that God pursued relationship with us when we were non-compliant. Our non-compliance didn’t push God away from us. It compelled him to draw near to us. His pursuit of me compels me to comply with his commands.
Keeping the conversation going with our children into adulthood is the best way to show them that we value relationship with them more than compliance from them.
More hopeful. Less fearful.
One more verse for parents of adult kids: Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.
I am learning that the most powerful weapon I have in the war for my adult children’s heart is prayer. Talking to God about my kids is as important as talking to my kids about God.
When I pray, God changes me more than my children. In prayer, God turns my fears for my children into hope.
My adult children may stop listening to me but God never does. As long as God invites the prayers of a praying parent, there is hope for every adult child.
And as long as God is a Heavenly Father, there is hope for every parent like me who still has a lot to learn.
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