Parenting Adult Children When Values Clash: Burns & Deal

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Parenting Adult Children When Values Clash

Guests:Jim Burns and Ron Deal

From the series:Child Walks Away (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:November 11, 2026

Jim (00:04):

We as parents sometimes make big demands. We’ve always had Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, and so you need to be there. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts. We said to our kids, Jesus, we hate to tell you this, but Jesus probably wasn’t born on the 25th. So Christmas is whenever we can all get together. And we said Thanksgiving doesn’t have to happen on a Thursday.

Ann (00:33):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:40):

And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

All right, we’ve got Jim Burns and Ron Deal in the studio today talking about When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope. This is a great day for parents.

Ann (01:03):

And we’re going to get super practical today of what does this look like? How can we do this? And especially with the holidays coming up, you’re not going to want to miss today.

Dave (01:16):

Hey, walk through this, either a blended family or a bio family. And I guess it’s in relation to boundaries and protect and honor and keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out. So all those are playing in here. So your son shows up for Thanksgiving or Christmas or just the weekend with his boyfriend. Maybe they’re married and they want to spend the weekend in your house. Welcome mat’s out. I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Do they sleep at your house? And you have little kids in the home that are three and four years old. I’m just getting real practical because there are families that have that and they’re like, “Could you coach me? I’m not sure what to do. If I put a boundary up, it feels like a fence.”

Jim (02:00):

It’s hard. And I don’t think there’s one answer. There’s going to be people who are going to say, “Well, I would do it differently than what I’m going to suggest.” But my feeling with whatever, even if it was the young daughter whose live-in boyfriend is coming,

(02:15):

I think you say, “You know what? We love you and we care for you deeply. In our home, this is our boundary. We know that can upset you. This really isn’t about you. We would do this with anybody. We encourage you to come. We want to have you at Thanksgiving if we can help you figure out another place, but we just don’t want you to do that.” We did this with our brother-in-law who was living with a gal, and I had to make the call. I said, “Hey, here’s the situation.” Years later, he became a Christian. And you know what? He said, “I really respected that.”

Ann (02:42):

Really?

Jim (02:42):

Yeah. And he said, “I don’t have to sleep in the room. I can sleep on the couch.” And I went, “Okay, great. Thanks.” And so he respected our boundary, but it was a hard thing to say. But I think you have to do it that way.

Ann (02:55):

But Jim, you even took the emotion out of it.

Jim (02:57):

Yeah.

Ann (02:58):

I think we could never let you. It’s just, hey.

Jim (03:02):

It’s not judgment. Once we get into judgment, that’s when they get back on their heels and the judgment. And they can feel judged anyway. But when you say, hey, in our house, and it’s for everybody, we’re not doing this just for you.

Ann (03:15):

And you may think this is stupid, but this is just how we do it. And we love you guys so much. We want you to be here. We’re so excited.

Ron (03:22):

That part right there is so important. And in fact, I would say lead with that. I love what Jim just said. That is an incredible answer. If you started it with, listen, because we love you so much, because we’re looking forward to our time with you, I need to talk to you about how we would prefer you come and stay. So you lead with that to say, in other words, always think of this as a dance. I’ve got to move towards you to gain influence. If all I’m doing is running away from you and screaming from the other side of the park, there’s nothing attractive about that. So I’ve got to move towards you in softness and at the same time say, no, we would prefer it because this is our home. Now when you go to their home, Dave, let’s turn the question around.

(04:04):

Let’s say you’re going to their home. It might be a different response because you don’t get to tell them what to do with what’s theirs. You manage your resources. So in other words, you might make a decision not to stay with them to get a hotel or something. That’s your call, but you don’t put that a guilt trip on them. You don’t make it an issue for them to figure out. You manage it.

Dave (04:27):

Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t know if you guys remember. I mean, we’re old enough to remember Gary Smalley.

Ron (04:31):

Sure. Yeah.

Jim:

Oh yeah.

Dave (04:32):

I remember years ago when he talked about—did you ever see him talk about a closed spirit? Yeah. And he used his hand when you’ve closed the spirit and there’s a broken relationship. He walked through how do you open up somebody’s spirit? And one of the first things he said is you got to get lower than them.

Ann (04:47):

To honor.

Dave (04:48):

Yeah. Even physically he said, don’t approach them above. I’m thinking of a squirrel again. If you come in big, they’re running away. If you come in tender and down on their level, you’re saying, I’m humbling myself to say I’m sorry. Can we talk? And something happens to that spirit, it’s like, oh, maybe we can talk. And that’s what I think you’re saying.

Jim (05:09):

Yeah. And part of that is safety. I’m thinking of a woman who was, she was asking me, how do I get to my son because my daughter-in-law’s not letting me get to my son or my grandkids. And I said, doesn’t your daughter-in-law really like coffee? And she goes, yeah. And I said, well, why don’t you get her a card? She gave her a $25 Starbucks card, just went by because she wasn’t letting her babysit. She wasn’t letting her, and they live nearby and they had had some conversations with the son about this, but they don’t really see him much. So then the next week she did the same thing. The next week she did the same thing. The daughter-in-law who had not been in a relationship, probably intimidated by this great lady, but the daughter-in-law said, “Hey, why don’t we have coffee together?” Well, they started it and then she now watches the kids.

(05:50):

They all went to Cooperstown together on a trip where they watched the kids during all this stuff that they were doing. And she got the relationship that she wanted.

Ann (06:01):

Started with a Starbucks.

Jim (06:02):

It started with a thoughtful gesture instead of saying, “You are driving me nuts because I can’t see my son or my kids, my grandkids, because you’re blocking me.” It became that now she’s even kind of using this woman as a mentor. That’s the practical side to it. Sometimes it’s as simple as that is why I’m saying.

Ron (06:21):

Self-control is at the heart of everything we’re talking about. Jim said it earlier, if you’re going to walk into that park and not chase the squirrel when that’s all you know to do, you’re going to slow down, you’re going to try to be calm, you’re going to try and be attractive, you’re going to wait and be patient. How do you make that shift? At the end of the day, I think one of the things we want to encourage parents to chase within themselves is what is this desperation in me? What is this thing that absolutely positively has to get you to turn around and repent right now? What is that about? Now I’m going to just think out loud for a minute and I’d love for you guys to join me because I think for everybody it’s different, but it could be that one of the things you’re wrestling with is your own sense of failure.

(07:08):

What did I not do that brought them to this place? In other words, what you’re really chasing in your child’s repentance is you feeling better about you

(07:17):

And that’s a little upside down and you will never be self-controlled if that’s allowed to dominate how you respond and react. For some people, it’s not necessarily about failure, it’s just about fear, fear of your child’s eternity, fear of where they’re leading, fear of bringing negative impact to the grandchildren in their home because of their behavior. Those are all very, very real. I’m not saying or suggesting that those aren’t real. What I’m saying is you just need to know what that pain is, what that discomfort is, where your desperation is coming from because you got to talk to that part of yourself or it’s just going to continue to dominate you.

Ann (07:56):

So you’re getting to the root, Ron. You’re getting to the root of why is this bothering so much?

Dave (08:00):

Well, I think, I mean, Jim, it’s chapter three of your book. I think we as parents have to get to the place where chapter three, you are not defined by your adult child’s choices.

Ron (08:12):

There it is. There it is.

Dave (08:13):

True emotional health requires a mindset reframing from I failed as a parent to my child is an independent adult who chose a different path. That’s a hard journey.

Jim (08:23):

Well, it’s funny because I was thinking the same thing when he was talking about self-control, which is so key and critical. It’s a mindset change. If I’m in negative self-control issue, it’s a mindset change. And the Bible talks about you renew your mind.

(08:38):

It doesn’t mean that the circumstance is going to change, but an illustration I like to give is Justin married a very needy young woman and the parents were not in agreement in this. And the reason they’ve been living together and then she got pregnant and then they got married, so they’re not happy. So they sit in my office and I said, “Well, what else is true?” Well, we love the baby. The baby’s now two. And they smiled and said, “Well, what else is true?” Well, actually, he’s not going to church and she’s not going to church. He’s against it. But they actually asked my other daughter, they said, and her husband to be the godparents. And they’re really strong Christians, so that’s neat that they’re really actively taking place in a godparenting type thing. Well, what else is true? Well, actually this Mother’s Day, Justin came to me and took me out to lunch and wrote me a really nice Mother’s Day’s card.

(09:26):

Now, it didn’t change that the young woman is not the woman of their dreams, but they did a self-control check. They did a mind, reframed their mindset and all of a sudden, they went, “You know what? We can be in this relationship. We don’t like it necessarily, but we can do it.” And so they focused on some of the things that were good because almost all the time you can do a mindset check and it will not necessarily change your circumstance, but it can change your attitude. And that makes all the difference in the world when you’re dealing with an adult child who’s strayed big time.

Dave (10:00):

Yeah. And you know better because you talk to a lot of parents in this area. For a lot of parents, they feel like they can’t get there. They lay in bed every single night for decades thinking I failed, I failed, I failed because they had one goal and the goal didn’t happen and you have to renew your mind. You have to say, God, give me a sense of peace about this, that I did the best I could and that’s okay.

Ann (10:26):

I think of all the nights parenting that I have not slept because I’ve been thinking about my kids has been when they have become adults. There were teenage years too that like, oh, I’m worried about him. I’m thinking. But with adult kids, you don’t have control. You don’t have a voice. You have a different relationship, which is wonderful and beautiful. But man, I have found myself as a mom of adult kids thinking, worrying, health, grandkids, all of that. And I can get myself in this cycle of like, oh boy, oh boy.

Dave (11:04):

And I sleep pretty good.

Ann (11:04):

He does. He’s over there just like, he’s out. He’s out. He never worries. And what has helped me is I have to picture myself—this is a visual kind of prayer—I picture myself in front of Jesus and I’m telling Him in prayer, “Lord, this is bothering me. This is worrying me.” And then I have to visually see myself handing my kids and grandkids over to Jesus and saying, “You have them. You love them more than I do. I need to get some sleep. Can You just take care of all of this for me?”

Jim (11:36):

I love that. It’s a prayer of relinquishment.

Ann (11:37):

And you know what happens is I fall asleep.

Jim (11:40):

Isn’t that beautiful?

Ann (11:40):

Yeah.

Jim (11:41):

It’s a prayer of relinquishment. That prayer of relinquishment. I mean, Jesus had a prayer relinquishment. He said, not my will, but your will. He said it three times. So even Jesus had to say that to the Father three times. Not my will, but your will. In case you didn’t hear me, I guess, not my will. But in that prayer of relinquishment, we’re saying, I relinquish my children to You, God. You know what you’re doing and I don’t. You’re God, I’m not. But that’s a discipline. That’s a spiritual discipline.

Dave (12:09):

And it’s a hard prayer because Jesus sweat blood. So if you’re a parent and you’re intense and you’re feeling that, that’s normal, but you got to let it go.

Jim (12:19):

And we have to embrace that as normal too, that there are going to be those kinds of days. And just because there’s those kinds of days, that doesn’t mean that we can’t rise above our circumstances sometimes.

Ann (12:29):

And if you’re thinking as a parent that you’re the only one going through that, that’s a lie.

Jim (12:33):

Oh no.

Ann (12:34):

We’re all struggling.

Ron (12:35):

Let’s say the word grief.

(12:38):

Because that’s what you guys are hinting around at is don’t be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication, present your request. Here’s my children, Lord, and I have to grieve that they’re not doing what’s right. They’re not living the way. I don’t have any power over that. I have to grieve that I don’t have any power. There’s a sadness in all of this that just has to be acknowledged. Just don’t let your sadness turn you into somebody who chases the squirrel. That’s really important. The sadness is real. It needs to be acknowledged, but it cannot be the thing that dominates you. Otherwise, you end up making the same mistakes and making it worse.

Jim (13:18):

And what I say to parents all the time is that there is a sense of loss when you invested two decades of your life with your kids and you kind of have told them what to do by the teen years. It’s not always working, but you’ve kind of been in charge and then now you’re not in charge. And so acknowledge the loss.

(13:37):

Kathy, when this happened as our kids got older, I described it as Kathy is the sun and we have three planets revolving around the sun and all of a sudden, the three planets are gone and she’s not sure what to do. And now she only has one planet revolving and that’s me, by the way. I think I got her at home. I’m revolving around her. And she had to reinvent, how am I going to do the rest of my life? And the interesting, we’re not talking about empty nests, but when you’re in the empty nest, that could be age 48. That’s what the statistics are.

(14:07):

You’re going to be in the empty nest longer, so you’ve got to reinvent yourself. And so when your child is an adult and does new things, then you too can do that. The people who are winning at that are the moms and the dads who are saying, “You know what? I’m going back to the gym. I haven’t been to gym for a long time.” That was me. I went, “I’m going back to the gym. I’ve got these kids and now they’re gone, so I can go to the gym.” Kathy said, “I’m going to jump into a Bible study that I just didn’t have time to do.” And so just little simple things. We started creating a dream list that wasn’t just about trips to Italy. We did have that on our dream list, but also just other things about our physical health, our spiritual health, our friendships that we had neglected, our community that we had neglected partly because they were teens.

(14:50):

That’s what we’ve got to be able to do, really reinvent our life. And in doing that, that doesn’t take away the pain at night when your child is straying, but what it does do is it gives us a different perspective and it makes us stronger.

Dave (15:09):

I’m almost positive that our listeners have no idea how important they are to our program. Our prayer partners and especially our financial partners, people who donate financially to FamilyLife Today, make this program actually happen.

Ann (15:28):

Your monthly gift really is changing the hearts and lives of families, not only here, but around the world.

Dave (15:36):

We would love for you to join and be a partner with us. You make this program happen. You are literally changing the world. It’s like I’m going to make sure that other people, even my neighbors down the street’s lives are changed because of this program. And if you’d like to jump in and join us and become a partner, all you have to do is go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the donate button right there and you can start joining today. We would love to have you as a partner with us to change the world for Jesus. Here’s the thought just came to my mind. Our child has strayed, if they’ve strayed, and we think they strayed, but the visual just hit me is they’re not an inch away from Jesus. He’s right wherever they are. He’s there. They’ve strayed from us. They may be strayed from our upbringing and the faith we’ve raised them to believe in.

Ann (16:29):

And they’ve walked away from Jesus.

Dave (16:30):

But they’re not a second away from Him. He is right there holding them, walking them, maybe nudging them back. And if there’s a parent that’s safe and trustworthy and standing there with the light in their eyes, there’s a good chance He’s probably going to nudge them back, but you don’t know. But you can trust that they’re okay. And so are you.

Jim (16:49):

No, and you can trust that He is there by their side, even when we don’t see it or feel it. I will never leave you or forsake you. And that’s an important message for people to know and believe. And we will stray from that belief and then we’ve got to come back to that belief. I love that illustration. Yeah.

Dave (17:08):

Yeah. So for a lot of us, we have holidays coming up, which I’m laughing because I’m like, “Oh, great. I love Thanksgiving. I love Christmas.” But it happens. They come in the house; they’re sitting at the table—talking about adult kids and daughters-in-laws and sons-in-laws—and I’m just going to be honest, I’m fearful sometimes where it’s going to go and how it’s going to end. And we talked earlier, sometimes no topics. We’re not going to bring up anything in the world. And so you dance around all that, but if somebody brings up something and it could—we’ve had Christmases that didn’t end well.

Ann (17:48):

I think everybody has. I think it’s an illusion to think that everyone has perfect Christmas.

Dave (17:52):

So help us navigate.

Ann (17:53):

And you too, Ron, even with families that are coming together and it can be a little more complicated even with blended families.

Ron (18:01):

Well, what immediately comes to my mind for complex family situations when kids are moving between homes is the calendar every year has got to be negotiated about when they’re going to be at your house, when they’re going to be at the other house, when grandparents are going to be with you, who’s not, when. You may have to celebrate Christmas before Christmas day or after Christmas day. All of that is true. But again, back to our conversation, if you’re feeling desperate to change your child’s path, then you feel like, okay, we got them for three days. We got to make inroads during the… No, no. I just think that’s the wrong time. You need to delight in them. You need to celebrate Christmas. There may be boundaries where you say, “Well, at our house, we make Christmas about Jesus.” And that may not be familiar to your child.

(18:52):

That may be something that they’re not practicing in their life. And so you just manage it the way you want to manage it, but don’t shove it down their throat. Look for that way to uphold your faith and values and what’s important in your home, and at the same time, not necessarily have a huge expectation for how they join you in that. You want to go to church, Christmas Eve service, they don’t go to church. You go and say, “We’ll see you when we get back.” It’s the demand that ruins your influence.

Dave (19:25):

And don’t shame them for not going.

Ron (19:27):

There you go. You lose your influence as a parent when your child feels unsafe and at threat.

Jim (19:34):

And when you say the word demand, we as parents sometimes make big demands. We expect you. We’ve always had Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, and so you need to be there. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts. We said to our kids, Jesus, we hate to tell you this, but Jesus probably wasn’t born on the 25th. So Christmas is whenever we can all get together.

Ann (19:55):

We do that too.

Jim (19:56):

And we said, Thanksgiving doesn’t have to happen on a Thursday.

Ann (19:59):

Yep.

Jim (20:00):

The point that I’m saying is make it comfortable for them. So this Thanksgiving, we’re having a pickleball tournament. It has nothing to do with being thankful. Well, I’ll be thankful to get out of it alive, but we’re having a pickleball tournament and that’s kind of what we’re going to do. And we’re going to have a great time and we’re going to have some fun food and everybody’s coming, interesting enough, because they wanted to come on that day.

Ann (20:23):

So fun.

Jim (20:24):

In fact, for kind of an extended time, that’s great. But we’re talking now about pickleball. We’re not talking about any of the other kinds of things. So they’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be fun. We’re going to have a little tournament, things like that. And I think we have to do that. Put energy into it. Make it something that could be fun and memorable as opposed to just rushing through this.

Ann (20:45):

It’s good.

Jim (20:45):

Last year we gave our kids, we’ve been giving them experiences for Christmas, so we give them experiences that we all do together. So the experience, and it cost me a lot more money, I’ll just tell you that. The experience was, we live by Disneyland and the experience was we’re going to Disneyland.

Ann (20:59):

That’s cool.

Jim (21:00):

And so the grandkids went crazy. They all loved it. And so they go, let’s do this next year. I think we doubled what the cost was for us on this trip. Disney, as you well know, is not cheap. And you know what? We’re going to do it again because it became an experience, a memorable experience that they liked and we had a blast. And I said, “Hey, we don’t have to eat all together, but if you want to, we’re going to eat at the brisket place or whatever.” Well, guess where they all ate at the briskets place because they all wanted to be together. You don’t demand it. You just say, “Hey, do you want to do something?” Make it so inviting that they go, “We’ll do that. That would be great.”

Ann (21:35):

So you’re putting a focus on something else, like it’s going to be a game, we’re going to go do this. Something that’s not just talking to each other.

Jim (21:41):

No. And in our family, again, there are boundaries. So my extended family, there’s a lot of alcoholism in our family, and we host the Burns Family Christmas. We do it for three hours. The interesting side to it is we can do three hours. We have a blast. If we did five hours, the whole extended family thing might blow up. So we do it from 12 to three. Sometimes people stay for five hours, but the people know they can kind of come and go. So you develop those boundaries that are healthy boundaries that don’t put it in an awkward situation.

Ann (22:12):

I like that.

Jim (22:13):

And so those are just practical ideas because some people are still going, but they’re not coming to that dinner or they’re not doing this.

Ann (22:20):

Who cares?

Jim (22:21):

Yeah. Honestly, in the line of things, you want the relationship, not the tradition, so to speak.

Ann (22:26):

Well, I would add this. We’ve got a little time before the holidays. Start praying now. Start praying as your kids come in. Jesus, help me to find delight in my kids, even maybe if I’m totally in disagreement of what they’re living out right now. And what’s helped me is I like those reminders; this is what I delight in. These are the things that I love about them. And you may need to walk or journal or just pray, Lord, remind me of all the great things. Maybe you don’t see it now, but you have in the past. And God’s delighting that in them all the time. And you hate to fake it, but if you start reminding yourself and praying about all these people coming in, get your heart right first. And I think that will really help too.

Dave (23:09):

Don’t ever underestimate fun.

Ann (23:12):

Yes.

Dave (23:12):

That’s big.

Ann (23:13):

You’re the master of that.

Dave (23:14):

When you were saying that, I thought, and what’s the game where you can’t say certain words to try and get people to guess.

Ann (23:19):

Taboo.

Dave (23:19):

Taboo.

Jim (23:20):

Yeah.

Dave (23:21):

I was thinking you need somebody with a buzzer, your wife, your husband to say, okay, there’s certain words we cannot say, whatever it is. You just self-control yourself in these three days or these three hours, we’re not going there. We are going to delight.

Jim (23:38):

That is great. And it’ll save bruises too from your spouse kicking you under the table.

Ann (23:42):

Exactly. And scars. Scars may develop on your tongue, but that’s better than anything else.

Jim:

So good.

Dave (23:47):

Yeah.

Ann (23:48):

Well, Jim, do you want to pray? You know, and you’ve dealt with parents that are going through this. You know that that is probably one of the greatest things we can do.

Jim (23:55):

I would love to. Almighty God, I pray for our listeners, the ones who are watching, I pray for their heart that Lord, You would be close to their heart, that You would come alongside them. You promise to bring them comfort, and I pray that You would bring them comfort. And even as we learn to delight in our kids, even when they’re not living that way, we are reminded that we are to delight ourselves in You and that You’ll give us the desires of our heart. You know the desires, and I pray that You would be close to our children even as we relinquish them to You. And God, we pray that in the end they will return. And we pray that God, You’ll give us the strength and the courage and the boldness and the power by Your Holy Spirit to care for our adult children who have strayed.

(24:41):

We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Dave:

Amen.

Ann (24:44):

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