164: Building Character for Stronger Relationships: Developing the 4 Essential Character Traits to Raise Resilient Kids

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Blended®

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Season 7, Episode 164: Building Character for Stronger Relationships: Developing the 4 Essential Character Traits to Raise Resilient Kids

Guest:Dr. John Townsend

Air Date: May 19, 2025

John:The big mistake a lot of parents make is they tell the child, “Well, you need to come in the next five minutes” and the child’s going, “I need, really, I’m having a great time out here. What do you need?” And that’s a confusion of boundaries. Whether the mom or dad unconsciously feels like, “Well, you need to do this because;” they’re trying to say, “I want it to happen.”

But it is a crazy making language, in fact saying, “I need you to come in now.” And the child says, “Well, I don’t need to come in.” And you say, “I understand you don’t need to come in, but I need you to, and you’ll lose the iPad for like an hour if you don’t.” “Oh, okay, coming in.” Never say “You need this,” or “You don’t need this” because that child goes, “Don’t get in my head.”

Ron: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 this? Because we think there’s great joy in loving God and loving others, and that seems to make the world a better place. What are the components of healthy relationships? Do you know how to set boundaries with difficult people? Well, if you don’t, you’re with me. We’re going to learn some of that today on this edition of FamilyLife Blended. So hang with me for just a few more minutes.

But first, if you’re a donor to FamilyLife, let me just pause and say thank you. You’re helping us reach around the world with good news and we really appreciate it. Really do. If you’d like to give specifically to FamilyLife Blended to support this particular ministry to blended families, you can do that. We’ve got a link in the show notes that’ll get you to the right place.

We have people contacting us all the time looking for in-person groups, small groups, virtual groups, Sunday school groups, and they’re also wondering what my speaking schedule is or Gayla Grace’s speaking schedule. Well, we’ve got a link in the show notes that’s going to help you with all of that. It’ll get you connected to our searchable ministry map.

And by the way, if your church has a blended family ministry, a small group, an event that you’re hosting, anything that’s coming up, you can post to that ministry map as well for free. That lets anybody who does a search find you and what it is that you’re doing. Wow, we’d love for you to be on there, so take a look in the show notes and get connected to that and be sure to tell your pastor you know where to look.

Jean wrote a review on Apple Podcasts. She says, “I love this podcast.” Well thank you Jean. That’s very kind of you. “So glad I found a source of wise counsel and godly perspective,” she says, “as I navigate my divorce and now plans to get married.” Then she goes on. She says, “Both of our ex-spouses have significant difficulty accepting and respecting boundaries, whether it’s calling or stopping over frequently to see the children, saying inappropriate or hurtful things in front of the kids, or just being manipulative.” She said, “I would love to hear a podcast about how to set firm boundaries in a way that honors God and protects our home and relationships.”

Well, Jean, hey, we’ve got you covered. Enter my next guest; Dr. John Townsend is a nationally known leadership consultant, author and psychologist. He’s written over 30 books selling over 10 million copies, including a New York Times bestselling series, Boundaries. You may have heard of that. They’re fantastic books.

John founded and operates the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, and the Townsend Leadership Program at Concordia University, travels extensively speaking at events and consulting with corporations developing leaders, their teams and their families. He and his wife live in Southern California. John, thank you so very much for being with me.

John:Thanks Ron.

Ron:John, I got to ask you about something. I mentioned the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling at Concordia University. I just heard something marvelous about you guys; that you are number one online PhD program in the country. Is that what I heard?

John:Yeah, we just heard from Forbes magazine, Ron, that yeah, they picked us out as number one. We weren’t expecting that. And so our PhD students have learned to be great counselors, to be teachers and supervisors, and then now they’re doing research and actually we are looking at research for people that are doing good things and you yourself are a fellow of the institute. You’re one of the people that teaches our students when you have something new coming up. And so we just appreciate what you bring because that gives our students who are working on the higher-level doctorate something to study.

Ron:Well, I highly recommend what you guys are doing to people who want to continue their education, but also to look for graduates who can maybe help them in their life. Probably the most important thing I need to ask you is not about your work. I hear you and your son have a band, is that right?

John:Well, if people are watching this, there’s a Stratocaster behind me. But yeah, Barbie and I have two sons, Ricky and Benny, and we form a band, and we’re called The Bandits, like get it, band-its.

Ron:Got it.

John:That’s how we have fun. I have to tell a lot of times some of my friends that we don’t play Hillsong. We play like Led Zeppelin and White Stripes.

Ron:No kidding. Oh, I’m all in for that. Okay, now you’re talking my language. What instrument do you play? Do you sing? What do you do?

John:Yeah, there’s three of us so we all three sing. I’m guitar and then Ricky, our elder is bass, and then Benny, our younger is drums. Pretty simple.

Ron:Wow, that’s pretty great. I just noticed if you’re watching on YouTube, you just saw the thumbs up symbol popup on John’s video, which is also awesome because that’s just what happens these days when you do video playing in a band with your family, your kids. Man, that’s just got to be a lot of fun. So what do you hit? Just bars on the local strip or where do you guys play?

John:Yeah, sometimes the bars and sometimes it’s just a get it together, like a Christmas party or something at the house. We’ve had them, done it sometimes with a street party in the neighborhood. It’s fun.

Ron:That is really great. That’s really great. Well, let me tell you a little something about our audience as we jump into our conversation. Blended family couples are often striving for some healthy relationships and at the very same time they’re kind of looking behind them, dealing with some of the previous hard relationships that continue to linger, right? Sometimes that’s a former spouse, a new stepchild, a new in-law, an old outlaw. I mean there’s all kinds of little things that are going on there.

So I want us to talk about what makes for healthy relationships and let’s also talk about boundaries with difficult ones. Jean, who had written to us and posted that review, obviously she’s not the only one who needs a little help with that. That’s where we’re headed. Let’s start with what we want. I know you talk about four components of healthy relationships. Walk us through those.

John:Sure. Well, if people have read any of my work or Henry Cloud’s work, there’s a kind of consistent theme in those which is that what really matters in terms of your growth and making it as a family member, as in your career and in your insides is called character and character is the way you’re wired. I define it as it’s that set of four capacities that really helps us to meet the demands of reality. So a healthy relationship has those same components to it because the more both people are working on growing those four capacities, the better off they get.

So an easy way to remember it is that it’s an acronym like the continent Asia, A-S-I-A. There are four components, start with different letters and sometimes people just go, oh, it’s the ASIA model. Yes, Henry and I put this together from long times of studying the Bible, biblical principles, theology as well as clinical psychology, neuropsychology and these sorts of things. And this is where we think that what makes the most sense and the most help.

The first A of ASIA is attachment. Attachment has to do with being able to trust others, to be able to identify your feelings, and to also to be able to be vulnerable and have compassion on other people. That’s what connection attachments is. There’s so much research nowadays about attachment. You and I have talked, and you have a wealth of information about that. Attachment is the first and foremost capacity. And when people don’t have that capacity, they disconnect. Sometimes they withdraw way inside themselves. Sometimes they use substances because it medicates the isolation.

The second one is the letter S, and that stands for separation. Now separation has to do with things like the boundaries you mentioned. Can you set boundaries and say no when you need to? Can you define yourself? Can a person say, “I like this, and I don’t like this”? Some people sort of feel afraid and they’re conflict avoidance, so they always say, “Well whatever you feel like; I’m flexible.” And they’re really not flexible, they’re just afraid.

So can you define yourself? Also, can you confront well and confront in respectful loving ways? Those are the separation skills to have and they’re very, very powerful. And a lot of times people say, “Well, oh yeah, separation of boundaries, I’ll use that when an attachment doesn’t work.” No, no, no, no. It’s not a zero-sum game. You’ve got to have lots of attachment and lots of separateness. We’re two separate people.

The third one is a thing called integration. That’s the I and integration has to do with what do you do about the negatives in life? Failure, loss, sinfulness, problems, struggles. Some of us are kind of perfectionistic and we can’t deal with the negatives because they make us feel bad or ashamed, so we avoid them. We either avoid them talking about negative things or we go into a perfectionistic cycle where you got to be better, you got to be better. And that never wins. It always makes us feel yucky about ourselves.

Integration means I embrace the negative in myself, I embrace the negative in others, I embrace the negative in the world. The world’s not a perfect place, but I know how to deal with it. I’ve got this skill to deal with it. I know how to grieve the losses I’ve got to grieve. I know how to adapt. I know how to change myself in these sorts of things.

Then the fourth A of ASIA is adulthood. And what that means is I’m at the sitting of the table with other grownups and I don’t feel like I’ve got imposter syndrome. If I’m at my business, if I’m my family, some people go, “They’re smarter than me,” “They’re more talented than me.” Well, no, if you’re an adult, you know that you have a mutual respect between each other and you also know your purpose and where you’re going in life. And so when people have good amounts of attachment, separation, integration, adulthood, they tend to have a much more powerful relationship with others that have those as well.

Ron:Okay, I love it; love all four of those. I know they’re all rich concepts in and of themselves and obviously there’s some interplay between them. I’m also sitting here wondering if I’m listening to this conversation or watching this conversation and I’m thinking, “Man, I used to have a pretty good sense of who I was, a sense of separation and I thought we had a strong attachment, but that was the first marriage and that one went south. And ever since then I’m kind of afraid to step into that relationship or I give a little, but then I pull it back.” So just in a general sense, if somebody has taken a hit, if you will, in one or more of these areas, what is the path for them to begin to heal and perhaps rebuild?

John:Well, number one, and it’s very fixable in toward what you could do about it. You don’t have to live like this all your life. Number one is it’s good not to just bring your spouse in, but to bring other people who are helpful in—great therapists, great pastors, great counselors, people like the folks that you team up with, Ron—because it’s hard to change a character issue without somebody else around.

Think about it if you pulled your meniscus and so you get on YouTube and it says, “Do this exercise, do this.” Yeah, sure, do those and then you wreck your meniscus again, because it’s really sometimes if you haven’t been able to fix this yourself, if you’ve been broken or if you’ve been burnt in a relationship, it’s good to get some counsel and help from other people.

But depending on what the character issue is that you’re struggling with—Is it because I don’t trust anymore or because I’m afraid to set limits or maybe I’m perfectionist and I beat the crap out of myself or because I don’t feel like I’m equal or mutual with other people. You’ve got to identify it and then you’ve got to go to work on it. And the way you go to work on it is you find out where the work is.

For example, we have now a ten-minute test called TPRAT, Townsend Personal Relational Assessment Tool that you can go online with and find out what your score is on those. We’ve just been—our statisticians just determined that it’s reliable and it’s valid, so it’s got all the bells and whistles. In ten minutes you can find out where you are in that area. Some of you’re going to be higher and lower in and it gives you specific skills to work on them. So don’t just try to do it by yourself. Get a test, get a person and they can help. These are well-researched things that people can do.

Ron:Wow, that’s exciting. Where would people be able to find that, by the way? We want to make sure we get that connected.

John:Yeah, sure. It’s tprat.com. T-P-R-A-T.com.

Ron:Okay. Alright, so it’s a good assessment, get you started looking at yourself, seeing something that’s there, maybe not that you didn’t know was there and beginning to take some next steps.

So I’m curious, you’ve been working with people for a while, I don’t know, a couple of years, many years, are you seeing any trends over time? Is society changing or families changing? In terms of the ASIA model, is there anything that you see as a growing need just in our culture?

John:Well, unfortunately I don’t think we’re getting better and better every day, Ron. I do see a lot of good movement in people understanding that I just can’t use willpower and denial to get better. I’ve got to look inside. Proverbs chapter 20, verse 5 said, “a person’s heart are deep waters, and a person of understanding draws them out.” And fortunately I do see, and this is probably because of lots of factors, covid, the way the culture is, the way the family’s been breaking down, that there’s less shame in getting help now. And people feel like it’s okay to get help because you need that other person to draw you out.

So I’m encouraged that there’s more resource and more help, but the discouragement is, yeah, especially the nuclear family. And that’s why I’m so glad you guys are doing what you’re doing and what you’ve been spearheading is because the nuclear family is really getting attacked and the structure’s not there that used to be. And so I see problems in all four areas in a gradual deterioration over maybe 30 years ago. But I do see great resources, great tools, great organizations like yours.

Ron:Okay, so let’s back up if we don’t mind and walk through ASIA and let’s put on our parent hat. I know we got parents listening, parents, stepparents, and they’re wondering, “Alright, so how do I give my kids healthy attachment? How do I foster this sense of adulthood in my children?” I know we all talk about our kids adulting, but what are the things that we can do? Would it be okay if you just gave us a few suggestions? Let’s start with attachment.

John:Sure.

Ron:What are some things we should attend to as parents and stepparents?

John:Now we’ll have to be kind of broad here because I’m sure your audience has got people with somebody three weeks old and somebody nineteen and maybe somebody forty, who knows? And the developmental skills are different, but I’ll just be very broad brushed. One of the things about attachment that’s really, really you find helpful is when it is modeled by a safe person.

People that have attachment problems, they can’t open up. They can’t trust. They’re better thinkers than feelers. They can read books all day, but until they’re around a warm person who can open up, which is like what a parent should be, or a stepparent or a step grandparent. So the principle is, don’t have them come to you in what they’re talking about. You go to them.

If they’re three years old, you get on the floor with them and you say, “What are you doing?” And they say, “I’m drawing a horse,” and “That’s the best horse I’ve ever seen.” And if it’s 19 and they want to talk about politics, great. You go to their level and then they begin to feel safe and then those doors in the heart began to open. So that’s number one.

Number two, in terms of attachment is really, really, really important; to help them develop an emotional vocabulary. And a recent book I wrote, people feel about a hundred different feelings because we have to have a vocabulary, a menu, because people can’t communicate emotions without it. And gals are way ahead of us on that. Women have a much more subtle menu of that hundred. Men, I think we know three, so we’ve got to kind of work on that.

Ron:Anger, what, passion. I don’t even know what’s—

John:—boredom.

Ron:There you go.

John:And so develop emotional vocabulary. The most important of all those is that you need to help them to need. It sounds weird, but it’s people who can’t attach, can’t need. Now they might need something what we would call functionally. I need a loan. I need to borrow your car. I need—can I borrow your phone? That’s a functional need, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

God made us to have relational needs. I know that I need to know I’m okay with somebody. I need to learn the skill of saying “I really screwed up at work.” Or I made, maybe I’m in third grade and I didn’t do well on a test, and I need to have somebody that can show me, “You can go to me and tell me ‘I was bad. I didn’t make it. I was a failure,’” and that person say, “You’re okay with me.”

So when we bring our needs to other people, needs for comfort, needs for assurance, need for validation, needs to know that we’re okay with them. That changes everything because the basic fault in a person with an attachment problem is that they do not either feel it is safe to need or if it’s worse, they don’t even know what a need is. That’s how you fix the attachment problem.

Ron:So if I as a parent am helping to, can I do vocabulary and help demonstrate need at the same time to my kids by just simply putting words on my own emotions and what I’m going through and demonstrate that in front of children and show them in a healthy marriage relationship, expressing need in front of the kids. So things like that, would that be helpful?

John:Yeah, that is part of the package. Now we got to watch it sometimes because some parents take that football and run it down the field for a touchdown where they just talk about themselves all the time. We have that tendency, so just lob it back to the kid a lot.

One thing that Barbie and I did, we had boys and boys aren’t as verbal as girls. And so Barbie’s a teacher, she loves the connection. So they would come home and “How was your day?” “Good.” “Oh, how’d you feel?” “Fine.” And Barbie said, “This is not good.” So I said, “I tell you what we’ll do.” She’d be making dinner, and I would take each boy separately a walk around the block. “We’re going to walk around the block separately and we’re going to talk about whatever you want to talk about.”

Well, the boys hated that at first. I mean one at a time too. And he would say things like, one son would say, “This is so boring, I don’t want to do this. I want to get back on my video game,” or whatever. And I would say, “I know. I got it. I understand.” And with boys, you can’t really look at each other a whole lot because they’ve got to be looking at something else, so we’d be looking at squirrels and cars.

And then halfway through the block—this happened like magic—one of the boys would say, “I don’t think the coach likes me. I don’t think he’s playing me very much,” and we talk about it. Or “I’m not good at math and I’m not doing well,” “There’s this girl I don’t know what to do about her,” or whatever. Just time after time, Ron, by the time we got back to the yard, one of my sons would say, “Can I go around again?”

Ron:Wow.

John:They just needed the space to know that they were heard, that their needs were welcomed, and began opening up just like that Bible verse I said, things like that.

Ron:And when you show them they are safe with you and you love them in spite of, or no matter what’s going on, that’s just going to continue to help them to open up and show that need.

John:Yeah, attunement really opens up the whole dam of people’s needs. When they know somebody tunes to them even though they’ve never opened up before or it’s not safe, inside them in those deep waters, they’re waiting for somebody to show interest. But you just can’t say, “Start talking, talk.” You’ve got to be a good active listener. And that is a skill to learn.

Ron:Let me just say something to our audience real quick, a quick application and then we can go to healthy separation and what parents can do to kind of help foster that. Let me just talk to parents and stepparents in blended families right now. I want you to know that sometimes the default we teach is the biological parent maybe going on the walk with the kids around the block and trying to open this stuff up because you have more of a well-defined relationship with the children that naturally lends itself to some more safety. But there are exceptions to that rule all the time.

And so stepparents, listen to what the kids are showing you. Let them set the pace. That’s the overarching principle with their asking for more of you. If they’re willing to give you their hearts, then by all means, you too, step into that space. And that’s just in the early years for most stepparents. Over time, the more they trust you, the more safe you are, the more you can get, and the more you can become an active, active person in that process that John’s been talking about.

Okay, healthy separation; got any suggestions about how parents can help foster that?

John:We weren’t born with that skill. We were born with a skill to bond. I mean out of the womb we were saying where’s happiness and where’s life and where’s safety? But the ability to say no, we need to and say what we want and what we don’t like and do, we don’t have that as a skill as much. They need to be taught.

So let’s start again with the modeling. The family needs to be a place, especially mom and dad, where people can say the truth and hear the truth without freaking out. That means that mom and dad can model disagreeing on something and loving each other and joking about it. If you can’t joke about it, do it in the bedroom when the kid’s not looking, you don’t want to give them a bad picture of it, but if you can do it like a grownup, they feel like, “Oh, conflict’s normal.”

Not only that though, but the child is going to be able to, most children at the early stages are pretty clear about what they want, but they’re kind of rude about it. “I hate that,” “I don’t want broccoli,” or whatever. And that’s good. And you never want to quash their desire to have an opinion, but you help to take the edges, the rough edges off a bit like here’s a better way to say it, and this sort of thing.

So helping the child to say no and feel safe about saying no and about doing in a way that they’re not afraid of repercussions. And that the other side though of boundaries, the bad news is you’ve got to respect other people’s boundaries. And that’s a big, big, big, big part of when I’m training and talking and consulting these days is parents don’t feel like it’s okay or they’re equipped to help a child with out-of-control behavior, disrespect, disobedience, these sorts of things. This is where basically consequences come in.

And consequences are a good thing. Not mean consequences, but a consequence that matters to the child. “If you hit your little sister on the head, that’s not okay.” So first you say it verbally and if they stop, great, they learned it. If they don’t stop, you say, “If you do it again, you’ll have a consequence.” They do it again. You have to follow through.

And what is the consequence? Well, it’s always defined as something that the child feels is distasteful, or removing something the child loves. It’s either something you provide that’s distasteful to them, like “You’re going to be cleaning up the dog poop in the backyard for the next week” or it’s removing something they love, which is being in the gadget days, it’s so easy now, your iPad, your iPhone, and they do not like that. And so you got to find the one that your kid doesn’t like, but you say, “Here’s the deal. I’m going to do this for this time. You’ll get it back when your behavior changes or a certain period of time.” But consequences are huge for our current generation.

Ron:So I want to wrap back around and make sure people didn’t miss the reason you’re doing the follow through with the consequences is because you’re trying to help the child understand the difference between who they are and who other people are and how they respect.

John:And if you do nothing but say, “Stop doing that, or one day I am going to do x, y, z;” or if you’re the fatigued parent—the fatigued parent just kind of warns and warns and warns—basically you’re teaching the child, “Oh, I’ve got a parent that won’t really take my iPhone away,” or whatever, “after ten nags” so she can nag for ten times and I got nine times to go. And so it’s got to be that to prepare the child for adult life and career and marriage themselves, they need to know that good behavior brings good fruit.

Jesus said good tree brings good fruit and bad behavior means brings bad fruit. And so they start to tie in their head of, oh, if I act like this, I’m going to lose something I love. Maybe I need to behave better. And they develop a magical, magical thing, Ron, and it’s called self-control. So now you’ve got an attached child who can be open with emotions and feel their needs and feel safe with the world and who also has self-control. Now that’s a pretty good deal.

Ron:That is a pretty good deal. Okay, somebody’s listening before we go on to healthy integration. Somebody’s listening, they’re going, “Ah, yes, I got it. We’re trying; my child’s other household, not so good with the boundaries or follow through. Plus in the previous family, perhaps even back before death or divorce, there was lots of conflict, and it wasn’t handled well. And so I know they’ve seen a lot of things that aren’t helpful.” What would you say that person who’s going, “We’re trying, is that going to be enough? Are we going to be able to provide a good model even though they have a poor model?”

John:Thank God for the resiliency of the brain. God made children to be very resilient. I would say that the tendency of the parent is sort of a protective thing. If they are really no consequences, no structure, I’ll be sort of like military with them. Or if there was kind of a very, very strict environment, I’ll be loving in Disneyland with them. And those are both extremes. Don’t go to the extreme because the child, even though they won’t tell you this is looking for a love and limits family, they are dying for it. They want that. They want to know they’re safe and they’re listened to, but also that their structure.

So just do a good balanced diet of great love and great boundaries and it will heal unless if there’s something very serious and you’re not seeing anything get better and you’ve read books, you’ve got to talk to people about it, you have to go see somebody that’s clinical. But a lot of children don’t need that. They just need somebody to say, “This is what reality is like. It’s not crazy. It’s about love and it’s about truth.”

Ron:That is very hope giving. Thank you. Let’s talk about healthy integration. What can parents, stepparents, what are some proactive things they can do with that?

John:Help the child learn to fail well. You’ve seen all the studies out there about how kids have never experienced failure, then they get to college, and they freak out when they make an A- because nobody ever told them that they would. And that begins in childhood that we don’t protect our children from failure. Now something that’s life-threatening, absolutely whatever, but always encourage your child to take risks and then show them they can live beyond it.

I remember when one of our boys was, he was four and he was in T-ball and I was coaching all the sports to the capacity where I became incompetent and other dads took over, but I did it for a while. And so we’re out in the backyard and I’m just pitching the ball to him, and he’s got his little glove and up in it, the ball hits his glove and it falls down. We try it again, the ball hits the glove, fall down, and he finally has this awful self-talk like “I’m an idiot. I’ll never make it. I’m just a joke.” I’m thinking, “Who is your father? You need to see a shrink or something.” So I’m like, “I got to fix this.”

So I said, “Rick, it’s just learning. This is how you do it. You’re just learning. So let’s try it again.” Now he’s looking at me like—he’s four—”What’s he saying?” But I threw the ball to him and the ball goes up in the air, lands in his glove and it falls down again. And he looks at me, he looks at the ball, and he says, “Learned again.” But that was the first step of, failure can be your friend. So we want our children to do well and to be as excellent as possible, but they’ve got to be able to understand there’s no shame in failure, there’s no “We’re going to be disappointed in you with failure.” There’s going to be “How can we help you learn from it?”

And another part of that is to help them to learn to grieve well. Grief is one of the most powerful tools to be sad when you have a bad occurrence. Our culture is teaching people to either pretend like they’re not sad when they have a loss—they just don’t look at it. That’s called denial—or to get mad about it and just kind of blow the world about it. And grief, when you read in the Bible in Isaiah, it says that Jesus was a person who was well acquainted with grief. Now if the leader, leaders can do that. Grief, what it does, it helps the child reset, relax, to feel like “I don’t have the care of the world, and I’m still loved.” Help them grieve well.

And also help them with self-image issues. This is also in the integration. It’s very easy to have a culture, especially if you’ve got a blended family, where one child gets so much praise that they become kind of entitled and maybe everybody’s trying to jock you between them and have some kind of competition as a parent. And so they overpraise them and that creates a thing called entitlement. And so one really good thing to do is absolutely praise and affirm your child, but not for anything that they can’t do anything about, not for something that they can’t do anything about.

For example, to tell a girl she’s pretty all day, what the message is to her is, “Okay, they like me because I’ve got this body that I didn’t do anything about but my insides nobody is asking about.” Or to say the same thing to a boy. “Well, you’re really fit and healthy.” “Well, I got this body.”

Here’s the things to really praise them about is your kindness. “You’re really kind to that guy. I saw that.” Or “You worked hard on your homework,” or “You had a tension with your brother, and you were really good about that.” Or “I see you being a family member and helping in our team.” When you praise their character, which they can do something about, you don’t have a narcissist. When all they praise is the externals, “You’re a princess.” Don’t ever say princess, say things that are about something that they can actually do something about that matter.

Ron:Wow, that is such a good suggestion. Healthy adulthood. What are some things parents can attend to there?

John:Well, we have to remember first that they aren’t adults. I’m not talking about people with a 40-year-old child. That’s a whole different thing. But somebody that’s under 18 is not an adult yet. So this is something to aspire to. And for a child to aspire to adulthood, there’s several things.

One is you’ve got to maintain that there is a such thing as a generation gap. Sometimes parents in the attempt to connect to the child better, they become like the child. I’ve seen moms and dads running around with the same clothes that their children wear at 12 years old, and they don’t have the body for it anymore. It just doesn’t really work.

And when all they’re doing is trying to be another buddy, another bro, another sister to their kid, you know what they do? It limits the child’s ability to aspire to something. Growing up and saying, “I want to be like Mom” and “I want to be like Dad,” I have to aspire. “What do they do?” But if the parent comes down our way, the child says “Oh, I’m already as mature as I’m going to be, and then there’s no kind of aspirational needs.

The second thing is to help them find out what they’re good at, what their gifts at, because that’s how you enter into an adult world, into relationships and career and this sort of thing. Are you good at sports? Are you good at math? Are you good at going to Sunday school and learning things? Are you good at art? Whatever. But help them to do that and to also to do things that they’re not very good at, but are okay at, not only just the giftedness.

The other thing is to help them to see that they are going to become an authority figure themselves. Now I believe that God’s the ultimate authority figure, and then He’s got a lot of others and got presidents and kings, and He’s got parents, but we represent that to them.

So help them to realize that as they grow, they get a little more responsibility in life and they may be able to lead a class or be the chess king or whatever, but they help them develop authority. And that brings tremendous, tremendous ability that when they finally enter adulthood, they can be on a team. And I didn’t mean a chess team, I mean a professional team or a ministry team where they can really do well. So help them with those things and it develops things.

Finally, start talking to them about purpose. I’ve worked with some people, and you have too, Ron, who are in their forties and fifties and still don’t know why they’re on the planet.

Ron:That’s right.

John:And they’re kind of like from career to career and they can’t find their niche and it’s really frustrating for them, but help them start thinking, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I remember my parents were saying, “What do you want to do? You’ve got these skills.” And I didn’t figure it out until I was probably 30 myself. And so don’t expect that of your child, but I was always in the right path. I had to narrow it down and just take them to experiences where you learn about what the adult life is like and then they’re ready for it. It’s nothing scary for them. It’s something they feel “I’m equipped for this.”

Ron:And I would imagine, because I know there’s some people, some parents who have their kids’ adulthood planned for them, like, “I know what your purpose is.” But my guess is you would say “No, don’t be throwing your plans on their life, but instead ask questions and draw it out of them. Try to help them give shape to that rather than you telling them.” Is that right?

John:Well, yeah. Sooner or later for a person becoming an adult, they have to renounce the parent. And for a parent to say at 63, “Well, I’m still your dad, even though you’re 40 and you’ll do what I say,” you’re crippling someone. Because nobody becomes a fully functioning adult until they’ve said—in the south we say, “Eat the fish and spit out the bones.” I’m eating the fish that my parents gave me and my stepparents. I got to spit out the bones. That’s not me. We don’t want to make a bunch of mini-mes. We want to pay people that take the good things then found their own way.

So it’s the parent that says, “Yeah, you’re going to do some things differently me,” but here’s the different opportunities and here’s the different experiences, field trips, conferences, exposure, get them out of the house doing things because we don’t just learn from reading a book about career. We get out there and we travel with them to the best we can and say, “Here’s what people are doing,” and the experience is what really turns something on inside their heart. And they go, “That’s me.”

I remember someone who was, I was sitting next to a pilot in a plane. I travel a lot like you do, and he said, “This is my shift. I’m off. And so I’m just riding back home.” I said, “Tell me about your life that must be—did you know you were going to be a pilot when you were 17?” He says, “I’ve always wanted to fly since day one. I always have. And my parents, when they found that out, they gave me experiences.” Listen to the kid.

Ron:Yeah, that’s good.

Okay, let’s turn the corner. Man, I love that model that you provided in terms of what we’re shooting for. Lots of people are dealing with things from the past that linger on and they’re trying to figure out how to navigate those boundaries. I think one of the biggest questions we get in our ministry is, how do I set boundaries with an ex-spouse?

It’s that co-parenting dilemmas and they have all these little scenarios: “The other home’s invading our family time,” “They signed up our kids for an activity and expect me to help pay for it and help drive to it and all this kind of stuff, and they didn’t even bother to ask me,” all those little things that are just really frustrating for a parent. How we, let’s just pull back from all that. How in general should people think about boundaries in terms of what they’re trying to accomplish and what are some general principles you would offer about managing them?

John:Yeah, this context, Ron, the purpose of a boundary is to protect the child’s development. I mean, we get these kids for a few years and then they’re on their own. And so whether they’re two or whether they’re seventeen, our job is to give them the optimum. I look at it like they’re a plant and we’re a garden. The optimum amount of sunlight and chemicals and this sort of thing so that they’ll get out and their life may be as functional as possible. And so anything that I can do to protect them against chaos, against unfairness, against toxic sorts of things, that’s my job. That’s the main purpose.

Now when you have, let’s call it a non-cooperative ex, I always look at it at different levels of severity. Look at it like if your doctor said you’ve got a cold, is it mild, moderate, severe? It’s kind of easy way to remember it. If it’s mild, you go to the parent and you do what Matthew 18 says. You go to him and say, “This is a problem.” And it’s just a verbal thing. “This is kind of hard because Susie is kind of suffering from this, and we both want Susie to win so can we flex on the schedule thing?” If it’s mild, a person will go, “Sorry, I didn’t even think about it. No problem.”

Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of moderate, severe where the person will say, “My way or the highway,” or unconsciously, “I want to punish you because you’re not with me. And I don’t care if the kid gets jeopardized in the process.” And those are the moderate, severes. And so you always try the verbal because that’s always the best route. And then the next thing is to say, “Well, we’ve got to do something about this,” and you pursue it. You don’t say the verbal one. Sometimes people need two or three. I’m a big fan of saying something two or three times. After three times you’ve got a pattern though.

After three times, that’s when you have to say, “Well, we may have to do something about this.” And if they say, “The court’s on my side, you can’t miss with this. You’ve got no right over it,” they’re right. And so then what we have is sometimes we bring a mediator in, if they’re open to see a mediator. Every time I get the same question you get, I have to give it all levels because people will say, “You don’t understand. We did that. We did that. We did that. We did.” So I’m trying to put the whole range in.

So the mild was not a problem, then keep repeating it. And then the moderate to severe, “I’m not going to do anything about it. I don’t like you and I’m not going to support you, and I think it’s good for my child to be eating candy at 3:00 AM,” and all this. And so then what you have to do is you remember that this isn’t about our own happiness, this is about our child’s development. It’s got to keep that in mind. What’s the best thing for the child? Well, if I have no power over anything and no legal power, no relational power, no nothing power, I create the most healthy, balanced family environment that I can during when I’ve got them.

If I’ve got 70 percent custody, 30 percent custody, I create the most balanced, attached, great structure, that separation, okay to fail but we have limits and then I’ll help you develop your life. So then inside their head—you and I are both fans of neuroscience because it’s so helpful and you see so many biblical principles in it—inside that kid’s mind is, “Well, there’s fun, crazy Disneyland over here and I’m going to come back, ooh gosh, there’s structure and they have rules, but you know what? They listen to me and they’re kind, and I feel calm inside because when I’m in chaos, I feel crazy inside.”

And that part of them is what we would call in psychologist world internalizing. Maybe you only got them 30 percent, but that 30 percent is 30 percent of an experience that they’re taking in and taking just like you put money in the bank, they’re investing it and it’s making a difference. And over time, they know what crazy is and toxic and they know what healthy is. And over time, so many times the child will start leaning that way because we’re built for health. So don’t get discouraged if you can’t change the crazy, but you provide sanity and love in the household with the time you’ve got. And it will pay off in dividends for the next 80 years of that child’s life.

Ron:That’s so good, John. And it’s so hope giving and you’re absolutely right. And I just really want to echo that to everybody who’s listening right now who has one of those moderate or severe, especially the severe ones, situations where you are literally powerless. You’ve tried everything you know how to do, you don’t have much influence, if any at all with the other home. So within your home, you’re going to do absolutely everything you can. Strive for that and it will still not feel like enough. And I think the hard part, John, help us with this part is it’s the waiting. Yes, kids are internalizing and yes, they’re going to one day wake up and see the wisdom—

John:But they may be 37 when that happens.

Ron:Exactly. And so it’s the in-between that I find is really difficult for people. And all I know to do is to say, “This is so hard. You’re just going to trust. You’re trusting the Lord more than you’re trusting in your circumstances and what you have control over. You’re trusting in the Lord that all of this stuff is going to pay off. You just don’t know when or where. And you got to just hold on to that and press forward with everything that you know to do.”

John:Yeah, absolutely. And there’s a couple of tools that I think are very helpful. One of those tools is community; to be around other parents that are having the same struggles. And it’s really true that when you’re in a situation where everybody’s had, some more severe, some less severe, you come away going, “They’re making it day by day. And I feel different inside because this is the attachment. I feel attached to people who understand my life. I can go fight another day.” So get a community with people who are like-minded and like-experienced.

And the other thing is sometimes it’s hard for us to be patient, I think, Ron, because we feel there’s kind of a critical judge in our head that says we should be doing more and the child should be better, better now— the life of the should. And instead, just go, “I’m doing the best I can, and I can’t control a lot of things. And if I do the best I can, that’s all I can do.”

And the third thing is never, never make your child’s success or failure like the one goal of your life. Do other things as well. If all you’re doing is obsessing about your child, your child’s getting a really worried parent. So make sure that you have a full life, spending lots of time with the kid, but also your own career, your own hobby, your church life, community, giving back, service, and that takes a lot of the weight. A watched pot really is frustrating, but if you don’t watch the pot all day, you monitor the pot because your kid, but do other things in life, time will pass faster.

Ron:I love that idea about community. My goodness, we have seen that in our ministry when couples get into groups. Just last weekend I was with a group of blended family couples on a retreat. It was so fun to watch the cohesiveness of people, some of whom knew each other before they came in and others that didn’t. But almost immediately when we put them into groups, when they start talking stepfamily living, all of a sudden, they’re all friends and they’re sharing deeply, and the energy rises, and the enthusiasm and the hopefulness rises.

And no, we haven’t substantively changed anything in their life yet, just sitting there at the retreat, but already there’s more energy and hope for going home and facing what they have to face. And that is so true.

I’ll just say this to our listeners. You also write to us and say, “But we can’t find a group in our community.” And I always say, what? Then you got to do it. And that’s one of the things we do at FamilyLife Blended, if you don’t know, is we will empower you. We’ll help you; we’ll coach you; we’ll give you the resources.

John:And you guys have done it so many times that it’s almost turnkey now because I know about it.

Ron:That’s right, and it can happen.

John:There’s no reason to be discouraged.

Ron:The vast majority, I still say this: a little over 30 years ago when I started doing stepfamily ministry, absolutely every stepfamily small group or workshop that I did at a local church was sponsored by a blended family couple. It always started at the grassroots level. And today I’d say it’s about 70/30, still grassroots 70 percent of the time and only 30 percent does it start with a pastor or somebody who’s in leadership in a local congregation.

All of that to say that if you’re feeling the need for connection and most people are, we are, then let us help you do that in your church or in your community, and it will take you a long way.

I want to ask you a question about boundaries, because sometimes—

John:Can I speak to what you’re doing?

Ron:Yes, please.

John:—for a second. Just knowing you and knowing what you’ve done over the last 30 years and the impact you’ve had; what I think your team and your own vision is really good at is you don’t line people up with a bunch of happy stories and just feed them smoke and mirrors. You’re talking about people who had real struggles and have found progress. And so everybody comes in thinking, “Am I the craziest one? Have I got the worst situation?” You got people who got a bad situation, but when somebody can say, “It’s a bad situation; here’s what we’ve done about it,” all of a sudden, they relax. And I think that’s one of the great things about you and in your ministry.

Ron:I appreciate that, John. That means a lot.

Boundaries: sometimes I hear people use that word, and really, it’s sort of their excuse for selfishness. I’m setting a boundary and everybody around me, I’m not necessarily talking about a difficult former spouse right now. I’m just talking about maybe within the home, within your own home or within a relationship. And have we gotten a little off in our use of that word and what it’s really meant to do? What do you think?

John:Yeah, we’ve gotten off. I have to always clarify that. I always tell people, “Did you read the book?” “No, I didn’t read the book.” “If you read one of the seven books, it might—”

Ron:Right.

John:But people get frustrated in a situation where they felt helpless, and so they read the first two words of the book and they blow up and scream and yell, have a tantrum, and everything goes south and nobody’s happy. And they go, “Your stuff doesn’t work.” Well, read the rest of the book.

Ron:That’s right, finish it all. Yeah.

John:Because boundaries, it’s a property line. It’s not an angry statement. It’s not, “I’m going to leave you.” It’s not “I’m going to change you,” “I’m going to fix you,” “I’ll show you.” That’s not in there. It’s a property line. It just says, “This is my property and this is yours.” What’s in my property? Well, my own thoughts and feelings of behavior and your thoughts, feelings and behavior and also an external level—my money, my time, your money, your time.

Proverbs 4:23 says to guard your heart for out of it flow the issues of life. So if I want to preserve my feelings, behavior, thoughts, and my time and money and do them the right way, I can’t let somebody else hijack them because then I’m out of control of what I want to do in my life. So I have to say, “No, you’re stealing my money,” or “You’re telling me what to feel. I don’t do that. Can we do it a different way?” It’s just taking hold of the property that you have. And that’s what we do with children, and that’s what we do in all our relationships. The way that it works.

Ron:We got to unpack that a little bit more because it’s taking control of the property you have. I often hear people using boundaries as I’m taking charge of what you’re doing, what you’re no longer going to do. It’s all about the other person. I love the way you articulated that. No, it starts with me managing what I have. Am I hearing that?

John:For example, the big mistake a lot of parents make is they tell the child, “Well, you need to come in the next five minutes,” and the child’s going, “I need?”

Ron:“I don’t need. I’m doing great out here.”

John:“I’m having a great time out here. What do you need?” And that’s the confusion of boundaries. Whether the mom or dad unconsciously feels like, “Well, you need to do this” because they’re trying to say, “I want it to happen.”

But it is a crazy making language, in fact saying, “I need you to come in now.” And the child says, “Well, I don’t need to come in.” And you say, “I understand you don’t need to come in, but I need you to, and you’ll lose the iPad for like an hour if you don’t.” “Oh, okay, coming in.” Never say “You need this,” or “You don’t need this” because that child goes, “Don’t get in my head.” However, to your whole point about, “I’ll control you,” boundaries actually promote choice in other people.

If you look at Joshua, he said, “Choose this day who you’re going to serve. Are you going to serve me or serve the Lord.” He doesn’t say, “You must serve the Lord.” He says, “If it doesn’t feel happy for you to serve God, gosh, I would not stop.” It protects choice, but also it allows consequences.

I wrote a book called Boundaries with Teens, and in that book, I give four levels of how to make this make sense for you. And it is sort of passed the test of time. The number one thing when you got a kid who’s out of control or ditching school or bad attitude or whatever they’re doing, drugs, the bad stuff, there’s four things, four elements of a healthy boundary with the teen. Number one is love. “Whatever happens, I love you and I am for you. I know you don’t feel like I am, but I just want to let you know I totally love you.”

Number two is the truth. And the truth is the house rules. “Here are the house rules. We don’t do drugs in our house, and we don’t do violence in our house, and we don’t do irresponsibility and lying in our house. So here’s the house rules. I want to make sure you knew them.” You don’t give them a whole list right then but “In the particular situation we’re in, here’s the rule, and I want to make sure you know that.”

The third one is the one that freaks parents out, but they’ve got to do it, and “You’re free not to do these things.” What? “I’m not going to make you do them.” And parents go, “You can’t do that. The world’s going to fall apart.”

Ron:Don’t give them the option, yeah.

John:Don’t get in as if they don’t know that already. “You are free to disobey on those things, and so I would not want to make you do anything.”

But here’s the fourth one. It’s reality consequences. “If you do choose that, I want to be very clear about what you’re going to lose and what you’re going to experience and how long it will take, what the reality consequences are.” So it’s love, truth, freedom and reality consequences. And that played right takes care of the, “I’m going to set boundaries and make you do anything. I’m just telling you what the consequences are, and you choose your consequences.”

Ron:That is so good. I’m taking notes because I’m thinking of so many conversations that I’ve had with people and that you are free to not do that. That is so important. I’m thinking that’s speaking to that healthy separation thing where you as a parent are recognizing, I’m not my child. I don’t have to get the child—see, that’s where we get lost is “If my child disobeys, that means I’m a bad parent” or “My child is me so if they feel bad, I feel bad,” and no, no, no. You’re saying with “You’re free to do what you’re going to do, but I’m free to respond in kind” is “I know who I am, and I know what I’m going to do, and I’m letting you know that, and you have to make choices and receive whatever comes with that yourself.” Learning that important lesson is wow, speaks to their emotional health that they’re going to carry with them their entire life.

John:And be persevering with this. You got to be like the oak tree that effectively gives the consequence over and over again. It’s not going to be one trial learning. Parents are so busy, and they get discouraged and they just drop the idea, keep it up.

I had a parent, she had her three-year-old was bonking the one-year-old in the head, and she said, “She won’t stop.” So I said, “Put her in the chair,” I said—what was the rule back then? I think it was one minute per—

Ron:Yeah, for age, for every year of age. So three minutes for a three-year-old.

John:So four minutes and it didn’t work. She got off the chair and did it again. I said, “Well, keep increasing it until she says, ‘I don’t like this. I’ll be good.’” And so I saw her about a month later. I said, “How’s it going?” She goes, “Oh, three minutes was not Angela’s number.” I said, “What was?” She goes, “17.” And I said, “Did the boy wear a helmet during that time?” Just because—

Ron:Oh my goodness.

John:But she said at 17, she goes, “I don’t like this.” “Are you going to be good?” “Yes.” And she said, “Well, you’ve said that before. Let’s see.” She took her down there and she didn’t hug little brother, but she was nice. Some people just take more time.

Ron:That is a good principle for all of us because I’m a little stubborn too. I don’t know about anybody else, but when I have an idea about how it should go, I tend to chase that pretty far.

John, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your ministry, your work, your writing. You’ve influenced me in many ways, and I know lots of other people. Thank you for all that you do.

John:Thanks.

Ron:If you want to know more about Dr. Townsend and his resources, or the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, which I recommend, by the way, check the show notes and we’ll get you connected.

If you haven’t subscribed to this podcast, if you’re not watching on YouTube—I mean your choice, you can listen, you can watch whichever you want to do—make sure you subscribe. That way, you won’t miss any of the future ones, and we’ve got what, well over 150 at this point that you can go back and scroll through and find something. I’m sure you can find something that applies to your life.

If you’re looking for a coach or a counselor who understands stepfamilies—we get that question a lot—or if you are one of those coaches or counselors and you want some CE credits while you equip yourself to work with blended families, I offer a Smart Stepfamily Virtual training.

We have a list of recognized providers that you can then become a part of. You can search that list if you’re looking for counselors. We want to just get you connected to high qualified people, those helpers that John was talking about earlier. So again, look in the show notes for a link where you can learn more.

Okay, next time, I’m going to be talking with co-parenting experts, Jay and Tammy Daughtry. If your children have two homes, you’ll want to listen to that episode. That’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.

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