What do you do when your grown kids don’t want your advice—but still desperately need your love?
In this episode, Chad sits down with legendary family expert and bestselling author Jim Burns to talk about the hardest (and least talked about) stage of parenting: doing life with your adult children.
Jim shares wisdom from his book Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out, and together they unpack what it means to let go of control, offer grace without enabling, and stay in the messy middle when your kids walk away from your values or your faith.
This conversation is raw, hopeful, and full of real-life examples for navigating parenting in the second half. Whether you’re a new empty nester, navigating family tension, or preparing to parent future adults, this episode will bless and equip you.
What you'll learn:
Why “You’re fired” is the wake-up call every parent needs
The biggest mistake parents make with adult kids
How to set boundaries without breaking the relationship
What to do when your kids leave the faith
The secret to leaving a lasting legacy of faith and love
For More Information:
💻 Website: homeword.com
📕 Book: Doing Life with Your Adult Children
🎙️ Podcast: HomeWord with Jim Burns
👥 Join the Man Alive Community: www.ManAliveCoaching.com
🔥 Follow Chad on Instagram: @chadpottspharmd
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Hey guys, welcome back to the Rev RX Podcast where we help you
thrive in faith, family, and health.
My name is Chad Potts, and I'm your host.
Today's guest is someone I've wanted to bring on for a while,
Jim Burns. You may recognize his name.
He is the president of Homeward Ministries.
He's the author of more than 20 books, but one in particular is
going to be the focus of our talk today.
(00:33):
It's called Doing life with youradult Children.
Keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out.
Don't you love that subtitle? Here's the thing.
If you find that you're a parentand you're having trouble
navigating the relationship withyour parents, or if you find
that you're an older parent and raising kids was the easy part.
(00:54):
Now you're wondering, what's thebest way for me to guide,
support, and relate to my own grown children without
overstepping? This episode's for you.
We talk about boundaries, expectations, disappointment,
and ultimately how to maintain arelationship with your adult
kids while trusting God with their future.
So let's dive in. Without further ado, I introduce
(01:15):
to you my friend, Jim Burns. Jim Burns, what a pleasure it is
to have you here on the show, brother.
Thanks for joining us. Chad, I'm excited.
Plus I I told you before it started, I love your voice, the
guitarist. I was expecting you to sing some
country music for me. You know, I'm a Southern
California boy and so I do The Beach Boys.
(01:35):
But I was hoping for you to break out and song.
Well, maybe, maybe in a future episode, we'll we'll get up the
we'll get up the courage to do that later.
You got it. I'm have to write my own intro
for my podcast. That's it, That's it.
You're on the opposite coast, and we've had a lot of good
conversation before this started, but there's so many
questions I have for you and I don't even know what to ask
(01:57):
because we're just going to get into a conversation.
We're going to see where God leads us, and I'm excited to
talk about parenting. I'm excited to talk about the
world that you're in. Before we get into that, can you
just introduce yourself to our guest?
Help us to get to know you a little better?
Great. Well, my background is youth
ministry, Chad. And so I worked with kids and I,
when I was 18, I felt called in to do youth ministry and that's
what I did. And then as time got on, I went,
(02:19):
wow, we're helping these kids, but the parents need a lot of
help. And so I thought, boy, if we
could just like let you know, parents would drop the kids off
at church and they, we would have them and they'd go to
brunch or whatever. And I go, wow, the kids should
drop the parents off and we could help these parents.
So I started writing on, on parenting and started speaking
on parenting and I've loved it. I mean, my, my heart is still
(02:41):
with kids. I wake up in the morning going,
how do you help kids? And the kids could be babies or
the kids could be the kids your kids age or teens or even adult
children. But I figured the best way I can
do that is help by helping the parents and helping, you know,
even grandparents and helping that kind of thing.
And, and so it's been a great joy.
Homeward, I work for and with Homeward, the founder.
(03:04):
We're 40 years old. Our excitement is for values,
strong marriages, confident parents, it's empowered kids,
healthy leaders. That's what we do.
We've got a podcast of our own called Homeward with Jim Burns.
I laugh at what a terrible titlethat is.
You know, what does that mean? But that's and we talked about
the four values. Joy for me.
I'm actually in our studio today.
When I do a podcast for somebodyelse, I'm not always in our
(03:25):
studio, but I happen to be here today married to Kathy.
We've been married 50 years, so it's a long time.
We're old guys. Yeah.
Nobody ever thinks Kathy is. They think she's my daughter,
you know, just drives me nuts. So you can, I have a hat on, I
guess. So, you know, at least anybody
who sees this on YouTube could see that I don't have any hair.
I used to have hair when I married her.
And we have three daughters and they're adult daughters.
(03:46):
The grandkids are the joy of my life.
We've got four of them. And, and that's kind of our
deal. We, I have lived in California
all of my life except for grad school.
I went to Princeton, NJ and thenI went and did my PhD in
England, and it really gave me aglobal feel of what goes on in
families, and it's been very, very helpful.
Yeah, sure, we can go on and on,but that's it.
(04:07):
Yeah, I love that. And I think that helps kind of
set the stage for for what we'regoing to talk about.
But I'm with you on the on the bald head.
I've got a little bit still hanging on and I shaved it.
My little boy, my middle child, he's six.
He cried and cried and cried andhe said, Daddy, I don't like the
way you look. And so I let it grow back out a
little bit. Yeah.
Can't be upsetting the kids too much.
(04:28):
I'm sure my girl. Said.
That my girl said to me when they were like that.
I'm not going to marry somebody who's bald.
But makes you feel good, doesn't.
It my grandson who's 9 James, he's named after me.
He he says I have bald hair and he loves it.
He gets good luck by rubbing my head.
So there you. Go.
I love it. Yeah.
And, you know, stages of life and we're all in different
(04:48):
places. We're all dealing with different
things. But learning to find the joy
where you are, I think is a big part of this whole parenting
journey. I mentioned to you, I'm kind of
in the throes of it. I've got a four year old, a six
year old and eight-year old. And so, you know, I've had
typically had guests on the showto talk about raising those kids
and, and you know, I'm sure you have some some thoughts there as
(05:08):
well, But where I'd really like to talk about with you something
I've not delved into yet becauseit's not the stage of life I'm
in, or so I thought. But I am because I'm in the
other side sure is parenting adult kids.
So this parent child relationship that happens as the
child grows and you've written agreat book doing life with your
(05:28):
adult children. And I love the subtitle I Told
You this, Keeping your mouth shut and the welcome mat out and
I think. They just need to read the, do
the subtitle and and it's going to work.
Yeah, yeah, you almost feel likeyou've got the gist of what's
going on there from the subtitle.
Right. But I love the teaching you're
doing. I love the work that you're
doing. You have some courses that are
out there now on your website and we can talk about where to
(05:50):
go for that. But I want to start with this
phrase. And I think this is one that
I've kind of latched onto because I love it.
There's this phrase, you're fired, right?
Nobody likes to hear that, that that leads to a sense of panic
and anxiety sometimes, this sense of scarcity.
But that phrase is one that you really talk about, parents need
(06:12):
to understand and kind of embrace in order to have a
healthy relationship with your adult child.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Sure. I mean, you and your wife and
many of your listeners, they, they are in the throes of
parenting like you say. And so you know they're doing a
day-to-day, but you know, you put two decades into the life of
those kids and your day-to-day, so you're fired.
You're still dad and you're still mom, but you're fired as a
(06:34):
day-to-day parent. So we have to reinvent how we
parent and none of us are ever planned for that.
Like, were you guys right now inthe middle of it?
Man, you're working, you know, day in and day out, just trying
to get them to, you know, get toa certain stage in life, which
is, you know, the next stage. And the next stage for you as
they get older is going to be within the teen years, not even
the adult. But when they become adults, we
(06:56):
literally we have to be, we haveto reinvent.
And what's interesting about it is we don't know what we're
doing and they don't know how tobe an adult.
So it tends to cause some tension even in good homes for
those who had no idea that my, you know, daughter was going to
rebel in college and rebel to them.
Might be, it's defined differently by each parent or by
each kid, but so that you, you're fired, I need to say to
(07:17):
parents, look at what you did was awesome.
You were controlling them at thekids.
Your kids race. So you control your kids from
like 2:00 to 10:00 because you're in charge.
I mean, you know, in the best ofways of control.
Then you kind of move to coaching.
You're still in charge. Coaches are still in charge.
And that's when you say 13 to 15and then 15 to 18.
You're a consultant, meaning most of their day-to-day
(07:39):
decisions are by them. That might freak you guys out at
the age of your kids. But yeah, that's going to
happen. They're going to be away.
They're going to be spend more time away.
They're going to be at school, they're going to be maybe get a
job, they're going to start driving.
There's going to be all these kind of things.
And and that's good because whatI just said last night, I was
speaking actually on a book I wrote called Confident
Parenting. So it's a book for people who
would have kids your age. And I said your bottom line is
(08:00):
to help your kids become responsible adults and not just
obedience, but it's really how do you help them be responsible
adults? You do that by giving them more
freedom at a young age, obviously not tons of freedom.
You're not going to say, hey, you know, go, go to the beach,
go on vacation, you know, Yeah. We're going to leave you in the
house by yourself. But with adults, you have to
allow that to happen. And so it's really hard because
(08:24):
I still want to give advice. I still want to fix it.
I mean, I can remember my kids going well, you know, I'm an
adult and I go, yeah, but but I'm, I'm paying for your college
education. I'm paying for your cell phone.
I'm paying for your insurance. But in their mind, they were now
adults, but they really weren't acting exactly like adults.
And we weren't really treating them exactly like we should or
(08:44):
would have. So yeah, that you're fired as a
great eye opening experience. And it's better to read it in a
book or have somebody tell you then realized, you know, down
the road in college or after college.
What? I think I've been fired because
they are going to fire us. OK, Yeah, Yeah.
So I think we just accepted it as part of our job description.
(09:05):
And when we do that, I think we do a lot better and move the
relationship from, like I said, control and, you know,
day-to-day to really more of a mentor type relationship.
And if you can move that to a mentor.
My my girls, two of them have contacted me this morning
already just for kind of mentoring type things.
Not that they're going, hey, dad, mentor me.
It was more, hey, what would youdo in this case?
We're thinking about this. What do you think?
(09:27):
And so one of them was on travel.
So it's not like, you know, I was their travel mentor or
something. But you know, in a really neat
way, it's kind of moved. And it took us 10 years to
probably have that happen because we were bumping into
each other and they were bumpinginto us and we're like, why are
they acting like this? And then all of a sudden, you
know, it kicked in. So, so parents have to
understand they are fired of of being a day-to-day parent.
(09:47):
Yeah, yeah. The reach is a time when when
that's no longer necessary. And I guess at some point you
have to just kind of trust that you've prepared them the best
you're able. And then, you know, you hear
this phrase and then put it in the Lord's hands.
That's easier said than done, isn't it?
Which? Is hard, you know, I mean
there's a there's a sense of relinquishment like when you do
(10:07):
that you're relinquishing them to God even in the midst of the
making some poor decisions. But what I've learned about
about adult children is experience is a better teacher
than advice. So sometimes the only, and if
that's the case with your, you know, 8 year old, they're going
to don't touch that. I mean, they touch it and you
know, and then that they learn they're not going to do it
again. Well, with adults, sometimes
(10:27):
they have to make some poor choices.
One of my daughter's got herselfin debt early.
She got a credit card early 20s and she was like buying all
kinds of stuff. Like I'm thinking, how is she
doing that? Her job doesn't pay for all
this. Well, then she got herself in
debt. So it took her a couple of
years, literally a couple years,and she was going to grad school
and she decided she had to stop grad school to take care of this
(10:49):
debt. Guess what?
She's like the best steward of money now.
We could have easily bailed her out.
We could have like written one check, said, hey, babe, here you
go. We chose not to.
And I'm so glad because if we bail out our kids, then they're
not going to become responsible adults or they're not going to
become responsible with money orthey're not going to become
responsible with their, you know, they have to move even in
faith. They have to move to their own
(11:10):
faith. My daughter Christy one time
said college senior and she wrote a column in her paper and
she said I had to disown my parents faith to own my own
faith. Well, that kind of freaked us
out. But in reality, she had been
more imitating us when she kind of disowned our faith.
She had a little wandering therefor a bit.
And then when she came back, I mean, she's she was sitting next
(11:31):
to me Sunday at church worshipping.
She's more involved in our church than Kathy and I are.
And we're involved. It's kind of the fruit doesn't
fall far from the tree. But at the same time, they've
got to own their own stuff and parents struggle with it.
And, and that's something I see a good bit.
So the role I'm in currently is young adult pastor and that's
kind of the college and career age.
(11:51):
And I see a lot of that, the deconstructing of the faith that
they grew up with and then the reconstructing of their own
faith. And, and I resonate with what
she said because that was me. I had to, I had to reach that
point myself. And I was in my 20s and trying
to figure out, you know, what isthis faith thing?
For me, it was just going to church and I knew there had to
be more than that, but I was seeking and thankfully we serve
(12:12):
a God who continues to pursue us.
Amen. And so that was where I found
myself. And so now I've, I'm committed
to these young adults that are trying to go through that
process because so many times a day, there is that
deconstruction of their parents faith, the mimicry that we that
we're doing of what we grew up believing, what we grew up
doing. But so many times we fall short
of helping them through that reconstruction.
(12:34):
Yeah, you're right. Realizing that that's a
necessary part of of adulthood, right?
No, you're, you're right. I call it reformation.
And you know, some people say, you know, there's good
deconstruction, bad deconstruction because the word
deconstruction is such a hot word right now.
I am, I don't, I like that you're saying reconstruction.
I, I don't think we use deconstruction for both, but it
is we have to, you know, in someways lose some of the trimmings
(12:59):
from our own. I mean, my kids aren't going to
become Christians based on what I say or what I do.
They're going to be, they have to make that commitment on their
own and deepen that commitments like what happened with you,
Chad. So, yeah, we have to understand
that as parents, and that's hard.
I call it spiritual individiation.
And, and there's a, there's a psychological term that says you
(13:19):
have to kind of leave your parents.
And Jesus talked about this leave and cleave, you know, you
have to leave your parents to become your own person.
But there's also a spiritual individuation that takes place
where, you know, they have to own their own faith.
And once they do, hey, they're in good place.
If they never do, or if we're just kind of hanging on to that,
then really we're not helping them with their growth.
(13:40):
So, you know, what I say to parents all the time is, you
know, if they have doubts and questions, don't shame them.
Like I had a kid not too long ago, kid 22 years old, old
friends of our friends, and said, hey, you know, Jim, can
you meet with him? He's got all these questions and
you need to straighten them out.So he comes with him and he has,
he tells me that his first question, he's like, OK, we're
going. And he had a list of questions.
(14:01):
And they were all the hardest theological questions you could
ever imagine. None of us have easy answers.
And the first one, I just pausedfor a long time and I went, you
know, that's a question I've been thinking about since I
became a Christian so many yearsago.
And he went, what? And I go, honestly, you can live
like he's looking at me as a spiritual leader, leader in our
church, leader in our ministry, you know, things like that.
(14:22):
And I said, yeah, that's a greatquestion.
I don't know now if you want to read a book together on it.
I actually have a book. I haven't read it, but I'll read
the book with you. And maybe we can figure this
thing out together. Or to be honest, there's certain
things in life that we're just going to have to ask the Lord.
I mean, I've got a list of questions for him once I get to
heaven. And what he realized was that as
he was going through this, he could have some doubts.
(14:44):
He could have some questions. He didn't have to live exactly
like his, like his mom, who I love and adore.
She's one of those women who just don't struggle with faith
issues. She's like, I think she was born
crying and praising God and you know it.
Never. Changed.
Sanctified at birth. Exactly.
You're like, who are you? You know, and the dad is also
(15:04):
one of these guys, but he's really cut and dry, black and
white. This is how it is, you know,
there's maybe 3 versions of how somebody would, you know, look
at something in scripture and this guy is like, Oh no, there's
one and here it is. OK, This kid is being raised in
a family like that and he's and he has normal.
Sense. So as a parent, and I said to
this to them, you're going to have to let him deal with this
and and own it on his own. And and you know what, he's
(15:27):
still going to church. There's a lot of good.
You're going to have to reframe this.
You're all like freaked out because he has doubts.
And I'm saying, no, wait, he's still going to church.
He's still asking questions. He sees people who are
Christians who are mentors for him in their 20s.
You doing young adult ministry. All that's good, but he he votes
differently than you, which theywere like more mad.
I think that he voted differently and I understand.
(15:50):
I mean, I think my daughter Christy and I, I think we cancel
out our votes every every time we vote.
But that's not, you know, the critical issue is are they
becoming responsible adults who love God?
That's good. And there's not a lot we can do
when they become adults except be a witness, love on them, stay
in their messy story. Because a lot of it, like for
(16:11):
me, six years ago, I wrote the book Doing Life with Your Adult
Children. I never dreamed that for the
rest of my life. And I'm not kidding you, Chad.
For the rest of my life. I get questions every day that
are heartbreaking questions. You know, my child is changing
genders. My child is doing this today.
It was two or three of them on leading the faith and leaving
God. And one was a grandma who was
(16:32):
just told that she can't take the grandkids to church over the
summer when they stay at grandma's and she can't read
them Bible stories and all this,you know, these are
heartbreaking things. And I'm not saying everyone is a
heartbreaking story, but a lot of them are.
But parent, I never dreamed I would be spending the rest of my
life doing this. You know, my focus has been with
kids, your kids age with people.You're you're, you know, I'm
(16:53):
homeward. We focus on next generation
parents. We focus our marriage
conferences are focusing on younger marriages and, you know,
things like getting ready for marriage, first few years of
marriage, that kind of stuff. But now I'm, I'm my own part of
my own ministry is just dealing with this.
And the parents are, are struggling.
You know that that book has beenout almost six years.
It's still on the Amazon bestseller list.
Yeah, there's a need. You hit on something, right?
(17:16):
One of the things you said that I love is staying in their messy
story. Yeah, I think sometimes there's
maybe a tendency to panic when our kids have messy stories
because we we tend to think, OK,if I do this, then they're going
to do this and it's just going to be linear.
They're going to find their way to success.
They're going to love the Lord like I do, and everything will
just work out happily ever after.
(17:36):
That's not usually how life goes, no.
No, he stays in the mess God, and he's kind of saying to to
us, I'm OK with messes. I live in messes.
I've, I've lived in your mess, you know, So I, you know, I
think we have to stay in the story.
It's not the end. I tell people all the time when
you are looking at finances, howdo you, you know, accumulate
good stewardship? It's by years of being faithful.
(18:00):
And I think that's what happens in relationships with our adult
children. It's the, it's a marathon.
It's not a Sprint. And so, you know, they may take
a detour or two. They probably will,
unfortunately, but we're stayingthe story and we be, we still be
the important person in their life.
I think I messed that up Englishwise, but I write, I speak, but
I think it's so it's so key for us to stay in the messiness.
(18:22):
And I call it the messy middle because sometimes it's tough
because I'm over here, my adult child is over here and I just
need to stay in the messy middleand still can I, can I love them
even if they have different beliefs or if they're, you know,
choosing a different lifestyle or they're choosing there's,
they're, they don't like the church that they grew up in
(18:42):
anymore because the, they thought it's too, I mean, just
fill in the blank, too conservative to this, to that,
to whatever. I mean, you're, you're living
this dream because you're, you're with young adults young.
And you know, what's funny is when I first wrote the book
doing life with your adult children, I was, I was at a
conference with 4500 people. And they make, you know, the
book just comes out. So they make a big deal about
signing it so that you know, Jim's going to be signing.
(19:03):
There was this big long line andand young adults kept coming in
holding this book and I'd go, you can't be a parent of an
adult, you know, child. And they oh, no, no, no, it's
for my mom. Can you say Claire, you know,
because it says, you know, you know, keep your mouth shut and
then welcome that out. So she needs to learn to keep
her mouth shut. We're talking about unsolicited
vices is in my talk that day when they interviewed me and we
(19:27):
then, you know, did the book signing because I was talking
about unsolicited vices usually taken as criticism.
And I'm I'm getting Amen for that.
You know, usually, I mean, I getat Easter when you say Jesus
rose from the dead, everybody goes, hey, Amen.
But I'm going Huns lives is, andthey're getting I'm getting it
from the young adults who are going mom and dad back off here.
And and it's something that I think there there needs to be
(19:49):
education on both sides of that.And you think you bridge that
gap will. Yeah, I think it's important for
us to. I'm really excited.
I'm in the Ozarks at the at a university there in the Ozarks.
I didn't even know there was a university in the Ozarks.
I think it's called the University of the Ozarks.
And I'm speaking to students to college and I'm speaking to
students on Friday and I'm speaking to their parents on
Saturday. Love that because one of the
(20:11):
things we have to do is build bridges with our adult children
there. Adult children need to build
bridges with their parents, too.They've got to be a little bit
more patient and loving and kind.
To their. Adult to their parents, because
their parents are kind of doing the best they can and they don't
know what they're doing. Like I said, in terms of how to
now that we've got adult children, but the adult
children, they, they're still learning too.
(20:32):
In every stage of life, it it feels that way, doesn't it?
We don't know what we're doing. This is the first time I've done
this. No, seriously, seriously.
I mean, like after I wrote DoingLife, I wrote a book called
Finding Joy in the Empty Nest because I was going to put it in
a chapter for that other book and it just kept getting my
folder kept getting bigger. So Kathy and I move into the
empty nest and we kind of go, whoa, what happened?
(20:53):
Marriage twice. We're like, we're in a new
stage. So we've put all of our energy
into raising those kids and they're out of the house and
it's a lot quiet now. And we have to we put some
things under the mat even in ourown marriage.
I write books on marriage. I speak on marriage.
And yet what we realized was this was going to be a new
phase. And I was missing The Dirty
(21:15):
towels on the floor and the foodleft open, you know, on the
stove. And and all of a sudden I'm
going, what is going on here? And Kathy is like, I need more
time from you because I don't have the kids hanging around
now. And I'm like to change my
lifestyle here a little bit. It was all good.
But we do have to embrace each season.
(21:36):
Yes. Just like, I mean, you guys have
been through the diaper stage. Now you're not wearing diapers,
Chad. Right.
So everybody else took it. Yeah.
Yeah. So so you're through the diaper
stage. Well, that's a stage.
So you embrace that diaper stagegoing.
Oh, my gosh, this is like a little of the night, you know,
stuff. But now we're done with that
stage. But there's the next stage and
you're just about ready to hit the teenage stage.
And that because sometimes shocking as well.
(21:59):
I tell everybody my 8 year old daughter, she's the oldest and I
have two boys, but the oldest one is the girl.
And I said to everybody, she's 8going on 18.
Exactly. Sure, sure.
And she's we call that preteens.We're calling 8910.
Really the preteens these days when I was in England, get my
(22:21):
PHDA long time ago was the 80s. They actually had already
changed the definition of adolescence from 13 to 18, which
we were still saying in America,they had changed it from 10 to
24 using late in adolescence or what we call emerging adulthood.
And I thought they were a littlewackadoo.
I now agree with that 100% that what your daughter is going
through, again, she's 8, so she's on that young, young
(22:43):
scale. But the preteen, we have to look
at that in a different thing. I mean, I know we're talking
about adult children today, but that's a that's a new stage
because already at 8-9 and definitely at 10, they're going
through changes inside, not so you don't see it as much
outside. You know, hair may not be
growing where hair is going to grow or you know, their bodies
aren't being shaped the you know, it's just happening.
(23:05):
But on the inside, there are things going and because of the
influence in so many homes with social media and all that,
that's also kind of getting younger kids older too quickly.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. So, and we could go there all,
all the time. And I know we're talking about
adult children, but again, that does play into the factor that
some of these kids have, they experimented younger.
(23:26):
So now they're adults and they're carrying some baggage
into this stuff. It's important to remember I
want to go into that area with you.
We we've talked about it severaltimes, but the whole disagreeing
with your child's life choices, yeah, I get that a lot.
Yeah. Particularly, I get that from
adults, from older adults in my church whose children have come
(23:46):
through youth group and they noware are straying from the church
or they vote differently now, orthey're in college and they've
gone to do, you know, whatever the case may be, fill in the
blank. What is your advice for parents
out there who realize that they disagree with the life choices
of their children, whether it befaith, whether it be values,
whatever the case is, what is where's that balance between
(24:08):
support and kind of enabling, ifthat makes sense?
Well, you can accept someone in love.
Jesus did this very well. You can accept someone in love
and not agree with their choices.
And So what I say to parents allthe time is do they know what
you believe? Well, yes.
Do they know how you feel? Well, yes.
Then broaden the relationship because again, you're in it,
like I said, for the long haul, you stay in the story.
(24:30):
You know, it's the and I I laughat this story because it's kind
of a ridiculous story, but a sonsaid to me, I am out of the
relation. Said told what he said to his
dad. If you vote for Trump, I'm out
of the relationship. I will not be in relationship.
The dad said, if you don't vote for Trump, you're out of my
will. Well, actually, both of those
(24:51):
are not right things, right? The son wasn't right to do that.
The dad wasn't right to do that.So we stay in it.
So, you know, you kind of smile and you say, you know what, I'm
not in agreement with that, but I just want you to know I love
you. I have a friend whose whose
son's wife is now identifying asa guy.
It is the craziest story. And you hear this all the time
because you're working with young adults.
(25:13):
And he said he was telling me that at a special family event
just not too long ago. He said I, I sat them down and I
said, I want you to know that I love you period.
And you, there is nothing you can do that will make me not
love you. Now there's some things that we
disagree on and we're going to probably have to agree to
disagree on because I'm not going to change.
(25:34):
Not sure if you're going to change, but here, here it is.
I love you. And you know what, the person
who was changing directions in terms of what they're going to
be, they started to cry because what they were expecting from a
very strong Christian dad, a person who was vice president of
Christian college and things like that, they expected him to
say, I shun you. You're you're wrong.
(25:55):
Well, he did say you're wrong. He's I mean, he said, I don't
believe the same way you believe, but he started with
love. And I think Jesus did that,
Chad, you know, lead with love, practice kindness.
Jesus did that. How he was able to do that with
prostitutes and a tax collector.In our day, we don't even think
about how weird that is. But in that day, a tax collector
was a bad guy. He was like a, you know, really
(26:17):
bad guy. Who's Matthew and what he, Jesus
never compromised what he believed.
And at the same time, he showed love to them.
So the thing that parents have to do talk about staying in the
messy middle is they have to be able to to be the safest support
in doing life with your adult child.
I talk about a guy who was actually a pastor.
I don't say he was a pastor in the book, but his daughter had
(26:39):
been dating a guy. And then that didn't work out.
About three months later she goes, Dad, are you sitting down?
Yes, I'm at my desk at a very major church.
You would know the church and well, I'm going to get married
to a 42 year old and he's like freaked out if she's 22 and it's
a woman and he was calling me tosay, do I go to the wedding?
And I go, you know, that's only up to you.
I said, here's what I would do. I would go, I go, you're going
(27:02):
to think and I would want to vomit and I'd be sad and all
this. But the fact is is a 22 year old
and a 42 year old marrying, evenif they were the opposite sex,
that doesn't usually work. So if you're not there, not
saying you are in agreement, butif you're not there when she
crashes, she's not going to cometo you because you're not safe,
right? So how do you walk the line of
(27:23):
showing love with these kids whoare straying from faith,
violating values galore, disagreeing with politics, you
know, whatever it might be? How do you do that?
I think you stay in the relationship.
So OK, we're going to have to disagree to agree on that.
Hey, look at in Rome, GA, they got a minor League Baseball
team. You want to go and you go see
(27:44):
what I'm saying. You, you still keep in the
relationship and I think that's the safest way.
So then when they have a need, they're going to come to mom and
dad. If they don't, they're going to
move farther away from you. You're going to push them out.
So and that's. That's what parents need to
hear. Yeah, yeah.
And and that's so good on so many different levels.
And what I love about that is that you bring up basically
(28:06):
saying, all right, Jesus is our example of doing this perfectly.
You know that Christlikeness, That's that's what we're after.
Right, and he didn't cut The thing is he didn't compromise.
So he wasn't going oh, I'm goingto compromise.
And I I think what the tax collectors are doing or is good
or what the prostitutes are doing is good or what the woman
he met at the well in terms of being caught in the middle of
adultery was doing good. He said no, go and send no more.
(28:29):
But he he also showed grace was parents.
I mean, you're showing grace to your kids every day with the age
of your kids. They're so young.
We show grace to our our adult kids.
That does not mean that we agreewith everything that they do.
Yeah, yeah. And, and I think that looks
different for every situation, but bringing it back to, you
(28:49):
know, hey, I'm aging myself a little bit.
Do you remember the bracelets, the WWJD bracelets?
Sure, sure. I think that's the thing to do
here. You know, what would Jesus do?
What would be his approach to this?
And strength? You get in the word and you see
that time and time again, the people he interacted with, you
know, Yeah, there was this, there's this pursuit of them,
but yet there was never a compromise.
(29:09):
And there was this love and grace, but there was never, it
was never at the expense of the truth.
No, you're, you're, you're so right.
And what's interesting about when we, we have to also be
students of the culture to understand the students that
you're working with as Gen. Z ers, the latest barn report
says 4% of Gen. Z.
So that would be the, the younger, you know, the people
that you're working with as young adults, they could just be
(29:31):
moving into millennials. But mainly they're they're Gen.
Z that only 4% have a biblical worldview.
So as parents, we can't be in some kind of shock because the
students you're working with at your church might not agree with
some of the things. You know, Thomas Jefferson had a
had his own Bible. A lot of people know this story.
(29:51):
But, you know, cut with, I don'tknow if it's scissors or a knife
or I don't know what you had back in that day, but he cut
parts of the Bible out to make it his own.
Yeah. That's what we see with the
people, with young adults, you know, like they don't have a
problem as much with Jesus, but if they really heard what Jesus
said, you know, they wouldn't they, they would have to decide.
But what happens is they changedmoral values.
(30:15):
Well, what are you going to do if you change moral values or
you have a lifestyle that's going against the Scripture?
You either come back or you change your belief system.
So we've got a lot of young adults who are changing their
belief system because they don'twant to come back to those
harsher words and that kind of lifestyle.
So they just change their morality and and that's what we
(30:35):
see happening. So I'm grateful for people like
you who are working with this younger generation because we,
the people who are working with this younger generation, but
don't have kids in this generation, they've got to be
able to have a lot of grace. And yet at the same time as what
you were saying, not being compromised, not compromising
our biblical views. Yeah.
And there's so many directions Iwant to go to that with.
(30:56):
Let's go back to this one and we'll we'll kind of wrap up a
little bit. I could talk to you for hours.
This is so good thinking about abig, a big common issue I get
from listeners, from parents howto how to be the best parent
across the miles. Because a lot of you know, I, I
told you my story. I'm about four hours from my
parents so we can drive and see each other on the weekends.
(31:18):
Yeah, but it's just enough to where you know distance can be
an issue. Right, right.
There's a lot of parents who's children are halfway across the
world, and what's been your experience with that?
It seems like you know you're used to the children being with
you all the time. Like you can't go anywhere
without them. Sure.
(31:38):
And then now all of a sudden, not only are they out of the
house, but now, you know, thankfully we had the technology
we had today, but there's some hurt there.
Sure. What's your advice to those
guys? Well, it's a sense of loss for
we have to make sure that we understand this.
You'll understand this when yourkids move out.
But your your parents went through a sense of loss.
And, you know, CS Lewis said change is really hard on
(31:59):
everybody. And change is loss.
Sometimes there's good change, but it's still a sense of loss.
So, you know, Kathy and I, we have two daughters who live in
Los Angeles. We live in Orange County,
California. And we are bummed because they
live an hour and 20 minutes away.
Yeah. We want them to be our
neighbors. The house goes up for sale next
door. Could you come and move by us?
We whisper to their kids. Dana.
(32:20):
Boy, it's beautiful, you know, blah, blah, blah, but we have to
have to, first of all, embrace that the relationship is going
to be different if it's farther away.
Secondly, you brought it up. You said there is something
called technology. But you know, we always tend to,
especially with people who have kids your age, you know, we're
dashing on on creating a media safe home.
And that's Homeward's biggest seminar.
You know, we're always talking about that guy stuff.
(32:41):
But we also have to say technology can be very good.
There's this amazing thing that,you know, happened many years
ago called the Internet worldwide.
Amazing, right? Well, we're going to have to get
on some FaceTime and we're goingto have to get on that and do
that regularly. So, you know, I've made it a
habit of even with my 4 1/2 yearold grandson.
This is different than, you know, with my kids as much, but
(33:04):
you all do FaceTime with it. And I've read him a story the
other day he was in bed and I didn't realize he was going to
be in bed that early. And so I said, can Papa Jay read
you a story? And his mom goes, please.
And so he's holding it, but he'salso at 4 1/2.
He's not even holding it good, right?
So I can kind of see his face and I and he just kept
interacting with me as I read him.
(33:25):
What I knew was his, at least when he comes to our house is
his favorite story. It's about train.
And so I read the I read the story and I felt kind of goofy
doing it. And then today I get a note from
my daughter that goes, ha, ha, ha.
I was on a walk. His name is Huxley.
I was on a walk with Huxley and I said, do you want to move to
Malibu? They're thinking about moving to
another beach town up north. And he said, no, I want to move
(33:48):
to Dana Point. I love Papa Jay.
And I write back, I'm crying right now and I'm doing some
right. I just go, I'm crying.
I'm right now I'm saying that myeyes just welled up with this.
That's good. What I find is you can.
It's amazing what you can do in connection.
I mean, you and I are across thecountry from each other, but
even as we talked, we have a connection.
Part of it's because I'm seeing your face.
(34:09):
Back in the old day, I had a radio show and if we ever did it
on, if I did an interview on a telephone, I didn't have the
connection that if the person was in the room or if the person
now is on this. So with our kids, I think we
have to we can be long distant parents, but we still have to be
engaged in their life. And I think it's really the job
of the parents. I'll tell you that.
I mean, I think it's great when the kids come and you know, what
do you I don't know if you said this, but I did this, I would
(34:31):
go, I need to go see my parents.I haven't seen them for a while.
I must go see them instead of it's my responsibility.
But I think it's also the the like with Kathy and I, we go
look at these people are really my kids are really busy because
they've got my daughter Christy has kids your kids age and
they're really busy. I know their life.
So we need to go their way. We just had this conversation.
You know, we need to go their way.
(34:52):
We need to and make short runs. Even, you know, it's 4 hours for
your parents, but maybe they go look at it.
We're bringing some Chick-fil-A notice.
I pull in the Chick-fil-A because of Georgia.
We're bringing some Chick-fil-A and we want to we want to hang
out, but then we're going to go back and maybe they go get a
motel room someplace or whatever.
If it works that they stay, how great that is.
(35:12):
But you don't want as adult parents of adult children, you
want to be always aware of, you know, the insurance and outs and
the what's going on in the life of the adult child, their adult
child, because their adult childis busy.
And you don't want to just creepin and go, OK, we're moving in
here for a while. We'd do that.
We'd all do that, right? So I think we have to be careful
with that. But again, when they're farther
(35:33):
away, you stay in touch, you still be their biggest
cheerleader at on their birthdays.
You still be the person who whenyou put part of your vacation to
go be with them and say, we wantto spend the weekend with the
kids so that you can go. And you know, like with us here
locally, our Christie lives right by us.
So they have date night once a week.
And we said, hey, they weren't, we go, hey, on your date night,
(35:55):
we'll watch the kids. And so part of the deal of their
date night was they get to hand us the kids.
Yep, we're thrilled. And when they win, because they
get to, you know, some time together, which they need.
Yeah, love that. So helpful and and every bit of
this is, is extremely helpful, not not only just for those who
have adult children, but for adult children.
And and like I said, you bridge that gap well.
(36:17):
Yeah, and some of these principles actually go with with
people who have younger kids because again, those kids are
going to become adults. So you're when you start
thinking I'm raising them to be responsible adults.
Well, that means, like, I was talking last night at a seminar
that I did, we're talking sex education.
We can have a conversation aboutabout that all day again.
But I was saying, you know, the more positive value centered sex
(36:39):
education kids get from their parents, the less promiscuous,
the less confused they'll be. And so I'm saying, yeah, at 8,
you need to have these conversations, but you don't
have the deeper conversations. My goodness, you wait till
they're older and young five. You don't.
But you still have the conversations because you want
to be the safe person. So you're doing that partly so
that when they become adults, they've made better decisions
(37:01):
than other people are making right now.
So we have the awkward conversations.
So and that's what you do. You're preparing them at any
age. And realizing that you're
raising them with a goal in mind.
And I think that's helpful as well.
What final piece of advice wouldyou have for our listeners Who
they want to leave a legacy of faith, of love, of grace, values
(37:24):
for their children, for their grandchildren, for the
generations to come. Sometimes it's easy to begin to
kind of be focused on right here, right now.
We've been thinking about the legacy that we're leaving and
tying all this together with parenting children and parenting
adult children. What would be your words of
advice to those that are wantingto leave that kind of legacy?
Finish well, you're on your own because what's going to happen
(37:48):
is they're watching you and yourwords aren't as important as
your actions. And so finish well, do what it
takes. I I have a a friend, his name is
John Ortberg. Maybe you've heard of him.
He's written lots of spiritual books and.
Things like that. He like him.
He has a poster, he didn't make the poster, but it's a quote of
his and it says love God and do the right thing.
(38:09):
And last time I was with him, I go, hey, John, I changed your
quote. He goes, you can't change my
quote. That's like my one famous quote.
I go, no, he actually has a lot of famous quotes, but but he
goes, that's my one famous quoteAnd I go, no, I changed it.
Love God, do the right thing, repeat daily for the rest of
your life. And So what I'm trying to do
with my grandkids is do that legacy and I'm trying to do it
with my own children. And the way the best thing I can
(38:30):
do is love God, do the right thing.
And then we get up in the morning and do the same thing
over and over. Now there are things to do.
We could talk about that sometime.
In terms of like James, I've read through the children's
Bible with him three times. I didn't do that with my own
kids. I mean, we read Chronicles of
Narnia and we read Scripture. I mean, we did a lot of the
things that parents would go, wow, I didn't, we don't do that.
We did it. But I'm much more focused on
(38:52):
that with him. So like this summer, I'm, I'm
speaking at a family conference for the whole week and I'm
bringing James. So I didn't, I mean, my kids
could come anytime, but I'm focused on while we're there,
James and I are going to read books and Kathy's going to be
with me, my wife, of course, andwe're going to do all these
different things with him. But they're kind of in a
spiritual nature. You know, as I get older, the
(39:12):
older I get, the more I'm thinking about legacy.
You know, games aren't one in the first half, they're one in
the second-half. You're in the first half right
now. You're live chat.
And so, you know, you have to build the foundation, do the
right things. But in the second-half, when you
have adult children, you know, the games are one in the
second-half. And so you finish, well, too
many people aren't and finish engaged with them too, where
(39:33):
they know, where they know. Gosh, I know they don't agree
with me on how I vote, but they love me more than anybody else
besides God. And you know, it's what you do.
This has been such a fun time. Love picking your brain a little
bit and just having this conversation.
I want my listeners to to be able to find you and, and enter
into your world because you've got so many gifts and so many
(39:54):
incredible resources out there. Can you?
Can you tell them where to find you?
Yeah, homeward.com HOM eword.comand pretty much you'll get the
the whole thing. I'm I have a podcast, I do it
weekly, Homeward with Jim Burns.It's all over the world on any
platform and I'm amazed at the privilege of who I get to talk
to and what not. It's like, you know, us having a
(40:16):
conversation. It's like 2 people having a
conversation at Starbucks and you know, you're, you're
listening to them and you're listening in or whatever.
Well, that's what, that's what this was like.
And I get that privilege to do it too.
And podcasting is, is great. We have lots of books and
resources, lots of seminars. We're the largest provider of
parenting seminars in the US. So it's not just me.
People like Homeward could come to your church and do anything
(40:37):
for helping kids at a very youngage to help and, you know, adult
children, whatever. So it's a great, it's a great
ministry. Yeah.
I just have become now, I still am full time, but I'm the
founder, which I think means you're an old guy and we're
going to put a new guy in to reach the next generation who I
love this new guy. And I'm loving my role right now
(40:58):
as more speaker, ambassador, writer.
And I don't have to deal with all the, you know, the finances
of a nonprofit, you know, ministry.
Even better. Yeah, that's great.
Well, you're doing important work in the world, my friend.
Thank you. And what a privilege this has
been to sit down with you and bring this value to our
audience. So ma'am, we're going to we need
to do this again. Got so many additional rabbit
(41:20):
holes we could have gone down today.
Maybe we'll save those for next time.
That'll be fun. Great to be with you, Chad.
Honestly great. Thanks, Jim.
OK, thanks. Thank you for listening to the
Rev RX Podcast. We hope you enjoyed what you
heard today, and if so, we'd love it if you would hit that
subscribe button so that you'll never miss a new episode from
us. Also, feel free to leave us
reviews and comments as we'd love to hear from you.
(41:42):
Be blessed and be the very best you.
Hey guys, welcome back to the Rev RX Podcast where we help you
thrive in faith, family, and health.
My name is Chad Potts, and I'm your host.
Today's guest is someone I've wanted to bring on for a while,
Jim Burns. You may recognize his name.
He is the president of Homeward Ministries.
He's the author of more than 20 books, but one in particular is
going to be the focus of our talk today.
(00:33):
It's called Doing life with youradult Children.
Keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out.
Don't you love that subtitle? Here's the thing.
If you find that you're a parentand you're having trouble
navigating the relationship withyour parents, or if you find
that you're an older parent and raising kids was the easy part.
(00:54):
Now you're wondering, what's thebest way for me to guide,
support, and relate to my own grown children without
overstepping? This episode's for you.
We talk about boundaries, expectations, disappointment,
and ultimately how to maintain arelationship with your adult
kids while trusting God with their future.
So let's dive in. Without further ado, I introduce
(01:15):
to you my friend, Jim Burns. Jim Burns, what a pleasure it is
to have you here on the show, brother.
Thanks for joining us. Chad, I'm excited.
Plus I I told you before it started, I love your voice, the
guitarist. I was expecting you to sing some
country music for me. You know, I'm a Southern
California boy and so I do The Beach Boys.
(01:35):
But I was hoping for you to break out and song.
Well, maybe, maybe in a future episode, we'll we'll get up the
we'll get up the courage to do that later.
You got it. I'm have to write my own intro
for my podcast. That's it, That's it.
You're on the opposite coast, and we've had a lot of good
conversation before this started, but there's so many
questions I have for you and I don't even know what to ask
(01:57):
because we're just going to get into a conversation.
We're going to see where God leads us, and I'm excited to
talk about parenting. I'm excited to talk about the
world that you're in. Before we get into that, can you
just introduce yourself to our guest?
Help us to get to know you a little better?
Great. Well, my background is youth
ministry, Chad. And so I worked with kids and I,
when I was 18, I felt called in to do youth ministry and that's
what I did. And then as time got on, I went,
(02:19):
wow, we're helping these kids, but the parents need a lot of
help. And so I thought, boy, if we
could just like let you know, parents would drop the kids off
at church and they, we would have them and they'd go to
brunch or whatever. And I go, wow, the kids should
drop the parents off and we could help these parents.
So I started writing on, on parenting and started speaking
on parenting and I've loved it. I mean, my, my heart is still
(02:41):
with kids. I wake up in the morning going,
how do you help kids? And the kids could be babies or
the kids could be the kids your kids age or teens or even adult
children. But I figured the best way I can
do that is help by helping the parents and helping, you know,
even grandparents and helping that kind of thing.
And, and so it's been a great joy.
Homeward, I work for and with Homeward, the founder.
(03:04):
We're 40 years old. Our excitement is for values,
strong marriages, confident parents, it's empowered kids,
healthy leaders. That's what we do.
We've got a podcast of our own called Homeward with Jim Burns.
I laugh at what a terrible titlethat is.
You know, what does that mean? But that's and we talked about
the four values. Joy for me.
I'm actually in our studio today.
When I do a podcast for somebodyelse, I'm not always in our
(03:25):
studio, but I happen to be here today married to Kathy.
We've been married 50 years, so it's a long time.
We're old guys. Yeah.
Nobody ever thinks Kathy is. They think she's my daughter,
you know, just drives me nuts. So you can, I have a hat on, I
guess. So, you know, at least anybody
who sees this on YouTube could see that I don't have any hair.
I used to have hair when I married her.
And we have three daughters and they're adult daughters.
(03:46):
The grandkids are the joy of my life.
We've got four of them. And, and that's kind of our
deal. We, I have lived in California
all of my life except for grad school.
I went to Princeton, NJ and thenI went and did my PhD in
England, and it really gave me aglobal feel of what goes on in
families, and it's been very, very helpful.
Yeah, sure, we can go on and on,but that's it.
(04:07):
Yeah, I love that. And I think that helps kind of
set the stage for for what we'regoing to talk about.
But I'm with you on the on the bald head.
I've got a little bit still hanging on and I shaved it.
My little boy, my middle child, he's six.
He cried and cried and cried andhe said, Daddy, I don't like the
way you look. And so I let it grow back out a
little bit. Yeah.
Can't be upsetting the kids too much.
(04:28):
I'm sure my girl. Said.
That my girl said to me when they were like that.
I'm not going to marry somebody who's bald.
But makes you feel good, doesn't.
It my grandson who's 9 James, he's named after me.
He he says I have bald hair and he loves it.
He gets good luck by rubbing my head.
So there you. Go.
I love it. Yeah.
And, you know, stages of life and we're all in different
(04:48):
places. We're all dealing with different
things. But learning to find the joy
where you are, I think is a big part of this whole parenting
journey. I mentioned to you, I'm kind of
in the throes of it. I've got a four year old, a six
year old and eight-year old. And so, you know, I've had
typically had guests on the showto talk about raising those kids
and, and you know, I'm sure you have some some thoughts there as
(05:08):
well, But where I'd really like to talk about with you something
I've not delved into yet becauseit's not the stage of life I'm
in, or so I thought. But I am because I'm in the
other side sure is parenting adult kids.
So this parent child relationship that happens as the
child grows and you've written agreat book doing life with your
(05:28):
adult children. And I love the subtitle I Told
You this, Keeping your mouth shut and the welcome mat out and
I think. They just need to read the, do
the subtitle and and it's going to work.
Yeah, yeah, you almost feel likeyou've got the gist of what's
going on there from the subtitle.
Right. But I love the teaching you're
doing. I love the work that you're
doing. You have some courses that are
out there now on your website and we can talk about where to
(05:50):
go for that. But I want to start with this
phrase. And I think this is one that
I've kind of latched onto because I love it.
There's this phrase, you're fired, right?
Nobody likes to hear that, that that leads to a sense of panic
and anxiety sometimes, this sense of scarcity.
But that phrase is one that you really talk about, parents need
(06:12):
to understand and kind of embrace in order to have a
healthy relationship with your adult child.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Sure. I mean, you and your wife and
many of your listeners, they, they are in the throes of
parenting like you say. And so you know they're doing a
day-to-day, but you know, you put two decades into the life of
those kids and your day-to-day, so you're fired.
You're still dad and you're still mom, but you're fired as a
(06:34):
day-to-day parent. So we have to reinvent how we
parent and none of us are ever planned for that.
Like, were you guys right now inthe middle of it?
Man, you're working, you know, day in and day out, just trying
to get them to, you know, get toa certain stage in life, which
is, you know, the next stage. And the next stage for you as
they get older is going to be within the teen years, not even
the adult. But when they become adults, we
(06:56):
literally we have to be, we haveto reinvent.
And what's interesting about it is we don't know what we're
doing and they don't know how tobe an adult.
So it tends to cause some tension even in good homes for
those who had no idea that my, you know, daughter was going to
rebel in college and rebel to them.
Might be, it's defined differently by each parent or by
each kid, but so that you, you're fired, I need to say to
(07:17):
parents, look at what you did was awesome.
You were controlling them at thekids.
Your kids race. So you control your kids from
like 2:00 to 10:00 because you're in charge.
I mean, you know, in the best ofways of control.
Then you kind of move to coaching.
You're still in charge. Coaches are still in charge.
And that's when you say 13 to 15and then 15 to 18.
You're a consultant, meaning most of their day-to-day
(07:39):
decisions are by them. That might freak you guys out at
the age of your kids. But yeah, that's going to
happen. They're going to be away.
They're going to be spend more time away.
They're going to be at school, they're going to be maybe get a
job, they're going to start driving.
There's going to be all these kind of things.
And and that's good because whatI just said last night, I was
speaking actually on a book I wrote called Confident
Parenting. So it's a book for people who
would have kids your age. And I said your bottom line is
(08:00):
to help your kids become responsible adults and not just
obedience, but it's really how do you help them be responsible
adults? You do that by giving them more
freedom at a young age, obviously not tons of freedom.
You're not going to say, hey, you know, go, go to the beach,
go on vacation, you know, Yeah. We're going to leave you in the
house by yourself. But with adults, you have to
allow that to happen. And so it's really hard because
(08:24):
I still want to give advice. I still want to fix it.
I mean, I can remember my kids going well, you know, I'm an
adult and I go, yeah, but but I'm, I'm paying for your college
education. I'm paying for your cell phone.
I'm paying for your insurance. But in their mind, they were now
adults, but they really weren't acting exactly like adults.
And we weren't really treating them exactly like we should or
(08:44):
would have. So yeah, that you're fired as a
great eye opening experience. And it's better to read it in a
book or have somebody tell you then realized, you know, down
the road in college or after college.
What? I think I've been fired because
they are going to fire us. OK, Yeah, Yeah.
So I think we just accepted it as part of our job description.
(09:05):
And when we do that, I think we do a lot better and move the
relationship from, like I said, control and, you know,
day-to-day to really more of a mentor type relationship.
And if you can move that to a mentor.
My my girls, two of them have contacted me this morning
already just for kind of mentoring type things.
Not that they're going, hey, dad, mentor me.
It was more, hey, what would youdo in this case?
We're thinking about this. What do you think?
(09:27):
And so one of them was on travel.
So it's not like, you know, I was their travel mentor or
something. But you know, in a really neat
way, it's kind of moved. And it took us 10 years to
probably have that happen because we were bumping into
each other and they were bumpinginto us and we're like, why are
they acting like this? And then all of a sudden, you
know, it kicked in. So, so parents have to
understand they are fired of of being a day-to-day parent.
(09:47):
Yeah, yeah. The reach is a time when when
that's no longer necessary. And I guess at some point you
have to just kind of trust that you've prepared them the best
you're able. And then, you know, you hear
this phrase and then put it in the Lord's hands.
That's easier said than done, isn't it?
Which? Is hard, you know, I mean
there's a there's a sense of relinquishment like when you do
(10:07):
that you're relinquishing them to God even in the midst of the
making some poor decisions. But what I've learned about
about adult children is experience is a better teacher
than advice. So sometimes the only, and if
that's the case with your, you know, 8 year old, they're going
to don't touch that. I mean, they touch it and you
know, and then that they learn they're not going to do it
again. Well, with adults, sometimes
(10:27):
they have to make some poor choices.
One of my daughter's got herselfin debt early.
She got a credit card early 20s and she was like buying all
kinds of stuff. Like I'm thinking, how is she
doing that? Her job doesn't pay for all
this. Well, then she got herself in
debt. So it took her a couple of
years, literally a couple years,and she was going to grad school
and she decided she had to stop grad school to take care of this
(10:49):
debt. Guess what?
She's like the best steward of money now.
We could have easily bailed her out.
We could have like written one check, said, hey, babe, here you
go. We chose not to.
And I'm so glad because if we bail out our kids, then they're
not going to become responsible adults or they're not going to
become responsible with money orthey're not going to become
responsible with their, you know, they have to move even in
faith. They have to move to their own
(11:10):
faith. My daughter Christy one time
said college senior and she wrote a column in her paper and
she said I had to disown my parents faith to own my own
faith. Well, that kind of freaked us
out. But in reality, she had been
more imitating us when she kind of disowned our faith.
She had a little wandering therefor a bit.
And then when she came back, I mean, she's she was sitting next
(11:31):
to me Sunday at church worshipping.
She's more involved in our church than Kathy and I are.
And we're involved. It's kind of the fruit doesn't
fall far from the tree. But at the same time, they've
got to own their own stuff and parents struggle with it.
And, and that's something I see a good bit.
So the role I'm in currently is young adult pastor and that's
kind of the college and career age.
(11:51):
And I see a lot of that, the deconstructing of the faith that
they grew up with and then the reconstructing of their own
faith. And, and I resonate with what
she said because that was me. I had to, I had to reach that
point myself. And I was in my 20s and trying
to figure out, you know, what isthis faith thing?
For me, it was just going to church and I knew there had to
be more than that, but I was seeking and thankfully we serve
(12:12):
a God who continues to pursue us.
Amen. And so that was where I found
myself. And so now I've, I'm committed
to these young adults that are trying to go through that
process because so many times a day, there is that
deconstruction of their parents faith, the mimicry that we that
we're doing of what we grew up believing, what we grew up
doing. But so many times we fall short
of helping them through that reconstruction.
(12:34):
Yeah, you're right. Realizing that that's a
necessary part of of adulthood, right?
No, you're, you're right. I call it reformation.
And you know, some people say, you know, there's good
deconstruction, bad deconstruction because the word
deconstruction is such a hot word right now.
I am, I don't, I like that you're saying reconstruction.
I, I don't think we use deconstruction for both, but it
is we have to, you know, in someways lose some of the trimmings
(12:59):
from our own. I mean, my kids aren't going to
become Christians based on what I say or what I do.
They're going to be, they have to make that commitment on their
own and deepen that commitments like what happened with you,
Chad. So, yeah, we have to understand
that as parents, and that's hard.
I call it spiritual individiation.
And, and there's a, there's a psychological term that says you
(13:19):
have to kind of leave your parents.
And Jesus talked about this leave and cleave, you know, you
have to leave your parents to become your own person.
But there's also a spiritual individuation that takes place
where, you know, they have to own their own faith.
And once they do, hey, they're in good place.
If they never do, or if we're just kind of hanging on to that,
then really we're not helping them with their growth.
(13:40):
So, you know, what I say to parents all the time is, you
know, if they have doubts and questions, don't shame them.
Like I had a kid not too long ago, kid 22 years old, old
friends of our friends, and said, hey, you know, Jim, can
you meet with him? He's got all these questions and
you need to straighten them out.So he comes with him and he has,
he tells me that his first question, he's like, OK, we're
going. And he had a list of questions.
(14:01):
And they were all the hardest theological questions you could
ever imagine. None of us have easy answers.
And the first one, I just pausedfor a long time and I went, you
know, that's a question I've been thinking about since I
became a Christian so many yearsago.
And he went, what? And I go, honestly, you can live
like he's looking at me as a spiritual leader, leader in our
church, leader in our ministry, you know, things like that.
(14:22):
And I said, yeah, that's a greatquestion.
I don't know now if you want to read a book together on it.
I actually have a book. I haven't read it, but I'll read
the book with you. And maybe we can figure this
thing out together. Or to be honest, there's certain
things in life that we're just going to have to ask the Lord.
I mean, I've got a list of questions for him once I get to
heaven. And what he realized was that as
he was going through this, he could have some doubts.
(14:44):
He could have some questions. He didn't have to live exactly
like his, like his mom, who I love and adore.
She's one of those women who just don't struggle with faith
issues. She's like, I think she was born
crying and praising God and you know it.
Never. Changed.
Sanctified at birth. Exactly.
You're like, who are you? You know, and the dad is also
(15:04):
one of these guys, but he's really cut and dry, black and
white. This is how it is, you know,
there's maybe 3 versions of how somebody would, you know, look
at something in scripture and this guy is like, Oh no, there's
one and here it is. OK, This kid is being raised in
a family like that and he's and he has normal.
Sense. So as a parent, and I said to
this to them, you're going to have to let him deal with this
and and own it on his own. And and you know what, he's
(15:27):
still going to church. There's a lot of good.
You're going to have to reframe this.
You're all like freaked out because he has doubts.
And I'm saying, no, wait, he's still going to church.
He's still asking questions. He sees people who are
Christians who are mentors for him in their 20s.
You doing young adult ministry. All that's good, but he he votes
differently than you, which theywere like more mad.
I think that he voted differently and I understand.
(15:50):
I mean, I think my daughter Christy and I, I think we cancel
out our votes every every time we vote.
But that's not, you know, the critical issue is are they
becoming responsible adults who love God?
That's good. And there's not a lot we can do
when they become adults except be a witness, love on them, stay
in their messy story. Because a lot of it, like for
(16:11):
me, six years ago, I wrote the book Doing Life with Your Adult
Children. I never dreamed that for the
rest of my life. And I'm not kidding you, Chad.
For the rest of my life. I get questions every day that
are heartbreaking questions. You know, my child is changing
genders. My child is doing this today.
It was two or three of them on leading the faith and leaving
God. And one was a grandma who was
(16:32):
just told that she can't take the grandkids to church over the
summer when they stay at grandma's and she can't read
them Bible stories and all this,you know, these are
heartbreaking things. And I'm not saying everyone is a
heartbreaking story, but a lot of them are.
But parent, I never dreamed I would be spending the rest of my
life doing this. You know, my focus has been with
kids, your kids age with people.You're you're, you know, I'm
(16:53):
homeward. We focus on next generation
parents. We focus our marriage
conferences are focusing on younger marriages and, you know,
things like getting ready for marriage, first few years of
marriage, that kind of stuff. But now I'm, I'm my own part of
my own ministry is just dealing with this.
And the parents are, are struggling.
You know that that book has beenout almost six years.
It's still on the Amazon bestseller list.
Yeah, there's a need. You hit on something, right?
(17:16):
One of the things you said that I love is staying in their messy
story. Yeah, I think sometimes there's
maybe a tendency to panic when our kids have messy stories
because we we tend to think, OK,if I do this, then they're going
to do this and it's just going to be linear.
They're going to find their way to success.
They're going to love the Lord like I do, and everything will
just work out happily ever after.
(17:36):
That's not usually how life goes, no.
No, he stays in the mess God, and he's kind of saying to to
us, I'm OK with messes. I live in messes.
I've, I've lived in your mess, you know, So I, you know, I
think we have to stay in the story.
It's not the end. I tell people all the time when
you are looking at finances, howdo you, you know, accumulate
good stewardship? It's by years of being faithful.
(18:00):
And I think that's what happens in relationships with our adult
children. It's the, it's a marathon.
It's not a Sprint. And so, you know, they may take
a detour or two. They probably will,
unfortunately, but we're stayingthe story and we be, we still be
the important person in their life.
I think I messed that up Englishwise, but I write, I speak, but
I think it's so it's so key for us to stay in the messiness.
(18:22):
And I call it the messy middle because sometimes it's tough
because I'm over here, my adult child is over here and I just
need to stay in the messy middleand still can I, can I love them
even if they have different beliefs or if they're, you know,
choosing a different lifestyle or they're choosing there's,
they're, they don't like the church that they grew up in
(18:42):
anymore because the, they thought it's too, I mean, just
fill in the blank, too conservative to this, to that,
to whatever. I mean, you're, you're living
this dream because you're, you're with young adults young.
And you know, what's funny is when I first wrote the book
doing life with your adult children, I was, I was at a
conference with 4500 people. And they make, you know, the
book just comes out. So they make a big deal about
signing it so that you know, Jim's going to be signing.
(19:03):
There was this big long line andand young adults kept coming in
holding this book and I'd go, you can't be a parent of an
adult, you know, child. And they oh, no, no, no, it's
for my mom. Can you say Claire, you know,
because it says, you know, you know, keep your mouth shut and
then welcome that out. So she needs to learn to keep
her mouth shut. We're talking about unsolicited
vices is in my talk that day when they interviewed me and we
(19:27):
then, you know, did the book signing because I was talking
about unsolicited vices usually taken as criticism.
And I'm I'm getting Amen for that.
You know, usually, I mean, I getat Easter when you say Jesus
rose from the dead, everybody goes, hey, Amen.
But I'm going Huns lives is, andthey're getting I'm getting it
from the young adults who are going mom and dad back off here.
And and it's something that I think there there needs to be
(19:49):
education on both sides of that.And you think you bridge that
gap will. Yeah, I think it's important for
us to. I'm really excited.
I'm in the Ozarks at the at a university there in the Ozarks.
I didn't even know there was a university in the Ozarks.
I think it's called the University of the Ozarks.
And I'm speaking to students to college and I'm speaking to
students on Friday and I'm speaking to their parents on
Saturday. Love that because one of the
(20:11):
things we have to do is build bridges with our adult children
there. Adult children need to build
bridges with their parents, too.They've got to be a little bit
more patient and loving and kind.
To their. Adult to their parents, because
their parents are kind of doing the best they can and they don't
know what they're doing. Like I said, in terms of how to
now that we've got adult children, but the adult
children, they, they're still learning too.
(20:32):
In every stage of life, it it feels that way, doesn't it?
We don't know what we're doing. This is the first time I've done
this. No, seriously, seriously.
I mean, like after I wrote DoingLife, I wrote a book called
Finding Joy in the Empty Nest because I was going to put it in
a chapter for that other book and it just kept getting my
folder kept getting bigger. So Kathy and I move into the
empty nest and we kind of go, whoa, what happened?
(20:53):
Marriage twice. We're like, we're in a new
stage. So we've put all of our energy
into raising those kids and they're out of the house and
it's a lot quiet now. And we have to we put some
things under the mat even in ourown marriage.
I write books on marriage. I speak on marriage.
And yet what we realized was this was going to be a new
phase. And I was missing The Dirty
(21:15):
towels on the floor and the foodleft open, you know, on the
stove. And and all of a sudden I'm
going, what is going on here? And Kathy is like, I need more
time from you because I don't have the kids hanging around
now. And I'm like to change my
lifestyle here a little bit. It was all good.
But we do have to embrace each season.
(21:36):
Yes. Just like, I mean, you guys have
been through the diaper stage. Now you're not wearing diapers,
Chad. Right.
So everybody else took it. Yeah.
Yeah. So so you're through the diaper
stage. Well, that's a stage.
So you embrace that diaper stagegoing.
Oh, my gosh, this is like a little of the night, you know,
stuff. But now we're done with that
stage. But there's the next stage and
you're just about ready to hit the teenage stage.
And that because sometimes shocking as well.
(21:59):
I tell everybody my 8 year old daughter, she's the oldest and I
have two boys, but the oldest one is the girl.
And I said to everybody, she's 8going on 18.
Exactly. Sure, sure.
And she's we call that preteens.We're calling 8910.
Really the preteens these days when I was in England, get my
(22:21):
PHDA long time ago was the 80s. They actually had already
changed the definition of adolescence from 13 to 18, which
we were still saying in America,they had changed it from 10 to
24 using late in adolescence or what we call emerging adulthood.
And I thought they were a littlewackadoo.
I now agree with that 100% that what your daughter is going
through, again, she's 8, so she's on that young, young
(22:43):
scale. But the preteen, we have to look
at that in a different thing. I mean, I know we're talking
about adult children today, but that's a that's a new stage
because already at 8-9 and definitely at 10, they're going
through changes inside, not so you don't see it as much
outside. You know, hair may not be
growing where hair is going to grow or you know, their bodies
aren't being shaped the you know, it's just happening.
(23:05):
But on the inside, there are things going and because of the
influence in so many homes with social media and all that,
that's also kind of getting younger kids older too quickly.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. So, and we could go there all,
all the time. And I know we're talking about
adult children, but again, that does play into the factor that
some of these kids have, they experimented younger.
(23:26):
So now they're adults and they're carrying some baggage
into this stuff. It's important to remember I
want to go into that area with you.
We we've talked about it severaltimes, but the whole disagreeing
with your child's life choices, yeah, I get that a lot.
Yeah. Particularly, I get that from
adults, from older adults in my church whose children have come
(23:46):
through youth group and they noware are straying from the church
or they vote differently now, orthey're in college and they've
gone to do, you know, whatever the case may be, fill in the
blank. What is your advice for parents
out there who realize that they disagree with the life choices
of their children, whether it befaith, whether it be values,
whatever the case is, what is where's that balance between
(24:08):
support and kind of enabling, ifthat makes sense?
Well, you can accept someone in love.
Jesus did this very well. You can accept someone in love
and not agree with their choices.
And So what I say to parents allthe time is do they know what
you believe? Well, yes.
Do they know how you feel? Well, yes.
Then broaden the relationship because again, you're in it,
like I said, for the long haul, you stay in the story.
(24:30):
You know, it's the and I I laughat this story because it's kind
of a ridiculous story, but a sonsaid to me, I am out of the
relation. Said told what he said to his
dad. If you vote for Trump, I'm out
of the relationship. I will not be in relationship.
The dad said, if you don't vote for Trump, you're out of my
will. Well, actually, both of those
(24:51):
are not right things, right? The son wasn't right to do that.
The dad wasn't right to do that.So we stay in it.
So, you know, you kind of smile and you say, you know what, I'm
not in agreement with that, but I just want you to know I love
you. I have a friend whose whose
son's wife is now identifying asa guy.
It is the craziest story. And you hear this all the time
because you're working with young adults.
(25:13):
And he said he was telling me that at a special family event
just not too long ago. He said I, I sat them down and I
said, I want you to know that I love you period.
And you, there is nothing you can do that will make me not
love you. Now there's some things that we
disagree on and we're going to probably have to agree to
disagree on because I'm not going to change.
(25:34):
Not sure if you're going to change, but here, here it is.
I love you. And you know what, the person
who was changing directions in terms of what they're going to
be, they started to cry because what they were expecting from a
very strong Christian dad, a person who was vice president of
Christian college and things like that, they expected him to
say, I shun you. You're you're wrong.
(25:55):
Well, he did say you're wrong. He's I mean, he said, I don't
believe the same way you believe, but he started with
love. And I think Jesus did that,
Chad, you know, lead with love, practice kindness.
Jesus did that. How he was able to do that with
prostitutes and a tax collector.In our day, we don't even think
about how weird that is. But in that day, a tax collector
was a bad guy. He was like a, you know, really
(26:17):
bad guy. Who's Matthew and what he, Jesus
never compromised what he believed.
And at the same time, he showed love to them.
So the thing that parents have to do talk about staying in the
messy middle is they have to be able to to be the safest support
in doing life with your adult child.
I talk about a guy who was actually a pastor.
I don't say he was a pastor in the book, but his daughter had
(26:39):
been dating a guy. And then that didn't work out.
About three months later she goes, Dad, are you sitting down?
Yes, I'm at my desk at a very major church.
You would know the church and well, I'm going to get married
to a 42 year old and he's like freaked out if she's 22 and it's
a woman and he was calling me tosay, do I go to the wedding?
And I go, you know, that's only up to you.
I said, here's what I would do. I would go, I go, you're going
(27:02):
to think and I would want to vomit and I'd be sad and all
this. But the fact is is a 22 year old
and a 42 year old marrying, evenif they were the opposite sex,
that doesn't usually work. So if you're not there, not
saying you are in agreement, butif you're not there when she
crashes, she's not going to cometo you because you're not safe,
right? So how do you walk the line of
(27:23):
showing love with these kids whoare straying from faith,
violating values galore, disagreeing with politics, you
know, whatever it might be? How do you do that?
I think you stay in the relationship.
So OK, we're going to have to disagree to agree on that.
Hey, look at in Rome, GA, they got a minor League Baseball
team. You want to go and you go see
(27:44):
what I'm saying. You, you still keep in the
relationship and I think that's the safest way.
So then when they have a need, they're going to come to mom and
dad. If they don't, they're going to
move farther away from you. You're going to push them out.
So and that's. That's what parents need to
hear. Yeah, yeah.
And and that's so good on so many different levels.
And what I love about that is that you bring up basically
(28:06):
saying, all right, Jesus is our example of doing this perfectly.
You know that Christlikeness, That's that's what we're after.
Right, and he didn't cut The thing is he didn't compromise.
So he wasn't going oh, I'm goingto compromise.
And I I think what the tax collectors are doing or is good
or what the prostitutes are doing is good or what the woman
he met at the well in terms of being caught in the middle of
adultery was doing good. He said no, go and send no more.
(28:29):
But he he also showed grace was parents.
I mean, you're showing grace to your kids every day with the age
of your kids. They're so young.
We show grace to our our adult kids.
That does not mean that we agreewith everything that they do.
Yeah, yeah. And, and I think that looks
different for every situation, but bringing it back to, you
(28:49):
know, hey, I'm aging myself a little bit.
Do you remember the bracelets, the WWJD bracelets?
Sure, sure. I think that's the thing to do
here. You know, what would Jesus do?
What would be his approach to this?
And strength? You get in the word and you see
that time and time again, the people he interacted with, you
know, Yeah, there was this, there's this pursuit of them,
but yet there was never a compromise.
(29:09):
And there was this love and grace, but there was never, it
was never at the expense of the truth.
No, you're, you're, you're so right.
And what's interesting about when we, we have to also be
students of the culture to understand the students that
you're working with as Gen. Z ers, the latest barn report
says 4% of Gen. Z.
So that would be the, the younger, you know, the people
that you're working with as young adults, they could just be
(29:31):
moving into millennials. But mainly they're they're Gen.
Z that only 4% have a biblical worldview.
So as parents, we can't be in some kind of shock because the
students you're working with at your church might not agree with
some of the things. You know, Thomas Jefferson had a
had his own Bible. A lot of people know this story.
(29:51):
But, you know, cut with, I don'tknow if it's scissors or a knife
or I don't know what you had back in that day, but he cut
parts of the Bible out to make it his own.
Yeah. That's what we see with the
people, with young adults, you know, like they don't have a
problem as much with Jesus, but if they really heard what Jesus
said, you know, they wouldn't they, they would have to decide.
But what happens is they changedmoral values.
(30:15):
Well, what are you going to do if you change moral values or
you have a lifestyle that's going against the Scripture?
You either come back or you change your belief system.
So we've got a lot of young adults who are changing their
belief system because they don'twant to come back to those
harsher words and that kind of lifestyle.
So they just change their morality and and that's what we
(30:35):
see happening. So I'm grateful for people like
you who are working with this younger generation because we,
the people who are working with this younger generation, but
don't have kids in this generation, they've got to be
able to have a lot of grace. And yet at the same time as what
you were saying, not being compromised, not compromising
our biblical views. Yeah.
And there's so many directions Iwant to go to that with.
(30:56):
Let's go back to this one and we'll we'll kind of wrap up a
little bit. I could talk to you for hours.
This is so good thinking about abig, a big common issue I get
from listeners, from parents howto how to be the best parent
across the miles. Because a lot of you know, I, I
told you my story. I'm about four hours from my
parents so we can drive and see each other on the weekends.
(31:18):
Yeah, but it's just enough to where you know distance can be
an issue. Right, right.
There's a lot of parents who's children are halfway across the
world, and what's been your experience with that?
It seems like you know you're used to the children being with
you all the time. Like you can't go anywhere
without them. Sure.
(31:38):
And then now all of a sudden, not only are they out of the
house, but now, you know, thankfully we had the technology
we had today, but there's some hurt there.
Sure. What's your advice to those
guys? Well, it's a sense of loss for
we have to make sure that we understand this.
You'll understand this when yourkids move out.
But your your parents went through a sense of loss.
And, you know, CS Lewis said change is really hard on
(31:59):
everybody. And change is loss.
Sometimes there's good change, but it's still a sense of loss.
So, you know, Kathy and I, we have two daughters who live in
Los Angeles. We live in Orange County,
California. And we are bummed because they
live an hour and 20 minutes away.
Yeah. We want them to be our
neighbors. The house goes up for sale next
door. Could you come and move by us?
We whisper to their kids. Dana.
(32:20):
Boy, it's beautiful, you know, blah, blah, blah, but we have to
have to, first of all, embrace that the relationship is going
to be different if it's farther away.
Secondly, you brought it up. You said there is something
called technology. But you know, we always tend to,
especially with people who have kids your age, you know, we're
dashing on on creating a media safe home.
And that's Homeward's biggest seminar.
You know, we're always talking about that guy stuff.
(32:41):
But we also have to say technology can be very good.
There's this amazing thing that,you know, happened many years
ago called the Internet worldwide.
Amazing, right? Well, we're going to have to get
on some FaceTime and we're goingto have to get on that and do
that regularly. So, you know, I've made it a
habit of even with my 4 1/2 yearold grandson.
This is different than, you know, with my kids as much, but
(33:04):
you all do FaceTime with it. And I've read him a story the
other day he was in bed and I didn't realize he was going to
be in bed that early. And so I said, can Papa Jay read
you a story? And his mom goes, please.
And so he's holding it, but he'salso at 4 1/2.
He's not even holding it good, right?
So I can kind of see his face and I and he just kept
interacting with me as I read him.
(33:25):
What I knew was his, at least when he comes to our house is
his favorite story. It's about train.
And so I read the I read the story and I felt kind of goofy
doing it. And then today I get a note from
my daughter that goes, ha, ha, ha.
I was on a walk. His name is Huxley.
I was on a walk with Huxley and I said, do you want to move to
Malibu? They're thinking about moving to
another beach town up north. And he said, no, I want to move
(33:48):
to Dana Point. I love Papa Jay.
And I write back, I'm crying right now and I'm doing some
right. I just go, I'm crying.
I'm right now I'm saying that myeyes just welled up with this.
That's good. What I find is you can.
It's amazing what you can do in connection.
I mean, you and I are across thecountry from each other, but
even as we talked, we have a connection.
Part of it's because I'm seeing your face.
(34:09):
Back in the old day, I had a radio show and if we ever did it
on, if I did an interview on a telephone, I didn't have the
connection that if the person was in the room or if the person
now is on this. So with our kids, I think we
have to we can be long distant parents, but we still have to be
engaged in their life. And I think it's really the job
of the parents. I'll tell you that.
I mean, I think it's great when the kids come and you know, what
do you I don't know if you said this, but I did this, I would
(34:31):
go, I need to go see my parents.I haven't seen them for a while.
I must go see them instead of it's my responsibility.
But I think it's also the the like with Kathy and I, we go
look at these people are really my kids are really busy because
they've got my daughter Christy has kids your kids age and
they're really busy. I know their life.
So we need to go their way. We just had this conversation.
You know, we need to go their way.
(34:52):
We need to and make short runs. Even, you know, it's 4 hours for
your parents, but maybe they go look at it.
We're bringing some Chick-fil-A notice.
I pull in the Chick-fil-A because of Georgia.
We're bringing some Chick-fil-A and we want to we want to hang
out, but then we're going to go back and maybe they go get a
motel room someplace or whatever.
If it works that they stay, how great that is.
(35:12):
But you don't want as adult parents of adult children, you
want to be always aware of, you know, the insurance and outs and
the what's going on in the life of the adult child, their adult
child, because their adult childis busy.
And you don't want to just creepin and go, OK, we're moving in
here for a while. We'd do that.
We'd all do that, right? So I think we have to be careful
with that. But again, when they're farther
(35:33):
away, you stay in touch, you still be their biggest
cheerleader at on their birthdays.
You still be the person who whenyou put part of your vacation to
go be with them and say, we wantto spend the weekend with the
kids so that you can go. And you know, like with us here
locally, our Christie lives right by us.
So they have date night once a week.
And we said, hey, they weren't, we go, hey, on your date night,
(35:55):
we'll watch the kids. And so part of the deal of their
date night was they get to hand us the kids.
Yep, we're thrilled. And when they win, because they
get to, you know, some time together, which they need.
Yeah, love that. So helpful and and every bit of
this is, is extremely helpful, not not only just for those who
have adult children, but for adult children.
And and like I said, you bridge that gap well.
(36:17):
Yeah, and some of these principles actually go with with
people who have younger kids because again, those kids are
going to become adults. So you're when you start
thinking I'm raising them to be responsible adults.
Well, that means, like, I was talking last night at a seminar
that I did, we're talking sex education.
We can have a conversation aboutabout that all day again.
But I was saying, you know, the more positive value centered sex
(36:39):
education kids get from their parents, the less promiscuous,
the less confused they'll be. And so I'm saying, yeah, at 8,
you need to have these conversations, but you don't
have the deeper conversations. My goodness, you wait till
they're older and young five. You don't.
But you still have the conversations because you want
to be the safe person. So you're doing that partly so
that when they become adults, they've made better decisions
(37:01):
than other people are making right now.
So we have the awkward conversations.
So and that's what you do. You're preparing them at any
age. And realizing that you're
raising them with a goal in mind.
And I think that's helpful as well.
What final piece of advice wouldyou have for our listeners Who
they want to leave a legacy of faith, of love, of grace, values
(37:24):
for their children, for their grandchildren, for the
generations to come. Sometimes it's easy to begin to
kind of be focused on right here, right now.
We've been thinking about the legacy that we're leaving and
tying all this together with parenting children and parenting
adult children. What would be your words of
advice to those that are wantingto leave that kind of legacy?
Finish well, you're on your own because what's going to happen
(37:48):
is they're watching you and yourwords aren't as important as
your actions. And so finish well, do what it
takes. I I have a a friend, his name is
John Ortberg. Maybe you've heard of him.
He's written lots of spiritual books and.
Things like that. He like him.
He has a poster, he didn't make the poster, but it's a quote of
his and it says love God and do the right thing.
(38:09):
And last time I was with him, I go, hey, John, I changed your
quote. He goes, you can't change my
quote. That's like my one famous quote.
I go, no, he actually has a lot of famous quotes, but but he
goes, that's my one famous quoteAnd I go, no, I changed it.
Love God, do the right thing, repeat daily for the rest of
your life. And So what I'm trying to do
with my grandkids is do that legacy and I'm trying to do it
with my own children. And the way the best thing I can
(38:30):
do is love God, do the right thing.
And then we get up in the morning and do the same thing
over and over. Now there are things to do.
We could talk about that sometime.
In terms of like James, I've read through the children's
Bible with him three times. I didn't do that with my own
kids. I mean, we read Chronicles of
Narnia and we read Scripture. I mean, we did a lot of the
things that parents would go, wow, I didn't, we don't do that.
We did it. But I'm much more focused on
(38:52):
that with him. So like this summer, I'm, I'm
speaking at a family conference for the whole week and I'm
bringing James. So I didn't, I mean, my kids
could come anytime, but I'm focused on while we're there,
James and I are going to read books and Kathy's going to be
with me, my wife, of course, andwe're going to do all these
different things with him. But they're kind of in a
spiritual nature. You know, as I get older, the
(39:12):
older I get, the more I'm thinking about legacy.
You know, games aren't one in the first half, they're one in
the second-half. You're in the first half right
now. You're live chat.
And so, you know, you have to build the foundation, do the
right things. But in the second-half, when you
have adult children, you know, the games are one in the
second-half. And so you finish, well, too
many people aren't and finish engaged with them too, where
(39:33):
they know, where they know. Gosh, I know they don't agree
with me on how I vote, but they love me more than anybody else
besides God. And you know, it's what you do.
This has been such a fun time. Love picking your brain a little
bit and just having this conversation.
I want my listeners to to be able to find you and, and enter
into your world because you've got so many gifts and so many
(39:54):
incredible resources out there. Can you?
Can you tell them where to find you?
Yeah, homeward.com HOM eword.comand pretty much you'll get the
the whole thing. I'm I have a podcast, I do it
weekly, Homeward with Jim Burns.It's all over the world on any
platform and I'm amazed at the privilege of who I get to talk
to and what not. It's like, you know, us having a
(40:16):
conversation. It's like 2 people having a
conversation at Starbucks and you know, you're, you're
listening to them and you're listening in or whatever.
Well, that's what, that's what this was like.
And I get that privilege to do it too.
And podcasting is, is great. We have lots of books and
resources, lots of seminars. We're the largest provider of
parenting seminars in the US. So it's not just me.
People like Homeward could come to your church and do anything
(40:37):
for helping kids at a very youngage to help and, you know, adult
children, whatever. So it's a great, it's a great
ministry. Yeah.
I just have become now, I still am full time, but I'm the
founder, which I think means you're an old guy and we're
going to put a new guy in to reach the next generation who I
love this new guy. And I'm loving my role right now
(40:58):
as more speaker, ambassador, writer.
And I don't have to deal with all the, you know, the finances
of a nonprofit, you know, ministry.
Even better. Yeah, that's great.
Well, you're doing important work in the world, my friend.
Thank you. And what a privilege this has
been to sit down with you and bring this value to our
audience. So ma'am, we're going to we need
to do this again. Got so many additional rabbit
(41:20):
holes we could have gone down today.
Maybe we'll save those for next time.
That'll be fun. Great to be with you, Chad.
Honestly great. Thanks, Jim.
OK, thanks. Thank you for listening to the
Rev RX Podcast. We hope you enjoyed what you
heard today, and if so, we'd love it if you would hit that
subscribe button so that you'll never miss a new episode from
us. Also, feel free to leave us
reviews and comments as we'd love to hear from you.
(41:42):
Be blessed and be the very best you.
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