“Be nice to your adult children. They will most likely be the ones who someday take away your car keys and usher you into the convalescent care facility.”
I don’t know about you, but as our three daughters became adults, we didn’t see all the changes coming. When our kids were in their early twenties, they told us in one way or another that they were now grown up, even though—from our perspective—they weren’t always acting like it. They wanted to be treated as adults but were still mostly dependent on our income and were making some lifestyle choices that collided with our values. “I thought life was supposed to be easier and less complicated when our kids became adults,” my wife said.
Over the past decade, many people have told me that being the parent of an adult child was not what they expected. One woman quoted a line from the movie Hitch, in which the lead character says after a disastrous dating experience, “I saw that going differently in my mind.” What parent of an adult child hasn’t said something like that? Some kids who now live in adult bodies still act a bit like children. Or at least their parents think so.
Here is the good news: most adult children eventually do become responsible and independent. They may zigzag through their younger adult years, taking a few steps forward and a few steps back, and there might be a U-turn or some false starts along the way, but it eventually happens. The challenge is that becoming an adult seems to be taking longer for this generation than it has for any previous generation. And that slower transition isn’t easy for the parent or the adult child.
Although you and your child are traveling different paths, you’re on a parallel journey of reinventing your relationship. It’s better when you navigate it together, but neither of you have passed this way before, and even if you have made the transition with one child, the next child likely will approach the transition to adulthood differently. You might find yourself with some degree of day-to-day parenting duty that stretches past the eighteen-year mark—or even the twenty-five-to thirty-year mark, especially if your adult children move back home for some reason. You no doubt will experience bewilderment when your grown kids violate your values or live differently from how they were raised, but your goal must remain the same: to help your children transition to responsible adulthood. To do that, you need to first understand your old job description as a parent and then create a new one.
Chapter 1 Guide · Principle 1: Your Role as the Parent Must Change
Moving from Manager to Consultant with Your Adult Child
1. Core Principles from Dr. Jim Burns’ HomeWord Library
When our kids were young, my wife, Cathy, and I felt fairly comfortable in our parenting roles. It wasn’t always easy and there were some bumps in the road, but for the first two decades we were clear about our jobs. We were in control and it was our clear-cut responsibility to be our children’s providers, caretakers, and nurturers. Even if our kids disagreed, they knew that ultimately we were the bosses.
Then adulthood abruptly showed up, and we weren’t ready for it. For us, it happened on the day each kid went away to college. Now they were setting their own hours, making travel decisions we didn’t always agree with, and spending money on things and experiences we would not have approved of just a few months before. To them, church attendance was now an option rather than a commitment. Cathy and I realized we were losing a part of our parenting job description that we liked, which was the control. In a very short amount of time, we moved from having daily input in our kids’ lives and doing hands-on parenting, to more of an intermittent and distant kind of parenting. Most transitions aren’t easy, and we found the transition from our old job description to be especially challenging.
It’s important to acknowledge your old job description as a parent so that you can set it aside. That’s the only way to make room for your new job description. It’s also important to know that this transition of moving from daily involvement and hands-on parenting to a more intermittent involvement will likely be an easier move for your kids than it is for you. Expect to have a transition period within your transition. In our case, we thought of it as a unique and somewhat awkward dance in which neither we nor our kids knew the right moves. There was plenty of stepping on toes and renegotiating boundaries until we found our rhythm with each other. And just when we thought we were dancing well with one child, the next child went to college and we had to do the awkward dance all over again.
Since all children are different, there is no template for a new job description for parenting adult children. You may have to redefine your role differently for each of your kids. But before you can create that new job description, or better yet a new kind of relationship with your adult children, there is one important thing you need to do. You must love them enough to let them go. Rewriting the script and establishing a new adult-to-adult relationship with your kids requires firing yourself from your old job of day-to-day nurturing and being “in control” of your kids, and embracing a new role that is not as daily or as hands-on as before. Hard as it is, the role you play in your children’s lives must diminish in order for them to transition from adolescence to responsible adulthood.
If you are in or have already been through this transitional stage, you know that it’s complicated, often messy, and can sometimes feel like you’re walking on eggshells. One dad I know described it this way: “My son and I had been very close, even in the teen years,” he said. “As he approached adulthood, I kept doing what I had always been doing, but my son reacted
God, I relinquish my children to your care and watchfulness.
Give me the courage to let go as they move—sometimes ever so slowly—toward responsible adulthood. Grant me discernment to know when to carefully intervene, and the restraint to do so only when absolutely necessary. I acknowledge that this is one of the hardest transitions I have ever had to make, and that I need your guidance and insight. In all things, help me to love my children as you love them—lavishly and with grace. Amen.
in strange ways. Most of the time, he didn’t want my advice. I’m a pastor, and frankly, I give good advice. Regardless, he moved away from my control but still wanted my influence—on his terms. It took a few years and some bumps and ego bruises along the way to figure out what this new adult- to-adult relationship would look like.” He went on to say, “Sometimes we still experience bumps in our relationship, especially when he is making decisions I’m not happy about. But I’ve had to realize that his vision for his life is different from my vision for his life. One of the most difficult things I had to do was relinquish my adult child to God and release my control over him.” My friend eloquently described the idea of reinventing the relationship to help his son become a responsible adult.
Although there are no formulas or job description templates for making the transition to an adult-to-adult relationship with your child, Cathy and I discovered some meaningful strategies to help you along the way. We called these our guiding principles and needed to refer to them often, especially at the beginning of the transition. The quicker you can embrace your new role and, yes, even grieve the loss of your old role, the better it is for everyone. Here are four strategies to help you embrace your new job description.
1. Be encouraging but not intrusive. You are a consultant at their will. Your job is to be caring and supportive of your child, to mentor only when called upon, and to be your child’s biggest cheerleader. Don’t be like the mother who told her daughter, “Honey, put on your coat. It’s cold outside!” Her daughter, who was vice president of a successful tech firm, shot back, “Mom, I’m forty-five years old and I can decide for myself when I put a coat on!” Her mother simply added, “I’m still your mother and you need to listen to me.” As well-meaning as the mom may have been, her daughter considered her intrusive.
2. Timestamped Video Conversations from the HomeWord Archive
▶️ Timestamped Clip · 0:00–2:15
Watch at 0:00–2:15 on YouTube ↗
Parenting Adult Children: How to Navigate the Changing Relationship
Dr. Jim Burns · 0:00–2:15 · Themes: Anxiety, Depression & Mental Health, Parenting Teens & Technology
[0:00] I'm going to give you some principles today, and these principles are principles that come out of research, but mainly out of my own experience having kids who were transitioning. And I'll be honest with you, our kids are amazing, and they're now in their 30s, but they kind of bumped, and it kind of shocked us, even while they were at Christian colleges and whatnot. So here's some principles. Principle number one. Are you ready for it? You may not like it. You're fired.
[0:24] You're fired. Well, actually, you're not totally fired, but your role as a parent has to change. And sometimes we try to keep parenting the way we parented them even when they were teens, and that's not the case. So you're still the parent, but you need to reinvent your relationship with your kids. And I want to give you part of the job description. Number one is you have to give your kids the passport to adulthood, even if they're not acting like adults. You have to also rewrite the script of your life by letting go of control.
[0:54] Like I said, that's not easy if you're a control freak. And often, this will deal with grief, and we'll have to deal with some grief. C.S. Lewis said it best, change always involves a sense of loss. And I don't know that Kathy and I saw this as loss until it started happening. I remember the day that Heidi, our youngest, we dropped her off at school, and we were driving back, and we both cried. And we were both silent because we realized, no, we're going through some kind of a loss, and letting go of our children has to be counted as one of those necessary losses.
[1:23] Our role changes and so does theirs. There was a woman who I speak with quite a bit. I love this woman. She is 45 years old. She is one of the top execs in the Silicon Valley at one of the main, main tech firms. And she has been incredibly successful. And she was telling me back in the green room a few years ago that she had brought her mom out from Asia and her dad had died. And so she had set her mom up in a...
[1:50] very nice home. She named the city and that meant it was a multi-million dollar home. And she had her kids over and it was really cold that day. And so she was putting on the kids coats and things like that after they were getting ready to leave. And her mother said to her at 45 years old, honey, put your coat on. It's cold outside. And she said, you know what, Jim, I don't know why I did this, but I got frustrated with my mom. And so I just said to my mom, you know, mom, I'm very capable.
▶️ Timestamped Clip · 0:00–1:01
Watch at 0:00–1:01 on YouTube ↗
Fired as a Parent: Embrace Your Adult Child's Freedom #shorts
Dr. Jim Burns · 0:00–1:01 · Themes: Adult Children & Role Shift, Anxiety, Depression & Mental Health
[0:00] You're fired. Well, you're fired as a day-to-day parent. So what that means is you have to reinvent the relationship that you have with your adult child and give them the passport to adulthood because that's part of your job description. And you have to rewrite the script of letting go. And that's not easy. That's not easy for parents, but it's also, it's not easy sometimes for the kids either, because they're used to you parenting a certain way. And, you know, sometimes we...
[0:29] parent them like they were still children. And often what we have to realize is that we have to deal with grief. And you know, what's fascinating is C.S. Lewis said this so well, change always involves a sense of loss. And so why you have to give them the passport to adulthood and why you're fired as a day-to-day parent is because they want their freedom and they will never become responsible adults, which is the bottom line, if we don't give them that freedom. So as their roles change,
[0:58] So does your role change.
▶️ Timestamped Clip · 4:42–7:06
Watch at 4:42–7:06 on YouTube ↗
Doing Life with Your Adult Children with Jim Burns
Your Adult Children with Jim Burns · 4:42–7:06 · Themes: Adult Children & Role Shift, Marriage Intimacy & Unity, Parenting Teens & Technology
[4:42] And that was a scary time for us, because we didn't exactly know all that was going on, but you know, there were some things that she had to kind of, well, own her own faith, and that wasn't easy. we had to realize that there was a parallel journey going on, that our kids didn't know how to be adults. So they never read a book on adulting. They didn't know what to do on that. And we didn't know how to be parents of adults. So this parallel journey was we were both learning at the same time and at times bumping into each other. Now, ours is not the horrible stories that I hear most every day. Literally, I heard a story today from one of our people at Homeward who wrote me and said,
[5:18] um how can i help my daughter who's you know transitioning to become a son and we're crazy life is crazy and you know really tough tough stuff and i and i get that ours was more mellow and today it's still more mellow but the fact is is that your adult children or if you have younger kids they will meander toward responsibility and actually even meander toward marriage what i mean by that is like kathy and i just celebrated a big anniversary we got married one
[5:46] week after Kathy graduated from college. And that was not that weird back then. Today, that's a little strange. So we were fast adults because we had payments to do, and we had rent, and we had all these kind of things, and we had to grow up pretty quick. That's not the case in today's world a lot of times. So I'm going to give you some principles. I'm going to teach my principles today on this podcast. Principle number one goes like this, and you may not like this. Are you ready for it? You're fired.
[6:14] Well, you're fired as a day-to-day parent. So what that means is you have to reinvent the relationship that you have with your adult child and give them the passport to adulthood because that's part of your job description. And you have to rewrite the script of letting go. And that's not easy. That's not easy for parents. But also it's not easy sometimes for the kids either because they're used to you parenting a certain way. And, you know, sometimes we parent them like...
[6:43] They were still children. My kids said that about only Kathy. I'm just teasing, actually, me too. And often what we have to realize is that we have to deal with grief. And what's fascinating is C.S. Lewis said this so well, change always involves a sense of loss. And so why you have to give them the passport to adulthood and why you're fired as a day-to-day parent is because they want their freedom.
▶️ Timestamped Clip · 0:00–1:37
Watch at 0:00–1:37 on YouTube ↗
Parenting Adult Children: Influence, Not Control, Is Key!
Dr. Jim Burns · 0:00–1:37 · Themes: Adult Children & Role Shift
[0:00] You don't want to have to control a 40-year-old, right? No. So you want them to get to a point where they're not dependent, they're not under your control, they are an independent adult, hopefully making wise decisions. The problem is that sometimes when our adult children make decisions that we don't like, since we're their parent, we want to step back in. Sure, go into the control stage, what we did when they were 10. But instead of...
[0:28] stepping back into control, what we want to do is step greater into influence. We want to have influence with our adult children, but we don't want to control them. And influence comes through a relationship. Control is a God-given right and authority that we do when they're in our home.
[0:49] But when they're adults, we need to change strategy. Yeah, isn't that important? You know, the way I like to say it is you're fired as a day-to-day parent. You're still a parent. You're still a dad. You're still a mom. But you're fired as a day-to-day parent. And for some parents, if they can't make that move, then what they do is they're pushing their adult kids away. Yes.
[1:10] we've got to be able to relinquish them to God and let them become responsible adults. And, you know, they're going to make mistakes. Experience is a better teacher than advice. And we just sometimes need to keep our mouth shut. I've got a scar. You can see some scars on my tongue from that with our own kids. Yeah, the way we say it is you're still the parent noun, but you must no longer parent verb unless invited. So good. I'm going to quote you on that.
▶️ Timestamped Clip · 0:00–0:42
Watch at 0:00–0:42 on YouTube ↗
Parenting Adult Children: Time to Say "You're Fired!"?
Dr. Jim Burns · 0:00–0:42 · Themes: Adult Children & Role Shift
[0:00] I like to say you're fired as a day-to-day parent, and that isn't easy for any parent. And usually it's not always that easy for the adult child either. Well, we've never been the parent of an adult child. So a lot of times we don't know what we're doing. And they obviously have never been an adult. And most of us parents would say they didn't know what they were doing when they began either. So let's be honest, neither the parent or the adult child totally knows what's going on or how to do this transition well, or this, as you would pivot.
[0:29] This makes for some challenging times. And by the way, if you have younger kids, this conversation will be for you. Most parents don't prepare well for the big pivot, and it's never too early to start. So I hope you'll listen to this.