Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Hey, welcome back to Change the Odds, the podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be a game of chance. Kevin Thompson here with Jim Burns. Jim, so great to have you. Thank you so much for being here.
Jim Burns [00:00:09]:
Hey, I'm glad to be here. And I mean, I had you on my podcast. I read your book, which you'd actually written a little while ago, and I said it was one of my favorite books. I truly mean that. It's so good.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:18]:
Well, thank you. I don't have to introduce you. Everybody knows who Jim Burns is, but president and founder of HomeWord, 3 million resource copies of resources around the world. Married to Kathy, 3 adult children, 4 grandchildren.
Jim Burns [00:00:31]:
You've got this down.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:32]:
Yeah, great, great stuff going on. And just my goodness, Jim, not only the legacy of what you've done, but the influence that you still have. I mean, your book, Doing Life with Adult Children, is still just read everywhere I turn at this moment.
Jim Burns [00:00:44]:
Yeah, it's crazy. Maybe it's just because we're older guys now, because everywhere I go, I saw somebody on the plane a couple of weeks ago and I said, hey, that's a— I said, that's a great book. And this woman said, oh, yeah, it's so good. And then she goes back to the bathroom and she goes, I just looked on the back and did you write this book? She said, you look different in your picture, which I think she was saying, you look a lot older.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:07]:
Life's been hard. Yeah, that's exactly. So I haven't had that experience yet. That is my dream. I've seen people I know reading it. Obviously, they pull it out just because I'm walking by. But I'm yet to walk by on a plane and somebody actually— Well, I've.
Jim Burns [00:01:18]:
Also been in bookstores where in the 99-cent bin, some of my books were like there. That happens too.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:25]:
No, absolutely. So let's talk about this topic of adult children and a trend that I see pastorally happening, and I'm in conversations weekly at this moment, is where you have adult children who are estranged from their parents. And it happens in a variety of ways. Probably what I see the most often is you have a son who gets married, cuts off his parents, and many times the involvement there is it's the wife who's kind of having some of those issues. Now the parents aren't involved in the lives of the grandchildren. They don't know what they've done. I don't know how to do it. Is this just an anecdotal situation, or is this something that's truly happening on a regular basis?
Jim Burns [00:02:01]:
No, I mean, even Time magazine last year said that this is the age of estrangement. Wow. So what shocked me, I'm on a radio broadcast pretty much on a weekly basis called New Life Live, and it's a counseling program, and people call in, and because of the adult children thing is me writing on that. I was shocked how many people would call and say the estrangement, your story, what you just said, And so I started doing some studying and I realized 27% of all families in America have someone who's estranged. 27%. Now that's not just adult children. But it's usually, it could be dad from a divorce. What we're trying to do when you and I are working on marriage, we're trying to help people not go there.
Jim Burns [00:02:43]:
But right behind that is adult children. And it's like what you said, a lot of times it is in-laws. In-laws is number 2. Number 1 is that they violate values, they stray from faith, and the parents are the ones who— they don't estrange, but the parents are just bugging them so much and hounding on them so much and showing their anger that they just leap away. But number 2 is in-laws. And I always say to people, the secret to getting back to your grandkids and your son is through your daughter-in-law. But I don't like my daughter-in-law, or my daughter-in-law doesn't like me. I understand.
Jim Burns [00:03:20]:
You're gonna have to work on that relationship. And you can't do it like, well, let's talk about tension. Maybe it's over a Starbucks coffee on a regular basis, just to kind of let them get to know you, that you're not the evil one that maybe she thought you were.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:34]:
Yeah, and I think so often that conversation for me goes with this idea of the parents going, well, here's what's right. What's happening is wrong. And I agree with most, 99% of the time. And they're like, we gotta make it right, gotta make it right. And my encouragement to them is always, what's the outcome you most desire? And the outcome you most desire is a relationship with your child and with your grandchildren. So what's going to get you to that instead of fighting about here's what's right, let's get to what's going to lead to the you outcome desire.
Jim Burns [00:04:00]:
And here, what we do as parents sometimes is we tell them why they're wrong and they probably are wrong or they are violating values, they're straying from faith, they're making some goofy decisions. So what we want to do is is correct them with criticism. But when we do that, a lot of times they flee. So the bottom line is exactly what you said. And even people in the world of estrangement, the authorities— Tina Gilbertson, who's one of the great authorities in Canada— Tina Gilbertson says, do you want to be right or do you want to improve the relationship? You can't have both. And so sometimes you have to bite your tongue, wait on it. Still, you can agree to disagree. But what we have trouble I think us parents of adult children, especially in an estrangement side, is we wanna tell 'em how wrong they are and if they'll only get it right.
Jim Burns [00:04:46]:
A lady not too long ago showed me an email and it was like, I've spent all this money on you, I was there for you, I wiped your nose, I wiped your bottom, I did all these things, and now this is how you're treating me? And long pause, awkward pause for me. And I go, how'd that work out for you? She goes, well, she's cut me off and she's blocked my phone. I didn't want to say, "I told you so," and I didn't. I just went, "Well, maybe there's another softer, gentler, kinder way," because probably all that she said was true, to be honest, how this kid was off the rocker or whatever. But again, we have to make sure that we're doing it with kindness. You know, Jesus, he led with love. He practiced kindness. So the question becomes, can you embrace that you and your child are going to have different views on even some stuff that's, that's pretty big stuff.
Jim Burns [00:05:35]:
Yeah, Kevin, I'll tell you, I was in Texas, I was speaking, and a guy comes up to me and he has kind of the Texas, you know, hat, like a trucker hat. And then all of a sudden his son comes up and he looks just like him and he has the Texas trucker hat. And they showed me that there was an 8-year-old, you know, child of the son, grandpa. And he said, I'm thinking about keeping this guy out of my will because he 'He is not voting for Trump and he thinks Trump's a jerk and I'm voting for Trump and I'm taking him out of my will.' And the guy said, 'Well, I'm leaving my dad. I'm not going to be in relationship with my dad anymore because he is voting for Trump.' I said, 'Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Are you telling me that over a political situation, you're going to break relationship, both of you, with your family?' And I said, 'And this poor little guy doesn't get to know grandpa.' And the family kind of goes dysfunctional over a president when I was 8. I said, I don't even remember who the president was. And so maybe we need to look at the long run here.
Jim Burns [00:06:33]:
And what can you do to reconcile? And is it possible, guys, for you guys to actually not agree politically, but actually still be a father and a son and actually be buddies and do some stuff together? What was interesting is the son was more open to it than the dad was. The dad was kind of like, no, he needs to vote this certain way. Now, both probably have some right and wrong in them. But what's happening today is we're estranging over such issues that we shouldn't be doing that. I mean, I have a friend named Mike Yaconelli, who actually Ray knows from the Bayside world. But Mike used to say, you know, you can argue politics on the way to the parking lot, but worship Jesus together. And I'm not trying to get political. I'm just kind of saying, what's going to cause you to— what would it take to estrange from you? Another guy I was talking to just recently whose son is going into a gender confusion issue, and he said, I want you to know that although this is going to be a tough conversation for you, that there is nothing you could do that I would not love you.
Jim Burns [00:07:39]:
Yeah, I would still love you. Nothing you could do. And so get the— put that on the table, take that off, that I'm going to walk away from you. I love you, period. The son started crying and, you know, then they were able to have a conversation. Not, you know, when we— I'm right and you're wrong stuff.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:57]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. My friend Jason Cain always says, and I've heard a million people, by the way, rip this off, but it's Jason Cain as far as I know. He says, I'm not going to let a politician I don't know negatively impact relationships with people I do know. But you think about how that's happening in this world and the climate which we live in. And it's fascinating to me, this idea of it feels like it used to be that you voted in November or the second Tuesday in November and you voted and what you did in that booth was your business and then you left. And then in church and in and relationship community and families, it didn't matter. And now it's become this ultimate dividing line that it's almost— and here's what's intriguing to me, Jim. Is it's almost as though a secular mindset has influenced the church.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:46]:
And because it used to— we used to get so frustrated by people saying, "Well, if you don't accept my lifestyle, you can't be in a relationship with me." And we're like, "Man, God never defines somebody simply by their sexual choice or anything like that." But now many in the church are saying that very thing, that if you don't accept, not only accept how I voted, if you don't vote exactly like me, then I'm going to disenfranchise you.
Jim Burns [00:09:10]:
No, I think you're exactly right. And I want to go back to the old ways. You know, you can agree to disagree even in politics, even in D.C. I'm going to speak in D.C. next week. And in D.C., you know, these guys would argue and fight, you know, within Congress, and then they'd go have dinner together. That's not happening today. But it is affecting the family because the same mindset takes place within the family.
Jim Burns [00:09:32]:
But we also have to understand that You're talking about adult children. So millennials and even Gen Z too, there's great things about these groups. But one of the things they do do is they view tolerance as a form of loving. And so what happens is they can't, if a parent has a biblical worldview that may sound intolerant, but it's just going along with what the Bible says, then both fight on this. When in fact, what you're saying is, no, it's possible. Jesus did this. I mean, he loved prostitutes. Just like he loved his disciples.
Jim Burns [00:10:04]:
And some of those prostitutes became disciples of his. So what we've gotten away from is living in a culture where we can't agree to disagree and still, you know, behave. Yeah, but that's now come into the family. I don't know that it came into the family years ago. It does come into the family now.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:23]:
Yeah. And one of my big problems with it is, look, I don't agree with myself half the time. Like, that's, that's the part I don't understand, right? I mean, I have some pretty strongly held beliefs, no doubt, but I'm like, I could be wrong. And especially whenever I read the Bible, my goodness, Jesus has convicted me every single day of things that I think are so clear. And then he goes and does the opposite of what I would expect. I'm like, oh my, I have to reevaluate every aspect of my life. What gives me the right to look at somebody else and go, all right, not just that we disagree, it's that now you have no value in my life because you have this opinion that I don't hold. I just can't process what that looks like.
Jim Burns [00:10:59]:
No, I think you're right. And I think as we, Billy Graham said this: as he matured, there were a lot of things that he didn't worry about that he worried about when he was in his 20s. And that didn't mean that he changed his convictions. He just simply realized that we're going to live in a culture where sometimes he was going to have to be friends with somebody that he didn't necessarily agree with. Well, today that's the case in the family because, you know, Thanksgiving becomes interesting if you have conversations around politics or around, you know, 100 other issues. And we just have to simply— I think it's maturity for us, like what you were saying, you know, how do we know? As we get older, it doesn't mean we change our convictions or we change our values. What we do is we change the way we show love and the way we accept people. You know, they're God's children.
Jim Burns [00:11:46]:
So it's possible to do that and not be in agreement with, you know, what they're saying or shouting or screaming.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:55]:
I was speaking one time and it was one of those things, it was a men's group where I would throw out a question and they would talk amongst themselves. And a buddy of mine had ridden with me to the event. And so as we were driving back, I was like, "Hey, what was the discussion like?" You're hoping they actually had something to discuss about your talk. And he said it was really interesting. He said, "One of the guys that I was talking to, I just asked what's on your mind?" He said, "Well, I got two things." He said, "One, I'm really struggling with the relationship with my son. And two, I really feel like this country's taking a horrible direction and all that." My friend told him and he said, "One of those sounds really interesting." The whole point was in those two things, one should take a great priority in our lives. We can't do a lot about our country, about these macro issues. Yes, we need to be concerned, but we are directly responsible.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:38]:
Yet for some reason in our mind, and I think in some ways it's a little bit of avoidance. It's a whole lot more fun to talk about things that we actually don't control and complain about them. Than to take responsibility for, oh my goodness, I might have to take an action step on this relationship.
Jim Burns [00:12:52]:
Yeah, no, I think you're right. And even, you know, you and I've been talking a little bit about estrangement, and one of the things we have to do is embrace the fact that we need to take the lead as parents, even if they're more wrong than we are. And in taking the lead, that's where we sometimes have to, you know, zip it up, you know, bite our tongue, let them do the talking. Sometimes we have to embrace an apology. And maybe we don't have to apologize for what we can. We don't have to be fake about it. But parents have to take the lead to do that. And that takes some maturity.
Jim Burns [00:13:26]:
But we sometimes expect our kids to do that. They're not made that way as much. They also are younger. So sometimes for us, we have to say, look, I'm going to do whatever it takes to build that relationship. And that's embracing even saying an apology or embracing I can see where you're coming from, or even asking questions like, help me understand what you're calling my blind spot. And then you're showing understanding and love and care. And yeah, you're getting it. So you need a circle of support around you 'cause you might come home after having a tough conversation and go, I'm dying.
Jim Burns [00:14:01]:
I need to talk about it to somebody else who is more of a support., but we've got to do that. And as parents, sometimes we are wanting our kids to change when in fact what we've got to do is take the first steps.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:14]:
Yeah. So let's get into some practical details of what that might look like. Before we do, let's ask a very simple question. Are there times in which estrangement is right? And what are those times? So how do we know the difference between, man, these really are good, healthy boundaries and they've reached a point where we do need to cut this family member off, versus we're carelessly throwing away relationships? Because one of my questions is, how do you truly honor your father and mother?
Jim Burns [00:14:40]:
Yeah, right, right. It's a great question. And I actually think that— I don't think there's a simple answer, but I kind of think there's some principles that we can look at. But the one thing that we have to understand is that today's culture, even counselors are saying very quickly, and a younger generation is being taught, or at least talked about, you know, is strange, is strange, is strange. I don't think that's the answer. But there are some things, sure. Sexual abuse. If a stepfather is abusing a child, then we need to be estranged from that.
Jim Burns [00:15:08]:
Sometimes even alcohol abuse. That sometimes— I mean, a person isn't going to get better until they work on their addiction. So something like that, things that are detrimental to health, things like that. I was thinking of alcoholism because a mom just immediately in our area just got arrested because she kept picking up her kids at school, driving, you know, intoxicated. Now that's not an estrangement forever and ever for everybody because people can get clean and sober. But, you know, you have to sometimes back up. Even in marriage, some of the worst marriage situations, sometimes what we say is we don't think it's, you know, the first thing to do is, oh, go get a divorce. But sometimes you have to separate.
Jim Burns [00:15:51]:
And in that separation time, that's sometimes when healing comes and when an understanding comes. Then you come back together with baby steps, steps slowly. And so yeah, there are some things that I think we do estrange from. If crazy Uncle Ben just molested one of the kids, then crazy Uncle Ben is not invited to the next Christmas party.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:10]:
Okay.
Jim Burns [00:16:11]:
And, and really, truly, we— that, that's sad, but that's called boundaries. So we need to have healthy boundaries. What I, I think the principles of, of trying to keep the relationship means that we've got to be willing to sometimes live in the messy middle of it. And that's not being estranged, it's just going, I'm going to live in middle. And nobody said that was going to be easy and nobody said it was going to be quick. Some estrangements, you know, somebody dies in the family and everybody gets back together and now we all love each other. They've been estranged. Well, okay, good.
Jim Burns [00:16:43]:
That the death, there was a purpose partly in maybe that happening. But that's not the norm. The norm is it's going to take 6 months, 2 years. In a book I have coming out in May called When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope, I say, I talk about a story that is 15 years of estrangement where the guy finally comes back. And it was a pastor. A pastor was, he lost his son. Pastor and his wife lost his son to drugs and a mess. And so the son left.
Jim Burns [00:17:13]:
15 years and they tried, but the son was like angry and he was angry at God and angry at them. And 15 years later, the mom is sitting in church. The pastor is going to preach. And the son is back where a bride would be when they're going to come, you know, down the aisle. And he said he stood there for a long time and then he came, sat next to his mom, held her hand, and the mom said she just wept the entire service. And the young man, not young anymore, he goes, Mom, you can calm down. I'm back. But what a beautiful story.
Jim Burns [00:17:43]:
But it was 15 years. Oh my gosh. If I get in an argument with one of my daughters, you know, over my years, I have all girls, so we have no hormones and drama in our life. But if I get in an argument with one of them, if I'm in an argument for like more than 10 minutes, I'm freaking out. But to be in that, the painful thing for everybody involved, but still they finally did the right thing. It finally came back together. And it was the son who finally took the offer of the parents to say, we love you, we embrace you. We're not gonna feed your drug issues, but we sure will show you love and concern.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:19]:
The way I've explained it, so 20-year-old Ella with Down syndrome, 17-year-old Silas, those are our two kids. Our dinner table has 6 seats, just the way the dinner table works. So 4 of us sit there for dinner. And what I explained to them is, look, whoever sits at these other 2 seats are actually y'all's choice, not ours. And what mom and I are willing to do is whoever you choose, we will do everything in our power to love them well. The only way they won't get to sit there is if there's active addiction, abuse, or adultery. That those three things— now if they're recovering, we'll work through all those issues. But as long as they're not a physical or true emotional danger, you get to choose.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:59]:
And I don't have to agree with them. I'm going to love them to the best of my ability.
Jim Burns [00:19:03]:
That is so good. You gave that illustration so much better than I just did. It's so good. You're right. That's a great way of saying it. I mean, that's a principle that we all need to live by.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:13]:
What are some things with— so 17-year-old son, right? About to launch out into the world. What are some things that I can do now and what are some things I should not be doing that make it more likely? This is change the odds. You can't guarantee anything, but we can create a more likely scenario that we'll have a lasting relationship with our children versus not. What are some things I should be doing right now to ensure that 10 years from now it's more likely Silas is in my life, but not?
Jim Burns [00:19:39]:
Yeah. What an age. They're just ready to launch. You know, you're launching right at 18. I mean, Silas is going to say he's an adult. You're still going to be paying for his insurance, his— a lot of stuff with driving, college. I mean, you name it. But he's going to say, I'm an adult, right? Of course.
Jim Burns [00:19:57]:
Every Silas who's going to be 18 is going to do that. But, you know, I think you first of all recognize that that's an amazing rite of passage, that he literally— you are launching Silas in less than 52 weeks.. And so I think it's your job as parents to recognize that rite of passage. And, you know, I spoke for an organization called Promise Keepers for many, many years. And Randy Phillips, who was the president, used to get on right before me and I'd try to be funny. But then he would do this. He would say, a man is not a man until he tells— until his father tells him he is. And then I would watch men in the arenas weep.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:28]:
Wow.
Jim Burns [00:20:28]:
And then I'd come on and be, you know, goofy. I've got men still crying. What's going on? I used to tell Randy, I hate that illustration, but I love the illustration because, you know, Silas needs a dad to say, "You're a man, son, and I'm gonna give you the passport to adulthood." And the passport to adulthood means that you're gonna change the relationship in a way where you're gonna reinvent that relationship. And the thing we have to remember as a dad or as a mom is that we don't know how to parent an adult. We've been parenting a teenager, and there's a certain way to parent a teenager. And about 17, you kind of start figuring it out, and then you're like, wait, now he's gonna— transition again to another thing. So we don't know how to parent him and he doesn't know how to be an adult yet. So it's kind of a messy time, say between 18 and especially in the young 20s.
Jim Burns [00:21:20]:
But we as parents are the ones who have to do that. And to do that, we're gonna experience some loss and some grief. C.S. Lewis said, "All change is a sense of loss." And I used to go, "All change?" 'Cause I think if some change is really good, But I get it that there's a sense of loss. It's a loss of what was or whatever. And so, you know, you're going to go through a situation as you, you know, send him on his merry way. It's not like he's— you're not going to be connected on the cell phone and not be dealing with him all the time. But in a point, there is a sense of loss for you that you're not needed on a day-to-day basis.
Jim Burns [00:21:53]:
He may call you every day, but you're still not needed on a day-to-day basis. So really to help him become a— and the bottom line is for him to become a responsible adult. When he becomes a responsible adult, you guys will have a better relationship. But to do that, you have to— you can't enable dependency on you. So sometimes you're going to have to go, man, I'm sure that hurts, but experience is a better teacher than advice, and you're just going to have to let that go. So there's a lot we can do.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:19]:
Did Jenny tell you to say that? wife? Is it my Was this a setup?
Jim Burns [00:22:23]:
No, it's funny. No, but that's— but that's a hard thing to do. And as I watched our girls launch, because they're now in their 30s and, you know, it's a different world, we're kind of— we've now moved the relationship to kind of mentor Still, I mean, they still call me Dad, but it's more on a mentoring dad-adult relationship. But those first years were hard because I still kind of wanted to be needed, and they didn't want that as much as I did. And then there were times when they'd come in and they needed to be needed, and they wanted to be wanted, and they wanted to be daddy. And I think a lot of times that happens, especially in good relationships like what you guys have. But I think You know, there's that time where we just have to, you know, let them launch and they become their own self. And then we— then, like, I'm experiencing this in the best of ways now.
Jim Burns [00:23:11]:
Our whole family Saturday went to Disneyland. That is, by the way, more expensive. We paid more expensive than taking our kids to Hawaii, I think, 12 of us, and with the grandkids. And I watched my kids interact and how Kathy and I got to interact with them. But again, they're mature. They have— there's grandkids involved. I was willing to— I said, I'm in charge of Bodhi, who's the 2-year-old. So he, you know, couldn't go on all the rides.
Jim Burns [00:23:33]:
So I got to hang out with him and he pooped his diaper every time they'd go away.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:35]:
It's not your responsibility. It is now.
Jim Burns [00:23:37]:
It was. But the point that I'm saying is I watched them and I went, wow, this is a good thing. And I've always thought of our family being— both Kathy and I came from dysfunctional families. And I've always thought, no, we're kind of a high-maintenance family. And I went, yeah, it's not perfect. But watching us interact all on Saturday, I went, Wow, I think we changed the trajectory of a family. And it was kind of one of the first times I actually ever thought about that.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:02]:
Oh, wow.
Jim Burns [00:24:02]:
Kevin, it was so weird because, you know, you're in the day-to-day of life. And then I kind of went, wow, they're, they're doing pretty good. You know, I need to celebrate that.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:11]:
Yeah.
Jim Burns [00:24:11]:
Well, we— that's a process that happens at 17 and 18 when you give them the passport to adulthood.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:17]:
Wow. In Staying in Your Lane, I talk about what's mine, what's theirs, what's God's. And as our kids become older, they no longer belong to us. They have their own lane. But the idea that we control what's mine and influence what's theirs. But when anytime I try to control what I should only influence, I actually lose both.
Jim Burns [00:24:33]:
So good.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:34]:
And so if I can stand back and try to influence him, but not control him, chances are he might lean toward me toward advice. But if I try to control him, he'll actually rebel against that.
Jim Burns [00:24:43]:
No, exactly. I'll give you an illustration. So Heidi has totally made the transition. She's our youngest child. She's in her 30s and she's amazing. She has an MBA, in business from USC down in Southern California. She's brilliant, she's a great mom, she's married to Matt, who's awesome, you know, on and on. But Kathy, she travels the world because of her job.
Jim Burns [00:25:03]:
She works for a company in London and she's going to St. Kitts. And so Kathy sent her a note saying it's dangerous and said, not her, she just sent a note that said it's dangerous, there's people who are getting robbed, you know, All I know about St. Kitts, I've never been there, is that it's beautiful. But anyway, Kathy sent her this thing saying, just thought you'd want to know. Heidi never responded to that. I said, could. I She goes, what's wrong with Heidi? And I go, well, it's probably the text you sent her.
Jim Burns [00:25:31]:
So I said, well, let me try it. I go, hey, how did the boys do at Disneyland? I mean, we were together. How'd they do at Disneyland? How was the day the next day? Right back at me. Oh, so fun. They're still willing. They're wearing their Mickey Mouse ears, blah, blah, blah. And Kathy goes, "What is going on?" I go, "You know what? It probably wasn't the— it wasn't— we need to one time say, 'Oh, be careful in St. Kitts.
Jim Burns [00:25:52]:
I just read this thing,' or do you want me to send it to you?" Maybe they'll say no, and then we don't do it. But instead, Kathy barged in. It wasn't even negative or preachy. I would look at that as, "Thanks.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:01]:
Wow.
Jim Burns [00:26:01]:
Maybe I need to be more careful." My daughter, I'm guessing, took it as, you know, "That's unsolicited advice, Mom." And what she sees is, "You don't view me as all grown up.".
Kevin Thompson [00:26:11]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, that's so hard. All right, so let's look at two scenarios, give some practical advice. The first, let's go with an adult child who has been estranged by their parents. What would the advice be there? And we're saying that falls outside of this basic safety and that kind of thing. But the parents, let's go hypothetical situations, very common. The parents don't like how the child's voting. And so the parents are like, "I'm done," the example you gave earlier. What should that child, adult child do to try to reestablish that relationship?
Jim Burns [00:26:41]:
It's not the norm. Because the norm is that the kids leave the parents. But I just had this last week with a young man who I know really quite well, whose dad and mom are estranged from them. And I'd been saying, is it time to go have coffee with your dad? I actually, the mom is a little bit more out there. So I thought, you know what, I wouldn't put both of them together with this. So I said, why don't you see if your dad will have coffee and just say, dad, I don't want to talk about all the things that are going on, but I love you, you're my dad.. And the dad sat down and started crying. And he said, I want a relationship with you.
Jim Burns [00:27:16]:
I want a relationship with your brother. He's estranged from both. Their choice, not the— and, and, and I had told him, I said, don't do a tit for tat. And so the dad started and he had some issues and he said, you have no idea, Jim, how hard it was for me not to say, wait, you're the dad, act like a dad or whatever. But he didn't. I said, what— how did you feel when you walked out? They went to a restaurant, not coffee. But how do you feel? How did you feel? And he said, I felt hopeful. And we're going to meet again in about 2 weeks.
Jim Burns [00:27:48]:
So he took the lead, but he didn't feel like he had to patch it all up in one time and didn't have to feel like he had to say all the goofy things about his dad. I mean, I don't know his dad, but I would— if his dad did half the things that this guy said, his dad is and he needs some help. He needs some counseling. He needs some— I mean, he honestly needs Jesus is what he needs. But that wasn't the time to have that conversation. It was time for him to sit and just listen. He said, hey, let me show you pictures of the grandkids. Again, the guy started crying because there was two grandkids involved.
Jim Burns [00:28:16]:
So he showed the pictures of the grandkids who are young. And he doesn't— he said, I'd love for you to be in their life.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:23]:
Yes.
Jim Burns [00:28:24]:
And again, all— he didn't preach. He didn't lecture. He just simply went, "I'd love this relationship." Good job. I mean, that's the illustration. I think that's— we take the lead. It's very similar, but if the parents aren't going to do it, then the kids take the lead.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:38]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I would step in and say as well, thankfully we do not have this scenario, but if for some reason Jenny's mom was estranged from us because of me, then I think what I would want to do in that moment is go, it's not the ideal, but it's the real. Jenny, I want you to have a relationship with your mom. Y'all go meet. We can connect whenever. Y'all go experience that because that connection is so important. And then if there's any hope for a relationship with me, that's the pathway to make that happen anyway.
Jim Burns [00:29:05]:
No, I think that's good. I saw that with Kathy's mom, didn't have a relationship with her in-laws, and yet the dad still brought Kathy and her brother and two brothers and sister to the grandparents. Kathy's mom never had that relationship. But the dad didn't know. So Kathy liked those grandparents. They weren't evil people in her mind. And I think that's the— I think that really is the right way to do it. I call it protect and honor.
Jim Burns [00:29:30]:
So we have to honor, you know, we honor our in-laws. We honor, you know, the mom who, you know, estranged us or whatever. But we try to honor. But we also have to protect the family. And that's where it gets in where, you know, you're not going to go on vacation for 2 weeks together on, you know, the Disney cruise with them if they're, you know, acting crazy. So you just do little tiny baby steps. Even in our family, my extended family. So there's alcoholism throughout my family.
Jim Burns [00:29:56]:
Kathy and I choose not to drink, but it's not— we don't do that because we were just with a couple last night who had wine. It's not even an issue for me. But we're not— we spend 3 hours with them at Christmas. We bring the whole family together. They're at our house. We serve amazing lemonade. You should come and see our lemonade. Right.
Jim Burns [00:30:14]:
So, so we have this time and it's a great 3 hours and then they all go off and we're good. If we spent 6 hours, it may go downhill. So that's protecting and honoring. And we have to do that at times.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:27]:
And I think not to demand the ideal, grieve that you don't experience it, but then to live in the real of where we are. And I think about— you think about Dan Siegel's idea of the window of tolerance, right? Of, okay, what is it? How can we get in that place that there is a meaningful, as meaningful of an interaction as we can possibly have. And then I might go and weep that it's not better, but at least we have that. What does it look like now in the more prevalent scenario that I see? Now the parents are the ones estranged and there's grandkids and they're not getting to see them. And in the name of boundaries, much to the chagrin of Cloud and Townsend, it's being misused. And now people are getting cut out of lives and estranged where they really shouldn't be. What should those parents do?
Jim Burns [00:31:10]:
Well, I think the parents take baby steps toward healing. So, for example, I think that one of the things you can do is you could write a note that has— and don't talk about all the things that you're estranged by, but just simply say, love to be— would love to be connected, would love to have a relationship with your kids. We want to be generous at Christmas, things like that. And, and I'd love to know what that would look like. And I realize we've got some things that aren't going on. It might even be the daughter-in-law who's, you know, putting her hands up saying, stop, you can't be a part of it. And, you know, what could we do and take some baby steps? And if they say, well, you can come by once a year, then go, we'd love to come by once a year. And can we, could we set up a time? And we'd love to take you guys to dinner.
Jim Burns [00:31:49]:
We'd love to watch the kids if you guys want to go on date night, serve them, serve them, cheer them on, cheer them on. And then be kind to their kids. Because what I find is that grandparents sometimes get blocked, but if they're, if they're the loving ones to the kids. So I said, don't you be buying them socks and underwear for Christmas. I know they need socks and underwear. Don't be buying them socks and underwear. Somebody else can do that. You lavish them, and it doesn't have to be expensive stuff, but lavish them, you know, with whatever so that, hey, they become, you know, one of the faves.
Jim Burns [00:32:21]:
I'm not saying you're buying your grandkids. I'm just simply saying these are the grandparents who, you know, love you if they'll allow that. Now, again, as you know, there's people all around us who their kids will say, hey, look at, you know, I've, I've, they've deconstructed from faith. I've walked away from God. And I don't want you even talking to my grandkids about God. I've got to talk about this at the International Legacy Convention, which is on grandparenting, on faith, partnering with them. And I have to say that, you know, there's a percentage of grandparents that don't have any inroad at all. That's hard because then you can pray or they don't want anything to do with it.
Jim Burns [00:32:57]:
Them. You can pray, but also stay— if you can write letters and they allow the letters to come through, anything, because as time goes on, sometimes that changes because life changes. So you stay in the relationship, period. And if staying in the relationship means that you get to spend time like we do with our grandkids, it's awesome. If it's not that, then it has to be anything else that you can do. My friend Wayne Rice, his wife Marcy, has a weekly meeting with one of the granddaughters. And she's not allowed to talk necessarily about faith issues, but a weekly meeting. But the granddaughter's 18, and now the granddaughter is going to come and stay with them because she's 18.
Jim Burns [00:33:37]:
Well, that's been a process of years. So don't think, you know, this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. So build into them any way you can.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:46]:
Yeah, it's probably heretical, but I always view the story of the prodigal son I get the picture of the dad walking the son down the driveway going, "Son, don't do this. There's such pain. There's such loss," trying to protect the son and getting to the edge of the driveway. And then the father stops and the son goes. But I always get the picture of the father just is waiting right there. And that's the image that we have. If our children, adult children are making choices we don't appreciate, we don't approve of, have made decisions to disenfranchise us, we're at the driveway with open arms. That the second you want to come back, we're going to come back.
Jim Burns [00:34:20]:
Yeah. No, I love that illustration. And the fact is, even to take it farther, is I don't see the— in that story of the prodigal son, or the loving father, what I'd like to call it, is I don't see him saying when he has a conversation with his adult— I mean, his older son, I don't see him saying everything's going to be the same. He says, son, all that I have is yours. So he gave half the inheritance. But I don't think he gave this younger son back some of the older son's money. So he held boundaries. There are boundaries.
Jim Burns [00:34:50]:
So yay, Cloud.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:52]:
Yay, Townsend.
Jim Burns [00:34:53]:
Those are my buddies. But so he held those boundaries. The son, all that I have is yours. So he's still my son and I'm going to show love to him. And so sometimes I think that's one of the harder things is instead of once they do come back, We do have to have some fair boundaries, if you would, but that still means that you keep your arms out like that. It's a beautiful word picture that I see of the dad walking him up the drive and waiting for him at the drive and actually running out and getting him. 'Cause I think he went past the drive to go get son. that He was excited.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:25]:
Yeah. Well, Jim, thank you so much. Your son is so grateful for you. Just last week I was having this very conversation with a mom grieving, and she said, who do I turn to? Who do I read? I said, look up Jim Burns on the internet. Where can people get in contact with you the easiest place?
Jim Burns [00:35:39]:
Homeward. Homeward is the largest provider of parenting seminars and marriage conferences in the country right now. And we are based in Southern California. And you can go to homeward.com, homeward, word W-O-R-D,.com. And books on doing life with your adult children, finding joy in the empty nest, a new book coming out in May on adult kids straying. So a lot of stuff on that, but we do a lot more than just that. Doug Fields and I are updating our book right now, Getting Ready for Marriage. It's 10 years old and we used words like, we used the word checkbook and it was kind of 10 years ago, it was okay.
Jim Burns [00:36:14]:
We can't use that word. So there's like 40,000 people using our book and our work. And now we're like, wait, all we just met, you know, I just met somebody that you married a few weeks ago and they're not using a checkbook, right? This is only 10 years old, but to refresh it, They're getting married older, all kinds of things. So we're having a blast doing this, but, you know, we're just going, "God, we really are old." I mean, should I take the Beatles illustration out? Of course they know who the Beatles are, but, you know, there's probably somebody else.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:43]:
It's funny. That's so funny. Thanks so much. Keep up the great work.
Jim Burns [00:36:46]:
My pleasure.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:47]:
All right, we'll see you next time.