EP 55: Smoothing Your Child’s Passage to Adulthood

The end goal of parenting is not to raise children, but adults. From the moment we bring Baby home from the hospital, we should begin working ourself out of a job: teaching him to do things himself, encouraging him as he passes each new milestone, cheering him on each step of the way until–in what may eventually feel like the blink of an eye–he is on the edge of the nest, ready to test his wings and FLY.

When that day comes, will your child be ready? Will YOU? I don’t have any formulas that can guarantee a successful launch, but I do have a few tips for smoothing your child’s passage to adulthood, which we are discussing today on Episode 55 of the Loving Life at Home podcast. I hope you’ll listen in!

Smoothing Your Child’s Passage to Adulthood

Episode 55 transcript

Hello, Friend. Welcome to Episode 55 of Loving Life at Home. Today we’re talking about something every parent will have to do sooner or later, and that is letting go of your children.

I say this as a mother of one daughter who is flying to the Middle East tomorrow to do some medical relief work for the next three months, and another daughter who will be leaving two weeks later to serve as an au pair in Europe for a year, and a son who will be moving his family to an Army base in South Korea just a few weeks after that.

We enjoyed having everybody in Texas while it lasted, but now God is dispersing a quarter of our children abroad, and we are having to make peace with the fact we won’t get to see them face-to-face and hug their necks and hear all their animated, in-person stories for a good long while.

But whether your child is boarding a plane for the other side of the world or moving to a dorm room across town or walking down the aisle to establish a family unit of their own, the fact remains that a smooth transition into adulthood is something every parent should want for their child and should also be intentionally working toward.

But how can we do that? And when do we start?

I don’t have any foolproof formulas for you, but I can offer a few general principles that may help, starting with the need to…

Equip your children for life

Naturally, this includes academics. Your kids need to know how to read and write and do math. But it goes far beyond school lessons – and it starts even earlier than formal academic instruction needs to begin.

Equipping your kids for life means doing everything in your power to teach them things like

• gratitude
• good manners
• kindness
• compassion, and
• thoughtfulness toward others.

We also want to cultivate a strong work ethic in our children and teach basic homemaking skills like

• cooking
• gardening
• washing dishes
• doing laundry
• keeping your room tidy
• making your bed
• taking good care of your clothes, toys, and other belongings, and
• cleaning up your own messes

If you need extra help or inspiration in this area, I have a pretty printable chart of age-appropriate chores for children I will link in today’s show notes.

We also want to instill in our kids diligence, resilience, initiative, and a well-developed sense of honesty and integrity.

Lots and Lots of prayers are in order here. I have some printables for that, too, I can include in the show notes, including 31 scriptures to pray over your children – a different verse for every day of the month.

In addition to prayer and Bible reading, I think well-chosen stories can also play a role in helping our children develop some of these important traits and character qualities. Great books made my kids WANT to be…

• faithful like Horton the elephant
• clever like Charlotte
• diligent like Billy Coleman
• resourceful like the Swiss family Robinson
• brave & true like Samwise Gamgee, and
• steadfast in their integrity like Atticus Finch

One of my daughters was reading a story to her nephew yesterday called The Empty Pot. It’s a sweet little picture book by Demi about a boy named Ping who loved flowers and had a knack for growing them. When it came time for the emperor to choose an heir, he gave every child in the kingdom a special flower seed and promised that, in a year’s time, whichever child could show him their best work would succeed him on the throne.

Unfortunately, no matter how tenderly Ping planted and watered and fertilized that tiny seed, he couldn’t get it to grow. He tried everything he could think of to help it germinate, but nothing worked. So a year later, when all the other children were bringing their gorgeous blooms and beautiful blossoms to the palace to be inspected, Ping came in with nothing but an empty pot to show for all his effort.

Yet, when the emperor examined at all those thriving plants the other children had grown, he somehow looked disappointed. When at last he came to Ping, he smiled while questioning him: “Why would you bring me an empty pot?” the emperor wanted to know.

So Ping explained that all the methods that had served him so well before failed to produce anything in the special seed the emperor had given him.

If you don’t want me to spoil the end of the book for you or any kids that may be listening, you’d better turn down the volume or skip ahead 30 seconds, because I’m about to spill the beans.

Can you guess what the actual test was? All those special flower seeds the children had been a year earlier—the emperor had cooked them before passing them out. So really, none of them should’ve grown.

The fact that only one pot was empty indicates the rest of the children (or possibly their parents who were overly eager to help their progeny make a good impression) lacked the integrity Ping displayed. And, as a result, they were automatically disqualified in the contest for the crown.

The boy with the empty pot, who was honest enough to admit his failure, is the one the wise emperor chose to succeed him.

Now can you see how simple stories can drive home vital truths like the importance of honesty and integrity and of doing your best, even if you don’t get the results you hoped for?

Which brings me to my second point, which is…

Encourage your kids to try

You can offer advice or general guidance, but please don’t do the homework assignment or finish the science fair project or write the term paper FOR your child. The process in all these cases is far more valuable to learning than the finished product or final grade.

So let your kids do the work themselves and learn from their own mistakes. Don’t deprive them of the opportunity to fail.

I participated in an Easter bonnet contest in second grade for which I won first place. I used a peck-measure wooden bucket inverted on my head, tied a bow to the handle that hung beneath my chin, covered the sides with construction paper flowers, and glued a tuft of Easter grass and three plastic eggs to the crown.

While all the other little girls in my classroom looked like they could’ve all been in the same wedding, with floppy straw hats in every pastel shade imaginable, adorned with beautiful ribbons and silk flowers, it was 100% obvious my hat was made by a second grader using whatever random materials were readily available. The vice-principal who served as contest judge knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I’d crafted my bonnet without the help or input of my mother.

But, back to the point: Encourage your kids to try and remember the process is as important (if not  more so) as the result of the attempt.

 Our goal should be to raise responsible, reasonable, right-thinking adults. Instead of continuing to slave away on behalf of our children, cooking all their meals, washing their clothes, cleaning up their messes, choosing their pastimes, fighting their battles, we need to be intentional about working ourselves out of a job. 

The so-called helicopter parent fears for her children’s safety, so she coddles and cushions and cloisters them. Protects them from harm. Guards their tender feelings. Eliminates every hardship. Gives them a sanitized, carefree, picture-perfect childhood. 

Unfortunately, when we do everything for our kids, they learn to do nothing for themselves. Then, when it comes time to launch those arrows out into the wide world to make their own mark on society, by God’s grace and (hopefully) for His glory, they’re nowhere near ready. 

And neither are we.

We mamas may think we’re being loving by doing so much for our children, but what we’re really doing is stunting their growth. We’re robbing them of the opportunity to learn and explore and discover. We’re denying them the chance to exercise independence and make mistakes while they’re still at home and the stakes are low. 

In our all-consuming commitment to keep our kids from tripping up, making mistakes, or falling flat on their face, we’re also keeping them from getting back up, dusting themselves off, and trying again. We’re stealing the grit they might’ve developed if we weren’t so intent on being perfect parents to perfect children.

The good news for me is that raising twelve children has summarily erased ANY illusions of perfection (in either myself OR my offspring) I might’ve otherwise entertained. And my being mother to so many has been great for my kids, as well, because they’ve HAD to learn to do things for themselves, since there’s no possible way I could do everything for everyone. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for that level of micromanagement!

Expect your kids’ questions

Be patient with your children’s earnest inquiries.

Of course, we need discernment in this department too. I realize kids can sometimes use deep, involved questions as a ploy to delay going to bed or doing chores of working on school lessons or obeying Mommy and Daddy. And in such situations, it may be appropriate to delay answering said questions until the chores and homework assignment or other parental request has been completed.

But don’t dismiss them entirely. Circle back as soon as you can to provide clear answers and an opportunity for discussion. My mother had a good rule of thumb: She always said that, if my sister or I were old enough to ask a question, we were old enough get an answer.

I might add “get a straight-forward but age-appropriate answer” (which is definitely what my mom did in practice, although she didn’t add any such qualifiers to the adage). But I think it is necessary to make that distinction these days, since we live in the Internet age and today’s kids are exposed to so much more that I could’ve ever even imagined as a child.

I don’t think parents need to go into minute detail about everything a young child asks, especially when doing so would corrupt their innocence or cause them undo anxiety.

1 Corinthians 14:20 tells us to be as “innocent as babies when it comes to evil” but to be fully mature in the way we think and reason.

So, for instance, in the case of war or riots or natural catastrophes, you might explain in broad terms to a young child who asks that there was an earthquake or a tornado or flood or protests or fighting going on and that we need to pray for the people who’ve lost their homes or were injured.

But you don’t need to show them disturbing images or videos of all the devastation or cite death counts and casualty statistics associated with the event.

However, the questions young children ask about everything under the sun are only one aspect of what I’m touching on in this point. Your willingness to welcome and patiently address your children’s questions when they are little, and your tendency to ask a lot of questions in return, as a way to draw your children out and gain a clearer understanding of how they think, will lay a solid foundation for good communication going forward.

Your kids will likely have a lot of questions as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. And if you’d like them to continue to seek your input as they wrestle through doubts and reservations when they arise, then you’ve got to (1) make room for their questions, and (2) be able to discuss them honestly without getting defensive.

Because asking questions, weighing alternatives, thinking things through, and deciding whether to make their parents’ faith their own (or not) is a natural – and maybe even an essential — part of growing up. Was it Socrates who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living?” I think that is true of belief systems, as well.

If your faith cannot withstand honest and sincere questions, then it is not worth having, either.

Or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If [it is] only for this life [that] we have hope in Christ, [then] we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Then he goes on to explain why he believes putting our faith in Jesus is a smart move not only for our time on earth but for all eternity.

I think every one of my kids have had to muddle their way through a period of doubts  and questioning on their way to adulthood. Some of these periods of wavering uncertainty were more prolonged than others, but if the Bible is true – and I believe it is – then it can easily withstand such scrutiny.

And it has. Every one of our kids (so far) has come to the other side of that period of questioning with a faith that is stronger and more resilient than when they entered it.

So, welcome your children’s questions. Obviously, we would prefer that they ask them in a respectful tone rather than in a mocking or derisive way, but we never forbid the questions or try to shut them down without discussion.

If  you want your children to feel comfortable asking you for input or advice, coming to you with their questions, discussing with you their doubts, sharing with you their hopes and fears, confessing to you their struggles, praying with you for wisdom and direction—then you’ll need to train yourself to give a calm, collected, measured response when the time comes instead of blowing up, breaking down, or behaving in some other quick-tempered or reactionary way.

 Of course, all kids are different, and there’s no way to guarantee you’ll be the person your child seeks out when they’re wrestling through issues, but you can increase the likelihood of it happening by praying toward that end, by remaining available and approachable, and by training yourself to dial back the tendency to react in favor of providing unruffled, loving, Biblically-informed responses. 

As a Bible-believing mama, that is my goal. I know that “when there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.” (Proverbs 10:19 NASB) I want to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19 NIV) I deeply desire my words to “be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that [I] may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6 NIV) And I understand the importance of rooting out and putting to death every stubborn remnant of pride in my own heart, because my children will not be well-served if my primary concern in times of crisis is “What will people think?” instead of doing everything in my power to point them to Jesus and to encourage their right relationship with Him.

Which brings us to my fourth point…

Exhort your kids to follow Christ

Paul wrote to the first century church in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Some translations render it, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.”

Hopefully, as mamas, we can say the same thing, because our children –especially the young ones—often do mimic our attitudes and actions. How wonderful would it be to be so aligned with Jesus, to have in you the mind that was also in Christ (as Philippians 2 tells us to do) that we could be confident our children were imitating Christ as they imitated us?

That is my heart’s deepest desire: to point my children to Jesus, to implore them to follow hard after Him, and to accurately reflect Christ’s character in my interactions (really, with everyone, but especially) with my children who spend so much time with me day after day after day for years on end.

That’s why I routinely pray that God will draw them to Himself and keep them on the straight and narrow path and not allow me to be a stumbling block to my children in any way.

For Jesus Himself warns us in Luke 17:1-3, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.  Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.”

I think it is important for us as parents to recognize our responsibility before the LORD to train up our children in His ways, teaching them His Word as we sit in our house, as we walk in the way, as we lie down, and as we rise up, just as Deuteronomy 11:18-22 commands us to do.

But it is equally important to understand that while we can point our kids to Jesus, we can’t coerce them into trusting Him for salvation. We can read them the Bible, but we can’t make them believe it. We can tell them about God, but we can’t conjure faith in their hearts by our own strength or through our human effort. God, as they say, doesn’t have grandchildren. Each new generation must trust in Him for themselves. Neither Mom nor Dad can do it for them.

We can pray for our children, to be sure, but only God can change their hearts, draw them to Himself, convict them of sin, and give them the power to repent and the grace to believe.

• “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” – Ephesians 2:4-5
• “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.” – 2 Corinthians 7:10
• “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

Did you catch that last phrase? Salvation is “not the result of works?” It’s not the result of your child’s works, and neither is it the result of your works on his behalf. Rather, as the reformers wrote in the Five Solas, “it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to scripture alone for the glory of God alone.”

Isn’t that a glorious thought? I have a beautiful calligraphy rendering of those words, which I’ll link in today’s show notes if your interested.

So, we can’t do the work of salvation in our children’s hearts, only God can.

And if He does that? If God begins that good work, we know He will be faithful to complete it, as His Word promises in Philippians 1:6.

Wasn’t that a Steve Green song? I think so. I’ll see if I can look it up and link it in the show notes.

The point is, we can also trust the God who saves our kids to be the God who leads them as well. When they were little, God’s leading of our children was largely done through parental influence. As long as they were minors, they were our responsibility and we made most of the decisions as to where they went and what they did, as well as how, when, and with whom.

But the day will come when our children will be directly responsible to God for following His lead. And it will still be our job to encourage them to follow God’s lead, even if doing so means they’ll move far away from home. Even if it means they might be walking into harm’s way. Even if it means we won’t get to see them –or our sweet little grandkids—for months or years at a time.

And that brings us to my last tip, which is to

Entrust your kids to God

I really should’ve started with this one, because the faster you realize how much of successfully raising a child to adulthood is totally and completely out of your control, and the sooner you recognize how utterly dependent you and your entire family are upon the sustaining grace and protective mercy of God, the better it will be for everyone involved.

Ultimately, everything your child needs most comes directly from God (including wise, loving parents and a safe, stable home). So go directly to God in prayer and ask Him to supply all those needs, for both your children and yourself. God is the only One who can give you the wisdom and love and patience and perseverance and grit  you need to parent well.

And He’s also the only One who can keep your child safe and protect Him from harm. We do our part while they’re young and still in our home, but even then, God is ultimately the One we must trust to bless our own efforts to protect and make them fruitful and effective.

So go directly to the Source and entrust your children to God’s care from Day 1. He has been so kind to teach me the importance of this practice early.  All it takes is a near miss or two to drive home the realization that God alone can foresee every danger and keep our kids safe in a world chockfull and overflowing with hazards.

Despite my best efforts to protect my children, they’ve still fallen down whole flights of stairs, out of trees, though open windows, off diving boards, and into campfires; they’ve broken arms and legs and fingers and collar bones; needed stitches on heads, hands, feet, legs, and chest, gotten lost or left behind or sick enough we thought they might die, almost electrocuted themselves by sliding copper pennies behind covered outlets during naptime, nearly been abducted by a creepy predator while riding their bikes. As you might imagine, having raised twelve children, eight of whom were boys, I could go on and on an on!

But I won’t.

I’ll only say that my sons, especially, taught me early what had been true all along: that God can do a far better job of watching over them than I could ever hope to do (although I still try, because parents definitely play an important part in God’s strategy for keeping kids safe, and I’m not suggesting we abdicate our responsibility—only that we rightly understand the scope of our ability to protect our kids, which is minimal apart from God’s blessing and augmenting our efforts).

So why not cut to the chase and entrust our children to God from the first.

I have a dear friend whose youngest daughter developed some respiratory problems in infancy. It was serious enough that the baby had to be care-flighted to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, and as my friend rode in that helicopter, feeling completely helpless to save her child, she did a lot of praying and soul-searching and wrestling with God.

It felt to her almost as if He were questioning her, “Do you believe I am good?” And she kept praying in response, “Yes, Lord, I know you are good.”

Then she’d feel the LORD prompt her again, “But what if I take your baby? Will you still believe I’m good.” And, as every mother knows, THAT is not at all the outcome she was hoping and pleading for, but she had to come to the place where she could answer, “Yes, LORD. Even if my baby dies, I will still believe and affirm Your goodness.”

It was really an Abraham moment for my friend, but she passed the test and – thankfully – her baby did recover and has grown into a beautiful young girl now, so loving and sweet and kind, a real balm to her mother’s heart – but in the bay of that helicopter as her baby lay in critical condition, she had no idea whether her daughter would even make it to Dallas, much less still be alive and thriving a decade later.

As hard as it is in the moment, I think those near-miss trials and forced acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty over our lives and the lives of our children makes it easier to weather the years to come and whatever hardships they bring.

Even if the only hardship we face is learning to let go when your fledgling flaps her wings and flies far from the nest.

I’m amazed at how many moms assume I must be riddled with anxiety over my daughter moving to the middle east. It’s not that I don’t understand the dangers she may face. I do. But I’m also confident that God has called her there for such a time as this and is fully capable of keeping her safe.

I think moms should view an adult child’s launch day as a final exam that reveals how completely we’ve entrusted that child to God.  Hint: If we toss and turn in bed all night, fretting over the what ifs and wherefores, it’s a sure sign we failed the test and have some remedial learning to do!

Thankfully, if we’ll just anticipate that departure day arriving much sooner than we ever imagined possible, we can take the necessary steps to prepare both our children and our own hearts for a successful transition. Otherwise, their young adulthood will sneak up and catch us by surprise. 

A colleague of my husband’s once confided in him, “My son is leaving for college tomorrow. What do I need to say to him before he goes?” I received a similar question from a reader who was desperate to know (no later than 2 PM today!) what she should write in a yearbook tribute for her graduating daughter.

Now, I understand that parting words and parental blessings are important, but for them to carry the gravitas or weight that we desire, they really need to be laid atop a lifetime of good communication and faithful teaching of biblical truth as we sit, walk, lie down, and rise up. Apart from that solid foundation, any words of wisdom we utter as our grown children walk out the door will have little lasting impact. 

In that sense, the exact wording of what you say when your kid crosses over the threshold to adulthood doesn’t really matter. Either you’ve been repeating the most important messages all along, in which case one more reiteration is unnecessary—your child already knows—or you’ve squandered the opportunity to speak life to your children during their formative years, and you couldn’t possibly pack everything they need to hear into a few hurried sentences whispered in their ear as you launch them into the world.

So if your kids are still young, do yourself a favor. Take the pressure off graduation speeches, college goodbyes, and wedding toasts by thinking through what deep inner convictions you want your children to carry with them when they eventually leave home, then start instilling them now. This is one instance where teaching to the test is entirely appropriate and highly recommended. 

Alternatively, if all your birdies have already flown the coop, make a list of the things you wish you’d communicated more clearly while they were at home, then repeat them to your adult children every chance you get, praying they’ll take those truths to heart. Thankfully, we serve a gracious God who is good about granting second chances.

Summing up, if your children are still at home and you want to make the goodbyes easier when it comes time to launch them out into the world, start now: Equip your kids for life, encourage them to give their best effort, expect (and being willing to discuss) their earnest questions, exhort them in their walk with God, and entrust them entirely to His care.

I hope these principles will help smooth the transition from infancy to adulthood – which happens so much faster than you expect! – for both you and your rapidly maturing kiddos.