Christian parenting of adult children, and step-parenting grown adult children in Christian families, has lead to several questions from readers on the matter of helping vs. enabling adult children. The questions came from numerous parenting articles here, where I discuss the problems many parents and step-parents are having with grown children, especially in regards to the adult children asking for money or needing some kind of monetary “help” on a regular basis.

Mothers, fathers, step-mothers and step-fathers, have emailed me asking for tips and advice on how to handle their parenting problems with their adult children, from a Christian perspective. Some parents even asked for Bible scripture quotes and biblical principles for them to share with their grown kids, to help explain why the parents should not, could not and will not give the grown children money and/or pay their bills. Trust me, if there were ever public speaking opportunities for me to discuss parents enabling adult children, I would not have to be asked twice.

The answers to the questions involve many aspects of parenting adult children and married life, not only for Christians, but for any parent who may be enabling their grown children without realizing the harm done by this behavior. The Christian responsibility of fathers and mothers; the husband’s role in marriage and the wife’s role; the subject of leaving and cleaving; what “giving away the bride” means in Christian wedding ceremonies; traditional wedding vows brides and grooms make to each other, are all involved in these problems. Christian parents of adult children, are you helping or enabling your grown kids?

It came as no surprise that the subject of step-parenting adult children, children who are full-grown married adults with or without kids of their own, challenged parenting skills to the max and were creating marriage problems between the enabling parent and his/her spouse. To me, parenting is parenting, regardless of whether the parents or family are Christian or church-going families or not. There are, of course, scriptures and Bible principles for Christian parents of adult children that offer assistance in these difficult, often emotionally-charged, sensitive matters.

Christian Parenting – Parenting Adult Children

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6

From infancy to adulthood, Solomon instructs Christian parents of the importance and God-appointed parental responsibility of teaching, training and disciplining children to love and fear God; to obey their parents; to learn how to be a responsible adult in society; and to live a clean, righteous and moral life, to name a few. Parents, Christian believers or not, have an enormous challenge training children in today’s society, with the prevalent attitude of “it’s all about me” often shown in young children, teenagers and grown adult children.

We live in a generation of entitlement, where kids of all ages are growing up as selfish, arrogant, ignorant, rebellious, lazy, immature, disrespectful, profane, foolish, wasteful children, believing the world and parents owe them everything they want. Financially irresponsible adult children and adult step-children continue to drain their parents bank accounts and retirement accounts due to their own poor judgment, poor money-management skills, and an ever-growing want list because the kids refuse to grow up and won’t tell themselves No.

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.” – 1 Timothy 5:8

Husband Role in Christian Marriage

One Christian father emailed me saying his son-in-law would not work, preferring to play video games all day, while the father’s daughter struggled to provide for and feed her family with two young children, which included regularly asking the father for money to pay bills and cover their basic needs. Apparently, no one taught or explained to this young man the husband’s role in the Bible, or about Christian marriage roles and responsibilities for husbands and wives.

Men, when you get married, you immediately become duty-bound in God’s eyes to fulfill the roles and responsibilities of providing for and caring for the needs of your wife and children, something that your wife’s father and/or mother is no longer responsible for. Whether brides and grooms recite the traditional Christian wedding vows or not, before God and witnesses the man and woman getting married promise to “have and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live.”

Giving Away the Bride

For Christians, marriage is a covenant relationship, not a simple contract. Some Christian wedding traditions and customs, like the father giving away the bride, cause some people to cringe or wince at the mere mention of this custom. Modern brides and grooms may not like nor allow the traditional words “who gives this woman in marriage to this man?” to be included in their wedding ceremony, because of the historical origin those words came from.

The words “Who gives this bride away?“ or some alternative wording are considered to be so controversial, if not abhorrent, that anyone attending a wedding officiated by a justice of the peace may find those words excluded from the ceremony altogether. For Christian wedding ceremonies, the act of the father walking his daughter down the aisle and “giving the bride away” to the groom, is a very important part of a wedding ceremony for many parents.

The father, as head of the house, is not just presenting his daughter in marriage to a man he approves of. By giving away his daughter in marriage, and placing her hand into the groom’s hand during the ceremony, the bride’s parents are thereby demonstrating their blessing on the marital union AND are symbolizing the transferal of responsibility and care onto the husband. Saying the words “I Do”, right before repeating wedding vows to each other, the bride and the groom thus express their willing acceptance of all responsibilities marriage brings and are duty-bound before God to fulfill them to the best of their ability.

Cutting the Apron Strings

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24

The scripture quote found above, located at Genesis 2:24, is repeated at Ephesians 5:31, showing God’s pattern for marriage to include a “leaving” of one’s parents and a “cleaving” to one’s spouse. Leaving and cleaving is a shifting of allegiance from the parents before marriage, to a marriage allegiance between husband and wife alone. Psychologists call this “cutting the psychological apron strings”, which requires a letting go of responsibilities, financial support and control that parents previously had with their children.

Single or married adult children living with parents, in-laws or grandparents, cannot develop full independence and adult responsibility that being an adult requires while living with their parents. Dependence on parents or others to give support financially stops when couples marry or move out to live on their own as full grown adults, and parents should help encourage and promote such independence and responsibility.

Mental, emotional and spiritual support, guidance and encouragement for married children need not stop, and occasional financial help when truly needed. God requires parents to “let go” of their adult children, to allow their grown kids the room and space needed to live their lives as adults, to make their mistakes and to find ways to fix their own self-made problems, rather than running to rescue their children from each and every poor decision made. How else will grown kids learn how to be an adult, independent and responsible, except by their own diligent efforts?

How to Be a Good Christian Husband

In the Bible, the Christian husband’s role in marriage to his wife begins with the announcement by the minister or church Pastor that the couple is now pronounced “husband and wife“, during the Christian wedding ceremony. Christian husbands not only assume the primary leadership role in their marriage as “head of the house”, but Ephesians 5: 28-29 tells husbands to love their wives in the same way that they love their own bodies, including feeding and caring for their wives, as good Christian husbands do.

“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” – NIV

Good husbands, especially Christian believers, happily comply with biblical principles to work and make enough money to sufficiently provide for all of life’s basic necessities for his wife and children. A fundamental failure as a husband in marriage is when Christian husbands neglect their God-given responsibility as provider of their family’s needs, leaving their wives to take on the husband role as head of the household, rather than her wifely role as helper or helpmate.

Unfortunately, some Christian ministers fail to discuss in detail the husband’s role and wife’s role in marriage prior to the hectic wedding ceremony, leaving those fine Scriptural principals about marital roles and responsibilities to go unheard. Dating and engaged couples who are considering marriage, or couples already planning their wedding, should carefully ask themselves and each other if they are really ready to be married, before getting married. You’ll be glad you did, and so will your Christian parents who want you to be happy in your marriage, and your mom and dad’s bank account to be left intact.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• What Grown Children Owe Their Parents
• “What does it mean to “leave and cleave” in traditional wedding vows? How do you balance “leave and cleave” with honoring your parents?”
• How to Be a Good Son-In-Law: Building a Great Son-In-Law Relationship With Your In-Laws
• Should We Get Married? Questions to Ask Before Getting Married

How do you kick grown adult children out of the house when they refuse to find work, keep a job, pay their own bills/rent, constantly ask for money, won’t help around the house doing chores, won’t stick to the contract agreement rules, and are disrespectful and verbally abusive towards their parents? Parents, do you have “yuckies” living in your house? Kick ‘em out of the house with a steel toe boot. Enroll in Tough Love 101.

In the U.S., grown adult children living at home with their parents well into their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s are typically called “Millennials” or “boomerang kids” from the Boomerang Generation (also known as the Peter Pan Generation). Problem is, they’re not kids, but full grown adults fully capable of working and taking care of themselves and living on their own.

Reasons to Kick Adult Children Out of the Parents Home

“Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Learning how to be an adult does not include believing in the mythical story of Neverland, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, where kids don’t want to grow up and face the reality of becoming mature, self-supporting adults. These are often entitled grown “kidults” who refuse to grow up, unwilling to take on the adult responsibility of being independent and self-sufficient, without regular and routine financial help from their parents. Let the pixie dust twinkle in your grown children’s eyes, but it’s time to wipe it from your own and begin to see clearly what you’ve been dealing with for far too long.

Italians call these grown kids “mammon”, or “mama’s boys”. The Japanese call them “parasaito shinguru”, or “parasite singles”. In the U.K, these grown adults are called “kids in parent’s pockets eroding retirement savings”, which is short for “kippers”. The latest acronym used to describe boomerang kids returning to the family nest is “yuckie”, which stands for “Young Unwitting Costly Kid”, while the newest nickname for the parents is “baby gloomers” instead of baby boomers.

Note: This is not about grown children whose parents are helping without enabling, who allow their adult kids to live in their house temporarily, perhaps right after college graduation, while the kids do everything possible to find some kind of gainful employment to pay their own bills and make ends meet. Temporarily allowing adult kids to move back home, pay rent and help out around the house with clearly established boundaries, can be advantageous for the parents and the kids on a verrry short-term basis.

“If you want your children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” -Abigail Van Buren

The problem of adult children moving back home with parents, and staying at home longer than absolutely necessary, was the focus of a 60 Minutes segment called “The Millennials Are Coming” (referring to the “Millennium generation,” or those born between 1980-1995). Addressing the growing problems associated with adults who have a sense of entitlement in our society, many young adults believe they have the right to quit their jobs for frivolous reasons and job-hop to their hearts content. On their parents dime.

“Today more than half of college seniors move home after graduation. It’s a safety net, or safety diaper, that allows many kids to quickly opt out of a job they don’t like.”

What’s not to like? Someone else pays the bills, worries about paying the mortgage and taxes, takes care of the yard work, free cooking and maid services – some parents actually doing their grown kids laundry! It’s like these “kids” have a personal butler, housekeeper and a super-rich uncle all rolled into one – you, dear ‘ol mom and dad.

Christine says this about the 60 Minutes episode:

“Living at home gives these kids an opportunity to be choosy about their job choices. If they don’t like the way their boss treats them, they have the luxury of quitting and living with parents until they find their next job. Kids no longer have to settle on a job. It’s no longer uncommon to have several jobs on your resume.

But is that all bad? [...] The Millennials are pushing for change in the workplace. Change I like. Companies are now offering fun and flexibility to attract and keep workers.”

Having been overly-praised and coddled throughout their childhood and teenage years, many young people believe they deserve and fully expect to be rewarded for four years of college education (of course paid for in full by their parents – plus spending money) with a job paying $50,000 immediately after slipping off their graduation cap and gown. Besides the unrealistic expectation of being very well paid right off the bat, the job has to be “fun” and offer a “flexible” schedule too. Or not.

Perhaps these twentysomethings, thirtysomethings and older adult kids have been spending too much time reading and perpetuating Ryan’s Easy Entitlement Excuses for Slackers and moochers advice about adult responsibility and independence, which brought on lots of negative, but well-deserved comments and reactions.

“By moving home after graduation, you have little or no rent which allows for more freedom when searching for a job. There is no need to sell out to an investment bank if your real goal is to work with underprivileged children. Depending on where your parents are located, you are probably missing out on the big city night life and social scene, but you have lots of opportunities to find the perfect job, regardless of pay. If ditching the social scene for career sake doesn’t demonstrate responsibility and independence, I don’t know what does.

Moving home with mom and dad will immediately save you about $700 a month in housing costs. At least there is some extra cash flow. In two years, you can save up enough to move out on your own without worrying about going into credit card debt for basic necessities like fixing your car or buying groceries.”

Read those two paragraphs again, slowly. The first mistake many well-intentioned parents make when grown children move back home is not requiring the kids to pay rent, and I’m not talking about a measly hundred bucks a month either. If your adult children have the idea that living with you in your house means they have lots of time and opportunity “to find the perfect job”, including their numerous excuses, excuses to the contrary, you’re in deep trouble.

“Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” -Roger Lewin

Parents, if you need good reasons why you should kick out your grown adult children, or your kids are lazy slackers who treat your home like a free bed-and-breakfast or hotel, read Ryan’s ridiculous article and the comments for a real eye-opener. Kick ‘em out. Drop the guilt complex too. You are not a people pleasing doormat for your adult kids to wipe their dirty feet on. If you don’t let go of the guilt nonsense, your grown kids are going to try and use it against you. They know your emotional hot buttons and kids push those buttons until parents give in, or until parents use tough love and make it perfectly clear the manipulation attempts and guilt-tripping won’t work.

Just like this story about Mike and his mom’s attempts to move him out of the house, kids will pull every trick in the book including, ambivalence, dismissal, out of hand rejection of the whole idea, yelling and swearing, anger, declaring that his parents have given up on him or hate him, announcing they will never see him again, enlist the “help” of relatives, etc. Kick ‘em out anyway.

How to Kick Grown Children Out

If your grown kids have basically become a permanent fixture on your couch, or are not fulfilling their part of the contracted arrangement by putting in the time and effort to find a job and move out on their own, the freeloading and mooching stops now. If you have been spending months or years trying your darndest to get a lazy, unmotivated, abusive, disrespectful adult child to move out on their own, implement Tough Love 101.

“In the final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” Ann Landers

Close your wallet or checkbook and put up a handmade sign over “their” bedroom door saying the bank of mom and dad is hereby closed for business, effective immediately. Parents should not enable their grown children, keeping them from growing up and becoming independent, by giving them money when they are old enough to earn it for themselves. Doing so deprives and cripples them of the opportunity and need to grow into mentally, emotionally and spiritually mature human beings providing for their own needs and wants. Encourage and motivate, yes. Enable, no.

Decide on a move-out date and circle it in red on the calendar, then place it in a location in plain sight and mark off each day that passes towards the final move date. Have a formal, sit-down conversation with your adult child(ren) and explain the move-out date and that it is nonnegotiable. No extensions are allowed. Whether it’s 30 days, 60 days or 90 days is up to you parents, but the maximum number of days is ninety. Moving out sooner is fine (and preferred), but no compromises to the set date may be made that extends their stay.

Greatly reduce the comfort level of your grown kids home environment in order to force them to leave home, finally. That means stop cooking for them; stop cleaning up after them; stop doing their laundry; stop being their taxi service or chauffeur; stop giving them money for any reason; stop paying their bills; stop buying their favorite foods, drinks, alcohol, snacks and cigarettes on your dime. Do not give handouts of money for food, clothing or entertainment either. Parents are also under no obligation to include adult children to tag along, and pay for expenses, when mom and dad go out for an evening of fun.

Remove the TV and remote from their bedroom, along with other electronic devices and unnecessary luxury items, and implement a “no friends over” rule. Put a padded lock on your bathroom and bedroom doors and hang onto the key, where you can hide or lockup items your grown kids should not have free access to. Shut off and discontinue service to all non-essentials: internet, cable and mobile cell phone services. By this point, your kids will likely have gotten a clue that you mean business and they need to move out. No if, and’s or but’s about it.

If not, then some tough love advocates advise making things disappear around the house. Things like toilet paper in bathrooms other than your own, paper towels, napkins, use of the microwave (hide it away), closet hangars etc. Before I would go so far as to start dismantling beds and hiding away stuff these kids leave around, I would be more inclined to simply ask for the house key, open the front door and escort the kid outside and close the door and lock it. Then change the locks or have a locksmith come and do it.

Understand that many of these suggestions and ideas are intended as a last resort, when you’ve tried everything else to motivate, help without enabling and encourage your grown kids to move out on their own. Where they belong. This is not about being a control freak or controlling the lives of your grown children.

The question of how to throw grown children out of the house is, by far, one of the most frequent questions I have received by parents to date. This is about restoring the peace and tranquility to your home and marriage, and your own financial stability and wellness before you parents and/or grandparents lose your entire savings or retirement accounts to unmotivated, lazy, entitled slackers and moochers who have overstayed their welcome in your house. No more free rides in life. Kick ‘em out once and for all. It’s for their own good, and yours.

Similar Posts:

• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers
• Parenting Tips-Raising Children With Tough Love

Are you a people pleaser? Do you care what people think about you? Should you care what other people think about you or not? Do you have the “disease to please” people in your life to the point where you feel like you have become someone’s personal doormat to wipe their dirty feet on? Do you have difficulty saying no to requests and then feel angry or resentful because you said yes, again? Who is pulling your strings?

By definition, people pleasers are people who have a disproportionate and unhealthy need in their personality to give in to the wants, whims and desires of others around them, to the point of sacrificing their own wants or needs. People pleasers, pushovers and doormats lack assertiveness skills and hold back from speaking up and saying what they really think or feel, and they hold back from asking for what they need or want because they’re worried someone will get upset about it.

Having a people pleasing personality is great…..until. Being considerate, thoughtful, gracious and willing to help others are admirable traits and characteristics, but suffering from doormat syndrome or being a people pleaser to your own detriment are not so admirable. People pleasers put other people’s needs before their own, rarely doing things for themselves and then feel guilty about it.

People pleasers spend time with difficult people who don’t care about or consider other people’s wants or needs above their own- not even a little bit. People pleasers will jump through hoops, so to speak, to make unhappy, insensitive, selfish, ungrateful, controlling, mentally and emotionally abusive people feel better about themselves, to their own detriment. If you are tolerating problematic family relationships out of a sense of duty, obligation or a sense of Christian responsibility, your personal concept and belief system of what family is or isn’t needs to be reexamined and analyzed closely.

People Pleasers and Doormat Syndrome

Are you dealing with extremely difficult people in your life? What does the term “toxic people” mean to you? Do you find yourself in personal or professional relationships where you feel used, abused, battered and beaten down mentally, emotionally, or perhaps even financially? Do you habitually give in to people because the mere thought of displeasing or upsetting them is too much for you to deal with? Do you spend too much of your time, energies or money trying to keep other people happy because of fear of what they will think of you if you stopped? Why do you care what others think about you?

If you routinely put your own needs aside because of wanting to make other people happy, perhaps discovering that he or she is not the least bit grateful or genuinely appreciative for the things you do, you are a classic people pleaser. Here’s some advice: Stop being a martyr, victim, people pleaser or doormat stressing out and worrying about what other people may or may not think of you.

Stop caring what people think about you and start living your life free of the stress, worry and anxiety about what others think or want from you. The cost of caring what your boss, coworkers, subordinates, friends, family members, spouse, grown adult children, parents, inlaws, siblings or other difficult relatives think about you needs to stop. Allowing the opinions of others in your life to control, manipulate and trample on your self-worth is too high a price to pay to feel accepted, liked, loved or validated.

Who is the puppet master in your life? Can you afford the high cost of people pleasing? If you suffer from people pleaser “excess niceness” syndrome, consider the following list of costs typically associated with being a people pleaser or doormat.

Loss of identity, self-respect, self-esteem and personal integrity. Burnout. Nagging doubt about being “good enough” for others. A debilitating sense of guilt, shame, insecurity and inability creating and maintaining healthy boundaries in relationships. Difficulty or problems managing, leading or supervising others at home and/or work; inability or difficulty trusting others, accepting kindness, positive feedback or heartfelt compliments from others. Difficulty making decisions, sticking with and accomplishing personal goals, because people pleasers inherently make others a priority over themselves.

People pleasing personality types find it virtually impossible to deny any or all requests made upon them even when doing so creates stress, chaos, financial burden, anxiety attacks, depression and even bankruptcy. The need for the approval and acceptance of others becomes debilitating for people pleasers, where fear of saying no and the intense aversion to confrontations or angry reprisals causes people pleasers to give in time after time after time.

Stop caring what people think about you. Relying on the opinions of others for approval, acceptance and validation is a self-sabotaging behavior and is detrimental to your health, happiness and wellbeing. Harriet B. Braikder, Ph.D writes in her book The Disease To Please, “As a people-pleaser, you feel controlled by your need to please others and addicted to their approval. At the same time, you feel out of control over the pressures and demands on your life that these needs have created”. Does that sound rational to you?

Not caring how other people think or feel towards you doesn’t mean that you should become selfish or egotistical, or that you should make your personal wants, preferences and needs the only priority in your life. Not at all. I’m suggesting that your needs are just as important as anyone else’s; that you should avoid seeking acceptance or approval from people who have their own selfish agenda.

Do things for others because you really care about them and want to, rather than out of fear that they won’t like you or will abandon you if you don’t do what they want. Stop allowing other people’s opinions, needs or wants to control or dictate who or what you are as a person.

If someone doesn’t like you or stops liking you because you don’t do what they want, then you’re being used by them and they are not someone you need in your life anyway. Take your power back. Learn to let go of the disease to please other people and remind yourself that you ARE good enough!

Similar Posts:

• Toxic Relationships – Toxic Family Members
• Color Blind Love-A Look At Interracial Relationships
• Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind
• Empty Nest Syndrome-Children Leaving Home, What Do I Do Now?
• How to Be a Good Son-In-Law: Building a Great Son-In-Law Relationship With Your In-Laws

Goal setting, setting personal goals and financial goals in 2009 is what many of us are focusing our time and energies on, as opposed to making new year resolutions that are too often forgotten and dismissed within a matter of weeks.

With the current economic recession and concerns about job layoffs, getting out of debt or managing debt, the increasing number of home foreclosures in the U.S. etc, making a goal to get smart about money and money management is a wise decision for individuals and families.

Personal Finance Blogs

“Telling It Like It Is” is not a personal finance blog per se, although I have talked at length about the Entitlement Epidemic that has been running rampant in society for many years, and the effect entitlement has had on young children, teenagers, grown adult children and parents.

I am subscribed to a generous number of personal finance blogs who offer great advice, suggestions, reviews and recommendations on setting personal goals, financial goals, being frugal and saving money, as personal finance and frugal living is of interest to me.

I’ve read numerous goal setting software reviews and ultimately decided on the goal setting software that I liked best; I’ve purchased Suze Orman’s new book, “Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan”, and am currently re-reading Suze Orman’s book, “Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny” while waiting for Suze’s Action Plan book to arrive in the mail.

My Personal Goals for 2009

I hate to admit it, but I need to lose a few pounds since I’m beginning to develop a big belly, so losing weight is just one of my personal goals this year. Losing thirty five pounds by August 2009 is quite doable in my opinion. After reading many elliptical reviews and deciding between an elliptical trainer vs. treadmill, I’m confident I will lose this weight with the help of my brand new Elliptical Trainer, the Alli Weight Loss pill and a low-calorie, low-fat diet plan.

I/we have set financial goals for 2009 as well, so I thought I’d share with you a few blog posts that I’ve been reading lately, and while you’re at it be sure to subscribe to these blogs (don’t forget to subscribe to Telling It Like It Is too) for free updates either by RSS feed or email subscriptions.

• The Keys to Financial Balance
• Personal Finance: Eliminate Credit Card Annual Fees
• Save Money on Your Cell Phone Plan
• Have Some Fun This Weekend Without Spending A Lot Of Money
• How To Keep Mindful And Committed To Goals And Resolutions
• 7 Ways Being Unbalanced Can Make You More Productive

What are your personal or financial goals for 2009? Lose weight? Get out of debt? Manage debt and/or save money? Start an emergency fund? Find a job or find a better job? Keep your house from going into foreclosure? Spend more time with your family?

Similar Posts:

• Oprah.com/download Suze Orman 2009 Action Plan Book
• New Year’s Resolutions: In One Year, Out the Other
• 2010 Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions
• Join a Gym or Workout At Home – Exercise for Beginners
• Paying For College – Should Parents Pay For College Tuition?

I recently had the opportunity to interview Allison Bottke about her book, Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children, and I have one extra book that I’m going to give away! It is my hope that this book will really help an enabling parent, one that is struggling with the stress of getting an adult child to take care of him or herself financially, and in any other way.

If you haven’t yet had the chance to read my interview with Allison, I recommend you do so, as she is a phenomenal author and she gave a great interview.

This book giveaway is for Allison Bottke’s book, Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents. The winner will be chosen by random draw on Wednesday, May 14th and will be notified by email, along with the request for full name and U.S. only address of where to send the book.

If you are interested in entering the drawing for Allison’s book, please let me know by leaving a comment below, with the understanding that I will not spam you or use your information for anything other than this book giveaway.

Have you made Mother’s Day plans yet? Whatcha gonna do?

Similar Posts:

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If you have not yet heard of Allison Bottke and her latest book, Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing, I would like to introduce to you this brilliant author. I recently had the opportunity to interview Allison about her book, and her efforts to help parents who are struggling with adult children living at home, and the often burdensome problems parents are experiencing in learning the difference between helping and enabling.

Allison is a frequent guest on radio and TV programs around the country, the 700 Club featured her life story in what has become one of their highest rated programs ever, and she has appeared on the covers of such national magazines as Writer’s Digest, BOND, The Christian Communicator, O.H. Magazine and others. With 23 non-fiction and fiction books published since 2001, Allison speaks and teaches at conferences around the country. Her column for baby boomer women, Boomer Babes Rock! appears monthly in Christian Women Online (CWO). Without further ado, please allow me to introduce Allison Bottke to Telling It Like It Is.

A special opening message from Allison Bottke: I want to personally thank Lin for taking the time to read my newest non-fiction book and for sharing it here today on the Setting Boundaries May Blog Tour. Lin, You are helping to spread the word about a topic that desperately needs to be addressed—with a message already striking a chord in hearts around the nation.

Our country is in a crisis of epidemic proportion concerning adult children whose lives are spinning out of control—leaving parents and grandparents broken-hearted and confused. This painful issue is destroying individuals, families, marriages, churches, and communities. I believe in my heart that you are reading this message today for a very specific reason. Do you know someone who has an adult child who is always in crisis? An adult child who brings chaos to virtually every situation? Could this painful issue be touching your life today?

If so, there’s a truth I’ve come to embrace that has changed my life—it can change yours, too. It’s taken me more years than I care to admit, but I no longer believe in “coincidences.” The truth I’ve come to embrace is that God is the Master of orchestrating “God-cidences.” He has a plan for who he wants us to meet, what lessons he wants us to learn, even what books he wants us to read. He even has a plan for the trials and tribulations of life.

When we begin to look at everything that happens to us throughout the day as “God-cidences” (and not accidental coincidences) it changes the way we view our world.

That said, my prayer is that you will see the following message and the book; Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing as a “God-cidence” placed into your life today for a powerful purpose. Perhaps it’s to help heal your family or the family of a loved one. Perhaps you are here to help us introduce this resource to a broader audience via additional media contacts you may have. Whatever the “God-cidence” may be, please know our primary goal is to bring hope and healing to families around the nation—thank you for helping us do that.

I pray you will view what you are about to read as a “God-cidence” meant just for you.

God Bless and Keep You,

Allison Bottke

LIN: The book comes out of your own personal experience with your son. Please tell us about that.

ALLISON: For years I really thought I was helping my son. I wanted him to have the things I never had growing up. I love my son, and I didn’t want him to hurt—but sometimes pain is a natural result of the choices we make. For a long time I didn’t understand the part I was playing in the ongoing drama that had become my son’s life—I didn’t understand that I didn’t have to live in constant chaos and crisis because of his choices. When I chose to stop the insanity and start living a life of hope and healing my life changed. It’s a feeling I want other struggling parents and grandparents to experience. I want other parents to know that change is possible when we choose to stop the destructive cycle of enabling. And we can stop it. I know, because I’ve done it.

LIN: How can we determine whether we are helping versus enabling our children?

ALLISON: Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself.

Enabling is doing for someone things that he could and should be doing himself.

An enabler is a person who recognizes that a negative circumstance is occurring on a regular basis and yet continues to enable the person with the problem to persist with his detrimental behaviors. Simply, enabling creates an atmosphere in which our adult children can comfortably continue their unacceptable behavior.

LIN: What are some of the most common ways that parents enable their children?

ALLISON: Being the Bank of Mom and Dad, or the Bank of Grandma and Grandpa. Loaning money that is never repaid, buying things they can’t afford and don’t really need. Continually coming to their rescue so they don’t feel the pain—the consequences—of their actions and choices. Accepting excuses that we know are excuses—and in some instances are downright lies. Blaming ourselves for their problems. We have given too much and expected too little.

LIN: You say there are two separate yet intrinsically combined things going on when we look at the pathology of enabling our adult children, what are those two things?

ALLISON: #1. We have the issue of the dysfunctional child himself—the product of our enabling. Most often, we are dealing with adult children who have no concept of healthy boundaries as they pertain to their parents and grandparents. Many are dealing with addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, gambling, and more. Some of these children are involved in illegal activity, while others have been in and out of jail numerous times. Some are abusive to us. Some have jobs while others do not, most have extreme financial challenges.

Others are still living at home, and some have even moved their spouse or “significant other” into their parents’ home with them. Many have been in and out of treatment centers, most often at the urging (and cost) of their parents. While we cannot change the behavior of our adult children, we can change how we respond to their actions and to their choices. We can, and must, begin to establish healthy boundaries and rules.

#2. Then, we have the issue of our own personal health and growth (or lack thereof.) For many of us, we have spent years taking care of, bailing out, coming to the rescue, making excuses for, crying over, praying for, and otherwise focusing an unhealthy amount of time and attention on this adult child, that we have neglected our own mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.

Many of us have neglected other family members as well, as the adult child has taken so much of our energy. Some of us are now experiencing severe financial ramifications from having enabled our adult child. Others are finding their marriage falling apart as tempers flair and situations spiral out of control. What is it inside us that makes us respond in such a way—that makes us enable our adult children?

LIN: What are some things that parents can do to break the cycle of enabling?

ALLISON: Follow the six steps to S.A.N.I.T.Y.: Stop blaming yourself and stop the flow of money. Stop continually rescuing your adult children from one mess after another. Assemble a support group of other parents in the same situation. Nip excuses in the bud. Implement rules and boundaries. Trust your instincts. Yield everything to God, because you’re not in control. These six things can start a parent on the road to S.A.N.I.T.Y. in an insane situation that is spinning out of control. However, a key issue in breaking the cycle of enabling is to understand whose problem it really is.

LIN: What is the ultimate goal of Setting Boundaries?

ALLISON:While recognizing and identifying enabling issues must come before positive change can be made, it is the eventual peace and healing parents will feel as they gain power in their own lives that is the goal of this book. It’s a tough love book for coping with dysfunctional adult children, as well as getting our own lives back on track, Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children empowers families by offering hope and healing through six S.A.N.I.T.Y. steps. I walk parents through a six step program to regaining control in their home, and in their life.

LIN: What are the six steps for hope and healing you refer to in Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children?

ALLISON: S.A.N.I.T.Y. Six Steps for Regaining a Healthy Relationship with Adult Children

S = STOP Enabling, STOP Blaming Yourself, and STOP the Flow of Money
A = Assemble a Support Group
N = Nip Excuses in the Bud
I = Implement Rules/Boundaries
T = Trust Your Instincts
Y = Yield Everything to the Higher Power of God (Surrender)

LIN: Tell us about the S.A.N.I.T.Y. Support Group Network you founded. How can people get involved? ALLISON: The “A” step in S.A.N.I.T.Y. is to ASSEMBLE a support group. This is a vital component in being able to look at our situations more objectively. We have developed a powerful Companion Study Guide that can be read individually or in a group setting. This Companion Study Guide contains all the information you need to conduct a S.A.N.I.T.Y. Support group in your neighborhood or community. Visit our web site here to find out more: .The S.A.N.I.T.Y. Support Group Network is a powerful resource to help parents and grandparents who have challenging adult children gain S.A.N.I.T.Y. in a world spinning out of control. During the years I spent as an enabling parent there were no support groups available for me as a parent in pain. Although it’s a tremendously successful program, AA wasn’t quite right for me, and I attended a few Alanon meetings, but the kind of empowering strength I needed for my situation wasn’t available. I needed to hear from others who had walked in my shoes—I needed to hear what they were doing that worked. I needed people around me who would lovingly hold me accountable to my own choices as I experienced the journey of parenting and enabling a dysfunctional adult child. I needed an action plan to help me make changes in my life.I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt as I was writing Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Child that a vital part of the outreach would be the development of an international support group network based on the six S.A.N.I.T.Y. steps I had developed.We need a resource that can help us to set appropriate boundaries and get some S.A.N.I.TY. in our households, as well as assuring us that we are walking in God’s will. Following the steps outlined in Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Child is a start in addressing this issue. Attending, and/or facilitating a S.A.N.I.T.Y. Support Group in your community is the next vital step in gaining hope as you walk the often painful path to healing.

ALLISON: I encourage your readers to tell me what they think about Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing. I really do want to hear reader feedback. They can reach me at: SettingBoundaries@SanitySupport.com. Please be sure to visit our web site at http://www.sanitysupport.com/blogtourguests.htm where they will find additional resources for helping them on their road to S.A.N.I.T.Y. Remember to tell a friend in need and help save a life!

I would like to personally thank Allison for taking the time out of her busy tour schedule to speak with me personally about a topic I am very passionate about. It is my sincere hope that parents have been helped to understand that enabling children (whether adults, teenagers or even younger children), is harmful to their wellbeing and it needs to stop now.

Related Posts:

Are Parents Helping or Enabling Their Adult Children?

Helping and Enabling: Is There A Difference?

Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors

How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us

How To Teach Children about Money and Money Management

Parenting Tips: Raising Children With Tough Love

Closing The Bank of Mom and Dad

Raising Independent Children, Not Moochers

Children Who Refuse To Grow Up

A Sense of Entitlement

Similar Posts:

• Book Giveaway: Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children
• Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
• Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
• How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
• Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers