 In 2005, David Foster Wallace addressed the graduating class at Kenyon College with a speech that is now one of his most read pieces. He began with a parable: There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the heck is water?”
At Kenyon, Wallace elaborated on his water parable saying that the point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. The fact is that in the day-to-day trenches of our existence, commonplace platitudes can have a life-or-death importance. Nearing the end of his speech, he said that the capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of learning, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water. This is water. Applying this to our family relationships, we need to ask ourselves some extremely important questions:
 Recently, my husband and I had the amazing opportunity to take a cruise along South America and through parts of Antarctica. Our cruise included a few experts who educated us about the early explorers who courageously ventured out into the unknown, the sea life and birds who live there, and of course, the icebergs. Reflecting on all this new knowledge, I realized that there are many parallels between icebergs and relationships. Did you know that there are different classifications for icebergs? They range from small bergs that are 5 to 15 meters above the surface to exceptionally large bergs that are larger than 75 meters. Small ones that have broken off are called bergy bits (1-5 meters) and less than 1 meter in size are referred to as growlers. Smaller chunks of ice that have broken off are called brash ice. If we think about the challenges that exist in our current relationships, perhaps we could categorize how we are doing--do we have some small problems that float around us and surface now and then? Or do we have a small or medium berg that is we know are there between us, but we are cautious about getting too close? Are we avoiding the bergy bits and the larger bergs or are we courageous enough to begin addressing them? In many ways, understanding and deepening our connections with those we care about is one of the biggest unexplored areas with amazing and wonderous discoveries to be made Like the iceberg, often, what we see and experience in another person is what is visible "above the surface." Like the cruise ship, we must navigate carefully as we discover what lies below the waterline. For each of us, we have our personality and inventive minds, but we also bring with us all our life experiences, what we learned from our parents, caregivers, and teachers, and what we have inherited from our ancestors and the world that we live in. Our past impacts our present relationships. Discovering better ways to listen, understand and have empathy for ourselves and others takes intention, willingness to grow, develop, change, and learn new ways of connecting to each other. If you have an area of your life that you would like to explore how to do this, I encourage you to find a small group, a coach, a book, a partner, child, or friend to begin working on this. You can check out what I am offering below and message me if you have questions. Doing Life With Your Adult Children (starts Sunday, February 18) Adult Children Creating Connection in Relationships Create Connection 1-1 Coaching Coaching With Myrna Stay tuned for an Inner Child Small Group starting soon   Dr. Jim Burns, author, speaker, and president of HomeWord has used his experience raising three daughters and speaking with and learning from thousands of other parents to develop nine principles that can help parents of adult children through common challenges in a productive way. The first principle is that our role as the parent must change.
Our old job description for two decades of was that we were the parent, in control and it was our clear-cut responsibility to be our children's providers, caretakers, and nurturers. Even when our children disagreed, they ultimately knew that we were the bosses. The new job description requires us to, first, love them enough to let them go. In order to rewrite the script and establish a new relationship with our adult children, we need to fire ourselves from our old job of being in control and daily nurturing. In fact, this is essential for them to transition from adolescence to responsible adulthood. Dr. Burns says in our new role, we need the following four strategies: 1. Be encouraging but not intrusive 2. Be caring, but do not enable dependency 3. Invest in your own emotional, physical, and spiritual health 4. Have serious fun and enjoy life He says in his book Doing Life With Your Adult Children, " It's important to me that you know these nine principles aren't just abstract theory. They were developed and applied primarily in the lab of doing life with my own adult children. Although my career has given me a platform to write and speak on topics such as parenting, marriage, and relationships, this is a much more personal book. I wanted to figure out how to be the best possible dad to my adult children, who are the deepest joy and greatest challenge. At this stage in my journey there is more joy than challenge, but it hasn't always been easy." To support you in this journey of navigating the challenging and rewarding relationship with your adult children, join me in a 7 week online series using resources by Jim Burns, Ph.D entitled "Doing Life With Your Adult Child--Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out." For more information and to register: Adult Children If you missed the previous blogs on this topic: doing-life-with-your-adult-child.html keep-the-welcome-mat-out.html  Most parents of adult children have said that they lost sleep worrying about their kids when they were younger, but perhaps surprisingly, some stress and wonder nearly as much about them when they are grown. How many of you have thought or said one or more of the following:
Jim Burns, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and president of HomeWord which seeks to advance the work of God in the world by educating, equipping, and encouraging parents and churches to build God-honoring families from generation to generation. In his book entitled, "Doing Life With Your Adult Children--Keep Your Mouth Shut & the Welcome Mat Out," he says: "My goal is to give you hope and encouragement on your journey. Like Cathy and me, you may have nights when you lie awake and wonder, What in the world is going on with my kid? Today, now that our kids have gotten older, we are experiencing the incredible joy of grandparenting and have made the transition from an adult-child relationship with our kids to our dream of an adult-adult relationship. Has it been easy? For us, not really. Have the principles introduced in my book and course helped us? Yes, immeasurably. My prayer is that this content will reassure you that life with your adult child can be the best years of your relationship. Keep the welcome mat out." To support you in this journey of navigating the challenging and rewarding relationship with your adult children, join me in a 7 week online series using resources by Jim Burns, Ph.D entitled "Doing Life With Your Adult Child--Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out." For more information and to register: Adult Children  Parenting is tricky business. For the first twenty or so years of your child's life, your job is to teach and guide them. Often, we give our children unsolicited advice or even override their choices. Then comes the day when they are all grown up, ready to move out and live on their own. We must loosen our grip and begin a new level of relationship with them as young adults. If you are like me, this is not easy.
"Parents have such a hard time letting go of their control," says Dr. Jennifer Freed, a psychotherapist and licensed marriage and family counselor. “It's not that parents are trying to butt in because they think their child is incapable; it's because they're concerned about their child's welfare and think they can help by sharing their experiences.” The reality is that our concern often doesn't come across this way. Our adult children feel like we are still treating them as a child. And everyone needs to make their own mistakes and learn from them – that is a necessary part of a the ongoing growth process. So how do we help guide our grown kids without coming across as bossy or nagging? To begin with, we need to learn to treat our child more like an adult friend instead of a kid. Lowering our expectations on how often they call us, biting our tongues when we want to give them advice, and being careful about rescuing them from their mistakes are all important. Remember, you raised them for this. You raised them to be adults, to embrace the world, to take risks, to be themselves and to be who God designed them to be. They’ll explore and make mistakes just like you did. To support you in this journey of navigating the challenging and rewarding relationship with your adult children, join me in a 7 week online series using resources by Jim Burns, Ph.D entitled "Doing Life With Your Adult Child--Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out." For more information and to register: Adult Children |