Families Are Forever—  and So Is Parenthood
Principles of Parenting Adolescents and Young Adults

By Garth Hanson and Steve Hanson

Four principles can help parents find appropriate ways to be involved in the lives of their adult children.

Some fathers and mothers feel their parental charge ends when their children are “grown up.” Nudging sons and daughters out the door when they turn 18 may seem to be the “easy” solution, but when parents establish a self-imposed time limit to their parental duties, they often unwittingly push these responsibilities onto the shoulders of other people. Bishops’ offices, for instance, are frequently visited by adult children in need of parental guidance.

Although we may not realize it when our children are young, they may need some degree of parental direction until the day we die. The extent and the timing of our involvement in our adult children’s lives may vary with each child or each situation, but if we come unto Christ and rely on the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we can have divine assistance in making these often difficult decisions.

Within this context, the following four principles may be helpful to parents who are struggling in their relationships with their adult children. Although each family situation may be different, these principles may help parents determine how involved to be in their adult children’s lives, how to deal with issues of agency and accountability, and how to maintain their own spiritual and emotional well-being in the face of stressful circumstances.

Principle One: Parents never outlive their responsibility to their children.

Our leaders have been forthright about this. One statement representative of many will suffice here. President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) said: “Fathers [and certainly mothers too], yours is an eternal calling from which you are never released. … [A] father’s calling is eternal, and its importance transcends time. It is a calling for both time and eternity.” 1

While parental responsibility never ceases, it does change. After the birth of a child, parents provide for the baby’s every need. As the child grows, the amount of parental involvement decreases. Over time, the degree of involvement becomes harder for parents to determine. By the time children have reached adulthood, the complexity of determining the timing, extent, and direction of parental involvement in children’s lives sometimes causes parents to give up. As a result, they either assume a very passive role or stop those relationships altogether. When this happens, everybody loses. Parents feel alienated from their children’s lives and activities, and the children lose opportunities to draw on the wisdom their parents have accumulated through years of experience.

Parents generally spend more years with their offspring as adults than as young children or adolescents. They will be involved not only with their adult children but also with those who come into the family as their children marry and have children of their own. This expanded circle includes sons- and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and perhaps even step-grandchildren. Each of these relationships creates additional challenges.

A number of years ago, Raymond Hanson (Garth’s father and Steve’s grandfather) stood before family members who were gathered at a reunion. He was in his 90s at the time and had outlived three wives. His posterity then numbered over 200, most of whom were present. While physically feeble, Raymond spoke clearly and with power. He expressed his love for all of his family, including the “in-laws” and the “steps.” He bore a strong testimony of the gospel and invited those who were having spiritual challenges to change their lives so that the family could be together eternally. It was an emotionally charged moment for all who were there, as we watched the patriarch of our family magnify his role as a parent right up to the end of his life. We believe this is the way it ought to be.

Principle Two: Parents and adult children have the ability and the right to make choices independent of each other’s decisions and actions.

Several years ago Bob* was talking to his stake president following an interview the leader had recently had with Bob’s 21-year-old son, who had just returned from a mission. The stake president was glowing in his compliments about the son and concluded by saying to Bob, “You must be a marvelous father to have raised a son like that.”

Bob’s first impulse was to accept the compliment as well deserved. After all, he and his wife, Janice,* had always spent lots of time with their children, had tried to do everything the Lord expected of them, and had encouraged their son to go on a mission. But then the face of his daughter Enid* flashed into his mind. She was ending her second marriage; had challenges with dishonesty, promiscuity, and drugs; and had never been able to hold a job for longer than a few weeks. She had been raised in the same home and had been treated, as far as Bob knew, the same as his other children.

Bob didn’t take the compliment. Instead, his response surprised his stake president: “If you give me credit for what my son is doing, you have to give me the blame for what my daughter has done. I don’t think I deserve either.”

To what extent, if any, are parents responsible for their children’s behavior? That’s not an easy question to answer. Why are we the way we are? How much do our genes influence our behavior? What role does the home environment play?

As Latter-day Saints, our gospel perspective requires that we add two additional considerations when we seek to determine ultimate responsibility for actions and choices: the eternal nature of Heavenly Father’s children and their God-given moral agency. To understand these truths is to know that our personalities and dispositions may be affected by our family environment but not ultimately determined by it. Parents who have more than one child know intuitively that each child is unique and came into the world that way. The restored gospel explains why. It teaches that children come from a premortal existence with individual traits, personalities, and other characteristics.

Recognizing the right to make choices independent of each other’s decisions and actions is critical in maintaining a viable relationship between parents and adult children. Please consider the following:

• Children’s actions do not necessarily make a statement about how they were raised.

• Parents can influence but cannot ultimately control what their children do.

• Neither children nor parents can ultimately take from the other the right to choose.
Continue to Principles Three and Four