Loving Your Adult Children {Review}

 

Launching and parenting adult children can be a challenging period for both parent and child.  It's a time of uncertainty and confusion.  How much do you guide?  How often should you share advice?  And the issue becomes even more complicated when there are hurts on one or both sides.  What does it look like to love?

Author Gaye B. Clark takes a closer look at how love endures through the launching years of a parent/ child relationship.  In Loving your Adult Children, she take a grace-centered, Jesus-focused approach to parenting our children in this new phase of life.  This book flips the script by asking readers to focus on their own relationship with the Lord and allowing themselves to be shaped through their parenting journey.

As a parent of a young adult, and two following close behind, this book was very timely.  Launching young adults can be tricky.  Parenthood never really ends and yet, these children must find their own way of doing things outside of us.  It can be a challenging season of life.  Some of my favorite take aways from this book include: 

• "He is a good God, and we can trust him even when we can't see how things will work out."
• "We can feel grief and lament the paind of broken relationships.... But we should not grow bitter, sulk, and stay angry at God or our adult children.  To do this, we need godly friends in our lives, walking with us to help us know when we've strayed from lament and grief and into bitterness.
• "When dealing with those wandering away from the faith, we must recognize that soometimes they'll not start evaluating the deep questions of their lives until they find themselves in a situation where they don't know what to do."

Each chapter includes about 10 questions for personal reflection or group study.  Overall, this was a timely book for my stage of life.  This author really hits the heart of what's happening in a parent/adult child relationship and offers relevant advice and hope for this transition.  A rich read for anyone launching young adults into the world.

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for review.  All opinions are my own.