Thanks for tuning in for Gospel Solutions for Families on the Mormon Channel. This show is all about offering practical, relevant tips for raising children in faith. I'm your host, Amy Iverson.

Today we're tackling a topic many of you can probably relate to: guilt, particularly unloading that unnecessary guilt that can come when your child chooses to live a lifestyle different from what you taught and expected. Maybe they don't believe in God and don't want to go to church. Maybe they don't want to go to college. Maybe they don't want to get married. Or maybe they've chosen a different way, and you're beating yourself up, asking the question, "What did I do wrong?" Joining me from Boston via Skype is Robin Zenger Baker, the author of Finding Peace When a Child Chooses Another Path. Robin is a mother with firsthand experience with this topic. She recently completed a degree in family therapy and counseling and also has degrees in psychology, organizational behavior, and a PhD in organizational strategy. Robin, thank you so much for joining us today. It's nice to be here. So I want to start with a question about something that I think happens to a lot of us. We're having a fight with our kid, or maybe we get that phone call if they don't live in our house anymore, and they're just saying, "I don't want to live this life that you have taught me." What is our first-blush reaction? What is the right way to handle that when it hits us the first time? Well, that's a great question. I think the immediate reaction I assume everybody would have would be to kind of panic and to want to tell your child, "No, you don't really think that way." But I think that's probably a big mistake. And I think at that point you might want to regroup and just try to listen to your child and try to figure out where they're coming from. And if you can just stay curious about what they're experiencing, that would probably help the most. Right, so don't panic. Find out the reasons behind what they're saying. And sometimes it might be OK to say, "I need a minute to think about this"? Yes, definitely, yeah. Sometimes those conversations get so intense, you just have to say, "I think I need a break for a sec." Now, I know that it's different whether your child is an adult or if they're still living in your home. But I think a lot of times, kids feel like we're forcing the Church or the gospel on them, or whatever lifestyle that we're teaching them. And how do we teach that to them without them feeling like we're forcing it on them? I think that's a great question. I think when a kid is still living in your home, you're going to just be doing your best to teach them whatever you possibly can about how to live the gospel, and to follow through on the principles that you feel are so important. And I think once they hit an adult age, it becomes important to just trust that what you've taught them has sunk in already and not to become repetitive. Just believe that they already know what you think. That doesn't mean you don't ever say anything anytime, but I think it's important not to just get repetitive and try and hit them over the head with what you want them to believe. And I think that that might be easier when they are adults and they're out of your home. When they're younger and they are maybe in middle school or high school years, you do have to force, I guess is the word, some things. If you want them to attend church with you, say, you may have to force that issue. That can be tough, though. Well, that's very true. I never love the word "force." I think "encourage strongly" or perhaps "require" might be a different way to put that. And I know for us, in our family, we definitely wanted our kids to continue to get a spiritual education even when they didn't always love going to church. I can remember when my son was even seven years old, he was just done with Primary. And luckily, he got a Primary teacher who brought good snacks and he could relate with. But I think it is easy for kids to want to say, "Why should I go to church? It's just not that much fun." We always felt like school was a legal responsibility, and a spiritual education was also very important. I like the idea that you actually did with your daughter, I believe, where you said, "We want you to have a spiritual education. If it's not with our church, choose a different one." And tell me about how that worked. OK, so when our daughter hit a certain age, she said, "I'm done with church." And we said, "OK, fine, but you still need to continue to get a spiritual education. So if you don't want to go to our church, I'll support you. Let's find another church you feel like you'd like to go to and that would be more comfortable for you." And it ended up that she didn't really follow through on that. But I did call and find out, "If someone wanted to find out about this other church, what would you do?" And the person I talked to was very baffled by that. And I just had to laugh because I knew exactly what would happen if someone in our Church had said, "How would someone find out about this Church?" because we would immediately send the missionaries. But our daughter ended up not wanting to go to another church. I said, "OK, great, then I guess you'll be coming to ours." And she didn't really want to come to Young Women, so she ended up helping me teach Primary for a while. And she was a really good teacher, so she was a very big asset in my class. Well, and I'm sure that was validating for her to have you acknowledge her feelings and try to come up with a solution instead of just saying, "No, you're coming to church." Yup, yup. It's always tricky to know how much you really can require and how much kids should be making their own decisions. It's always tricky. It is, and I think it's different for every kid. And I think there's that balance, too. Help me with this. When you're acknowledging their feelings, trying to understand the different path that they're taking but letting them know you're not condoning those actions, how do you balance that? I think that when kids get to a certain age, they've heard what you've been teaching them for so long, and I think they know what you think. And you can remind them, or you can kind of be playful about it. But I think anytime you are calling your adult child to repentance, it may do more harm than good. Not always, but I think to constantly remind your child who may be smoking or something like that, "You know, I don't really think you should smoke," can be awkward. I think at some point, you just want to cut your losses and say, "My child's smoking right now. I'm going to tolerate that. And I just want to maintain my relationship with my child." And I think a lot of us can get to that point, again, when they're out of the home. For those of us dealing with teenagers--like, I have two--it's a little more difficult, and some of those choices they're making. And you're trying to be loving; you're trying to show them you're proud of them, you love them. But what is that subtle way to let them know you don't agree with those actions? Or do we have to take it a step beyond that and say, "You can't do that while you live here"? So if you're talking about teenagers who are living in your home, and they're not yet 18, and they haven't gone off to college, I think you can require quite a lot as far as them following the family rules.

At least that's how we chose to do it. I think when they become adults, then the rules change a bit and you have to just accept what they're doing, I mean, to some extent. You have to hope that things can change, but also accept that this is the way it is for right now so that it just doesn't become a point of conflict constantly. Yeah, we don't want that in our home all the time. No. And it's a struggle, I think, sometimes for parents to know if and when to turn to someone else for help, because they don't want to shame their child or make their child be judged in some way by the neighborhood or whatever. But who can we turn to? Who do you think is the best person or people to turn to when you're struggling with a child who's doing something you don't like? I think it's really helpful to turn to people who have also been through that, whose kids are struggling. At least that's what's been very helpful for me. I think prayer is also always very helpful. I used to always want to say prayers with--"OK, Heavy Father, just help me know, what do I need to learn today? What do I need to say today? What conversation do I need to have today that will help me understand my child better and help meet their needs?" I think it's not super helpful to turn to somebody who is judgmental and who doesn't get what your child's going through and who encourages you to just shun them or teach them a lesson, even though you'd like for that to work. But I just don't think it always does. I know, it's hard to know how much to disclose. And also I've noticed with a lot of my friends that social media plays a big part in this because when you're seeing other people saying, "Oh, So-and-so had his mission call," or "So-and-so went through the temple today," that can be hard on a parent who isn't checking off those things with their own child. How much does social media play a role in all of this? The guilt part. Social media for some people has got to be worse than for other people. Let's just put it that way. I think I had friends who found it very challenging to go to church, and especially in the ward where they lived, there was just one missionary farewell after another. And they just found that extremely painful when their child chose not to go on a mission. I mean, I think social media is a whole other can of worms where you can be jealous of a lot of things. You can be jealous of your friends for having great travel experiences, not just simply that their children seem to be doing better than you wish yours were. That says a lot about ourselves, too. Can you talk about how important it is just for us as parents to just get our lives in order? You talked about prayer as an important part of you just dealing with yourself as a parent. There's lots of things that I think we as parents can do to just kind of sanctify ourselves, in a way, so that maybe all of this other stuff going on doesn't seem as urgent and as horrible as we may think. Yeah. I feel like when I was first experiencing my daughter leaving the Church, or one of them, it was extremely painful. And I just thought, "Oh, my gosh, I have completely messed up as a parent, and I can never recover from this. People are going to think that our family's completely deficient." And I found it extremely helpful to read a story about a woman who was going through something very similar. And this is from a talk at the BYU Women's Conference by Virginia Pearce. And she found that it was very helpful for her to go to the temple regularly and to pray very hard. And she had heard that this had worked for other people who had other struggles. And she said after 10 years-- Whoa, 10 years. --she found that her children had not yet come back to the Church. But she said, "I have changed. I'm a different person. And my heart is softened, and I've come to be able to recognize the tender mercies of the Lord in my life where I've been able to understand the goodness of my children. And I'm a different person, and my heart has been softened, and I have a new attunement to other people's experiences and struggles." And I think that's really helpful to know that God doesn't always answer our prayers in the way we want Him to. And it certainly applies to this situation as well. But we become a different person if we continue to reach out to the Lord. I love that. I love to know that other people have had to wait 10 years or even longer, or maybe it never happens in this life, right? We're not alone. I think that's a big part of it, too. You mentioned feeling that guilt and worrying what people would think when your daughter decided not to come to church. I think a lot of people feel that "What will other people think?" thing, as much as we try not to. So what does that say about the rest of us? If everyone is kind of thinking that in their own head, how much more careful should we be, if we're not the ones dealing with it right now, about how we deal with those who have children who are making different choices? I think once you have a child who's made a choice that you don't love, all of the smugness factor leaves the room. Very humbling. You no longer can sort of secretly think to yourself, "Well, if they'd just done it a little better," or "If they'd just done it the way I do it, then everything would have turned out better." So I think it's very helpful, when people are struggling with these things, to find people that can be supportive for them and to maybe even set ground rules. And in our family, for instance, I had a family member who, every time I talked to her, she would ask me if my daughter had come back to Church yet. And I thought, "Trust me, as soon as she comes back, you'll be the first to know." And even just always asking about the most troubled child when you're talking to somebody on the phone, I think it's helpful if you can maybe start in the other order and talk about the kids who are doing OK, and then finish with a short-but-sweet summary of how your child's doing who might be struggling--unless, of course, the person you're talking to really needs to share the struggle. And there are some times you can gain some strength by letting some other trusted people know what's going on, because it does take a village. We say that all the time. But sometimes the more people you can get bolstering that child, the better. No, that's absolutely true. And the thing that helped me so much when I was struggling was to have these conversations with other people who had already been through it and who had important things to say, gave me new perspectives, who made me feel like I wasn't alone, and who just really helped give me that perspective that I was dying to have. So you talked to us about how Sister Pearce kind of sanctified herself in a way. Did you find yourself doing those things as well to kind of come to peace with what was happening? Yeah, to some extent I did. I think that I find it very interesting to talk to people. Conversations, for me, are very healing. Truthfully, I feel like when I pray, God sends me people, and which I really appreciate. So yes, I definitely felt inspiration, but I often felt that the inspiration I received came from conversations that I had with people. And I had one particular conversation with a man whose family--they had children who left. And I was just a basket case, and I just could not stop thinking about how sad this was. And I realized that I was just thinking such devastating thoughts. And he just asked me some very simple questions that he read in a book. The questions were, "How are your thoughts making you feel?" number one. Number two, "Are you 100 percent sure those thoughts are true?" And number three, "Can you think of a stress-free reason to hold on to those thoughts?" And four, "How would you feel if you didn't have those thoughts anymore?" And it really got me thinking about what thoughts I was having about this whole situation. And I realized that I had all these very difficult assumptions. One was, my daughter would never return. We would never be a close family again. She was never going to be a nice person. People would think less of our family. I was going to be sad for the rest of my life, and this was a tragedy. And as I thought about that more, I realized there was no real reason to know each of those things was true for sure, because, for instance, my daughter might return someday. The story's just half over--it's not even half over. We don't know where we are in the story. She very well could return. And as far as our family being close, we can be close if we work at it. This isn't a given that if one child leaves, that we are never going to be close again. It adds new challenges, and that is for sure. But that's not necessarily true. And then I worried that she would never be a nice person. And I thought, "Wait, she still is a nice person. We trained her to be a nice person. She's going to be a nice person." And she has been. That's definitely been part of our experience. And then, as far as people thinking less of our family, whether or not that's true, I actually don't have any control over that. That is something that's just going to happen in other people's minds, and it's not something that I need to worry about. And then as far as me being sad for the rest of my life, I have a lot of control over that. I don't want to be sad for the rest of my life. And I also think that this does not necessarily need to be a tragedy, because there's some learning to be had from going through this experience. I don't think I would have chosen this experience, but I think that there are some tender mercies we're going to be experiencing and that we already have experienced, and I think that I have some understanding that I wouldn't otherwise have. And I appreciate that. Tell us, though, you're kind of looking in--not in hindsight. I mean, you're still kind of going through this right now, but that takes a while. I think a lot of us feel a little hopeless. When you're in the thick of it and you're thinking, "This is never going to be over, and my life is ruined," tell us some steps that we can take to get to maybe where you are a little more quickly, maybe. OK. That's interesting because I was talking to a man last night who was reading my book, and he was just saying, "I am just so devastated." And he just talked about how difficult it was. And I know people who are right in the middle of it--right in the very beginning of it, especially. It is just so painful. And I've heard people say, "It's almost a worse feeling than losing children to death," which, I know that sounds so extreme, but this is exactly what someone said. So I think it's really helpful to think about how we can avoid feeling guilt and blame. And I think it's really helpful to remember that some of the leading families in the scriptures, including Adam and Eve, and Lehi and Sariah, had children who departed from the faith and who even wanted to kill each other. So I think sometimes we can remember, "Hey, at least our children don't want to kill each other." OK, I'm going to write that one down. A least there's no murder involved at this point. But no, you're right. And I think, sometimes I think of modern leaders in the Church and think, "Oh, I know they had a wayward child. I know they"--But you think about our Heavenly Father, going all the way back. Every one of His children isn't perfect, as we know. That's right, absolutely. And I think that we have a saying in the Church: "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." And for years that statement made me feel very sad. And I felt, "Oh, my gosh, if I don't succeed in this area, I've failed as a parent." And I love that Harold B. Lee once said, "No home is a failure as long as the home doesn't give up." And Elder Carmack also said that that statement was really meant to inspire parents to get involved with their children and to stay involved with them, and that any parent who puts in that kind of time and effort with their family, even if their children leave the Church, it doesn't mean that they're a failure. That is not what it means. And I think it's important to realize that success in the home is a multidimensional undertaking, and this one dimension doesn't have to be the only thing that we worry about and that we think about. And I think that it's important to realize that there's no perfect correlation between what we do at home and how kids turn out. And I remember hearing a story about a woman who spoke at the BYU Education Week, I think it was. And she brought in a wagon with 40 Book of Mormons to represent the number of times their family had read the Book of Mormon. And she said, "And still we have a child who's left the Church." And on the other hand, you have families where the parents don't go to church at all, but the kids find their way to church and they feel the call of the gospel. I think, too, that it's so important, as you mentioned, you're not a failure if there's love. That's what I thought you were going to say, because I didn't know your quote. But when you think about--can you focus on those things you love about your children but at the same time not turn a blind eye, but just put more of a focus on the things you love? No, that's absolutely true. I remember meeting a woman for the first time once, and--this has happened multiple times--and we find out we're both LDS. And the immediate thing they say about their child is, "Well, my child's not active." And while I think that is a really important piece to know, it may not necessarily need to be the first thing out of your mouth about your child. And I think we just need to savor the good qualities of our loved ones and to remember that they're a whole package, they're a whole person. And the fact that they're not going to church anymore, or whatever decision they're making that you don't love, doesn't have to be what defines them. And I love President Uchtdorf's comment about "Don't judge me"--or this is a bumper sticker: "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you." That's the best. Now, I liked a story that you had talked about. I think sometimes it's easier for parents to come to that point maybe a little quicker than the rest of our family. And when we feel like, as you mentioned, a friend who always brings up the troubled child first, or maybe you have family members who only focus on the tough things about that child. But you talked about some photos that were going up in--I can't remember whose home it was. And they chose to recognize the good in this child. Absolutely. I think, when it comes right down to it, you want to express as much acceptance as you possibly can of your child, no matter what they're doing, where they are, even if it's really, really challenging. And I love the story that you're referring to. And it's about a woman who, when she was about 18 years old, she decided that the Church wasn't right for her. And she had a very close, tight-knit family. And on her grandmother's wall, she had pictures of all the missionaries who had served in the family. And so each missionary had a picture, their name, and a flag from the country where they'd gone. And this young woman felt that no matter what she did, no matter how much good she did in the world, she would never make it up onto this missionary wall. And when she got a little older, closer to 30, she felt like she saw the light, and she wanted to go serve. And she ended up joining something like the Peace Corps, and she went over to Madagascar. And while she was there, she got word that her grandmother had put her picture up on the wall with the flag and her name. And it really touched her. And when she returned home, and she and her grandmother had this meeting in front of this all-important wall in this family's world, her grandmother just said, "Service is service." And I just love that story because it shows so well how we can reach out to our children, embrace their good qualities, even if they're not doing things exactly in the box that we predicted or hoped for or expected. Good for that grandma for seeing the big picture. So we talked a little bit earlier about how, with all of your studies, maybe you could help us as parents who are in this right now. And maybe we're at the beginning, or maybe we're right in it, and it hurts. What things can we do right now that are going to help us get through this experience? I think that is kind of the million-dollar question. I think anything we can do to keep a healthy perspective is useful. And some of the things that have helped me are to remember that we're all given different spiritual gifts. And our child may have more of a scientific mind, or maybe our child is somewhere on the--I don't know, on the autism spectrum, or maybe they have depression. Or maybe they just see the world differently, or they're slightly more impulsive, or it could be a million things. It could be something completely harmless, too. But I think we know from the scriptures that we all are given different spiritual gifts, and some are given to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and some are given to believe in their words. And I think that's just really helpful to remember. And then I think we can figure out ways to have healthy, stress-free conversations with our children. Sometimes those might be about safe topics that are perfect for your family. So in our family, the pets are always a safe topic of conversation. In other families--I know another family, they can always talk about the Red Sox baseball team. The weather. Is this because--sometimes my kids will say, "You're always only just telling us things to do." You need to have those times where you're not telling them to do things, but it's just a fun conversation. That's true. And then another really helpful piece of advice I read was about how you don't want to assume, when you're having a conversation with your child, that the reason they've left the Church is because of sin, or because they haven't read the scriptures enough, or because they haven't prayed enough. Because I think that just shames them, it marginalizes them, and that just doesn't need to be the first thing out of your mouth. And you'll probably do more damage than good if you try to figure out the root cause of why they've left. But I also really appreciate that, at least for our daughter, she's willing to let us still share stories that matter most to us about spiritual matters. So if we've been to church, and we've heard a great story that's about someone having an interaction with the divine, and maybe having some help in some problem that they're facing, I know that my daughter's not going to get a spiritual dose unless I give it to her. And I'm not really trying to bring her back to church, but I want to share with her something that felt really important to me. So I love that we were still allowed to have spiritual conversations with our child. I know not everybody wants to do that. So a big way, it sounds like, you feel is appropriate to shed some of that guilt is just perspective. That's kind of how it all bundles up to me. Yeah. No, I definitely think that's true. I think remembering where you are in the story--that you're not at the end already--is very, very helpful, too. I like that. I see that in vinyl lettering on somebody's wall: "Remember where you are in the story." Give us some perspective. I'll have to think about putting that up on my wall. And my last question is, how helpful do you think it is--and I know every child is different--but for them to talk to someone besides you, if they're willing, about what they're going through? Why not? That sounds great. Try everything, huh? Absolutely. And I definitely know stories of people who--one friend's son wasn't sure he wanted to go on a mission. And somebody had the bright idea that that kid should talk to her friend's son, and he ended up going on a mission. So yeah, you just never know when you're going to get that perfect, well-placed conversation. All right, thank you so much. I think those are some great tips for us. And it really boils down to when you're trying to get rid of that guilt, which no parent should have, that it's a lot about perspective and love and, of course, trying to do things to sanctify yourself so that you have a better perspective. Yeah, I think that sounds good. Our thanks to Robin for her great advice on unloading unnecessary guilt. Robin Zenger Baker is author of Finding Peace When a Child Chooses Another Path. And thank you all for tuning in. Gospel Solutions for Families on the Mormon Channel. Subscribe to the podcast on mormonchannel.org, the Mormon Channel app, or on iTunes. [MUSIC PLAYING]