How to Parent an Adult Child Who’s Stuck, with Kim and Tom Muench

Well, thanks for joining me today. How's it going?

Good. And thanks for having us.

Well, I'm glad to talk to you. And my whole thing is I like to get to know couples. I appreciate that you— is that your book? Is it Lost in Place? Is that you?

Yes. Yes.

Very cool. I want to talk about that, but I really just want to talk about your, who you are, like who you are, how you make it work, what your experience has been. I know that, uh, I know that your, your area of your niche area, I guess, is around parenting. Is that correct?

Yes.

And you have your own children?

Yes, we have 4 together, and I had one before we got married. So we have 5 between 21 and 39.

Oh, right on. Cool. Well, I'm going to want to hear all about that. But for starters, let's just tell me a little bit about you 2. Tell me, tell me, how did you meet? What's your story?

Oh my God. We've been married 34 years. Our parents, Lived in a side-by-side townhome when we were very young, and they were very good friends. They went on to—

My dad went to the same high school as your dad.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a long history, but bottom line, his parents owned the townhome that both of our parents lived in while we were young, and my parents went on to buy their first house, and his parents moved out but continued to owned that townhome. Many years later, Tom was living in that townhome with his older brother and new wife, and I moved in—

My brother's new wife, not mine.

Right, sorry. Tom's brother's new wife. And I moved in with my son, who was at the time 3 years old, next door to that townhome. And our parents had been friends. But who lived there? My grandparents had lived in that townhome for like 50 years prior to that. They literally lived in that— So we shared

driveways between my parents' townhome.

Yes.

And the one that her grandparents lived in literally forever.

Yes.

And then she moved in once they moved to like an assisted living, active adult type community.

Yes. Yes.

Before you were adults, did the two of you ever bump into each other like on your bikes or something? Is that ever part of this?

Probably distance. I actually babysat for her.

Yeah. At one point.

And her brothers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was, it was when he was a teen. But you

know, because my parents went out with her parents I think New Year's Eve or something like that.

Yeah.

And it was more probably to watch her brothers who were a couple years younger.

I was the oldest.

Yeah.

Anyway,

so

that did happen. We did, we did on occasion see one another during those years because our parents were such close friends. Then when I moved in, I had recently broken up with my son's father and I needed a date to my company Christmas party and I thought he was cute, and so I asked him to go to the company Christmas party with me. And that was the start of us dating. And within 6 months, we were engaged and got married less than a year later. And we've been married 34 years.

Would've been a lot funnier story if you were like, I needed a date to my party, so I saw him and I asked him if he would babysit for my son.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That would be funny. Yeah.

How far apart are the two of you in age?

Two years.

So yeah, your babysitting gig was more like a come come watch my little brothers while yeah I go read a book in the other room or something. Yeah, right on.

But but our early early years of living in the townhome, I did get called a dork. So that was part of our relation or how she thought of me back then.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah. He graduated from being a dork at one point that I called him to being my husband of 34 years. So somehow we managed to work things through.

But you, okay, so I think tucked into that story, from the time that you went to the Christmas party to the time that you were like official was pretty quick.

Yeah.

It was, yeah.

How did you know?

I don't know, it, you know, 'cause obviously it was a different relationship than what I was used to 'cause she came with a 3-year-old. And so, I wasn't necessarily looking for a 3-year-old, but at some point in that time period, I felt this need to maybe be like one of those big brother, big sister type things. You will find it and take a kid out. Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden, Nick became the kid, per se. And obviously, our parents were brooding this on. Because they were friends. And so that fit well into their whole—

Scheme.

Yeah. I don't know. I was a single guy hanging out with friends and going out and doing whatever. But at some point I felt like, well, I should be this big brother. And I don't know what triggered that, probably because it might've been one of our accounts that we were working with or something. And it sounded like—

You're talking literal big brother. Like you're talking—

Yeah, like one of those big brother, the organization, big brother, big sister type. You

didn't have like just an inkling to be like, I think I wanna hang out with some young kids every now and again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it wasn't quite that, but it was like, I think our, one of our clients was, you know, and we used to do a lot of pro bono ad work for, you know, different organizations and they were one of 'em. And so probably got, you know, connected and that probably planted a seed. And, but it was kind of probably going through some of that time period. Yeah. And Nick happened to be— her son happened to be, you know, all of a sudden the little 3-year-old that kind of needed a dad in a way.

Yeah.

Well, he had a dad, but it was— we had a kind of a strained relationship. And maybe you felt like you could step in and be a positive male influence, right, in his life.

So then you get together. It's pretty quick.

When this whole thing started, we were then on a 2-year, 2-year, 2-year plan. 2 years engaged, or—

No, 2 years to get our first home. So we got married and Tom said, we're on a 2-year plan.

Well, a 4-year.

Well, we'll get— we want to have a house in 2 years.

Yeah. And then a child 2 years after that.

So that was the timeline that he thought Felt was comfortable. And what happened was the market was really good and we could afford to buy a house like—

So we got married in May, we bought a house in August, she found out she was pregnant in November.

Yeah, December. Yeah, we announced I was pregnant in December. So everything— Got moved up super fast. The 2-year plan we thought we were on.

Got cut in quarter. Tom, what was that about for you? The 2-year, 2-year, 2-year, 2-year thing? What was that?

I think you just, you kind of get settled, you try to, you know, have that relationship, And not necessarily the house could come, but I don't think we were necessarily talking about kids because, but I don't know, it kind of just happened, I guess. You know, if it would have probably been a different scenario if we wouldn't have had Nick, if she wouldn't already had a son, you know.

It maybe would have been, we maybe both would have been working and— Yeah. I mean, I was working at it. It wasn't that I wasn't working at the time. But we were already a family of 3, and it might have been a decent idea to, you know, really solidify our family. Mm-hmm. I was worried because Nick was 6 by the time Alan Michael was born. So Nick had just turned 6 when— or he was about to turn 6 when Alan Michael was born. And we were— I was concerned about how he would do because he's been the only— kid and grandkid in, you know, and I didn't know how he would respond to that, but I think that actually was good for him. I think, I don't think he ever, I think he really enjoyed having a baby brother.

He didn't feel jealous or anything like that, or? Yeah.

Yeah. One of the reasons I asked about the 2-year, 2-year, 2-year thing is that I was just, I was just, sometimes I get into these little, um, little shticks, these little scripts with my clients. You know how like you might cling to a story or a metaphor that you heard and then you'll like repeat it 4 or 5 times in the same week? Well, I did, today. I told the same story 3 times, so this is going to be number 4. But it's this idea that anthropologically, long-term relationships have a lifespan of about 3 years. And it's based kind of in the beginning of when tribes were wandering around and they were forming sort of survival of the fittest mentality. They would have a baby and then the partner would hang out for about 3 years and that baby would come to be about 3 years old, self-sufficient. And then she would try to have another baby and she might have it with 4 or 5 different guys. And then that might swap a partner who then swapped in as the new parent. It might be the same one. It kind of— the baby looks like you, okay, you're the primary. And then this 3-year thing kind of kept happening. And a lot of anthropologists will say, oh yeah, and that still exists now even though we're not wandering around survival of the fittest mentality because you meet somebody and then about 3 years you get married and about 3 years later you have a baby and about 3 years later you have another baby and about 18 years later those babies leave. And so I was wondering if that came from something specific or just kind of a mentality that you had of kind of like— I think probably more just a mentality.

Like it made sense. Let's get married or, you know, I was engaged, get married, buy a house, then have a kid.

Do you know, become a grownup?

Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah.

And now that happened very quickly instead of the 2-year, 2-year, 2-year.

You checked all your grownup boxes really fast. Right. So, so now you're grownup.

You know, how do you ask how, what did we think we knew? You know, I just think you feel that connection, you know, when you meet someone. Obviously, it had to be enough, you know, initially because you had a third person involved in the relationship, and that made it a unique dynamic, you know, overall. All

right, so you have your second child, or— and that's— who was that? That was Alan Michael, you said?

Alan Michael. Yes, Alan, Michael.

And then you end up with 3 more. How do you end up with 3 more? Like, what's the, how do you then keep building your family? I know how to make a baby. That's not the question I'm asking.

Yeah. Yeah. We were spacing 'em out, but I don't know if it was necessarily true. Oh, we want to have another child. That's, let's plan for it. You know, but I mean, I mean, I'm sure we had discussions about it, but then you would probably remember better, but I don't think we ever set a number like we're gonna have 2 kids, you know? your kid and my kid, you know, that's our family or something like that. But when we spaced it out, it was kind of this logic also, let's not have 2 kids in diapers and formula at the same time, 'cause that's costly. And it actually worked out very well as they, as we progressed with the others, because you always kind of had a built-in babysitter for mom and I, you know, us to go out and let's go to a movie, let's go grab a bite to eat, you know, pizza and a movie or something like that. Yeah. I mean, you have to get a babysitter all the time. 'Cause now Nick was old enough to watch, you know, the next kids after Alan Michael or something like that. So—

So they're 6 years, 4 and a half years, 5 years almost to the day, and then the last 2 are about 2 years apart. Because I got to a point where I was like, you think we're gonna have any more kids? Let's do it now. Because like, I don't wanna be 40. I don't— I didn't wanna, At the end. So our youngest 2 are 2 years apart, but the other ones are spaced further apart.

Well, and you even had one miscarriage in there.

I did. I also had a miscarriage after number 4.

Did you have a sense of, let's say you're 15 years old, 14, 12, 10, doesn't matter. Like, did you know, I wanna have 5 kids, or I wanna have 1 kid, or I wanna have no kids? Like, at what point did you formulate your sort of, this is how big I want my family to be philosophy?

I was a major babysitter and I loved babies all during my teen years. So I don't know if I said I wanna have 5 kids for sure, but I came from a family of 3. I definitely knew I wanted to have kids, not child, but kids. So—

And I never sat around thinking about that. And I don't think we ever talked about it. I think it finally, it's like, If we have another boy at 5, we're done either way.

Because we have 4 boys and a girl.

So, and we got the girl at the end, and maybe that was either miscarriage that was a boy now to get the girl. But either way, we were like, 5 is— we're done.

I was like, I'm done.

Yeah.

You know.

So you're boy, boy, boy, boy, girl?

Yes.

If you had had a boy, well, you were done either way then, right? Like you—

Yeah.

If you had a boy, you would have been done.

Yeah,

I mean, we were like, I'm going, we're going for the cross.

We were done, but would it have potentially changed conversation? You were probably more adamant about it.

I was, I was, um, I had the last 3 kids were C-sections, and I purposely went to a different doctor in a different hospital because I had previously had our kids at a Catholic hospital. And so I purposely went so that I could have A tubal ligation after the, in the process of having the C-section. I, I knew that I was done.

You're like, I'm all set. That's wild. Uh, my, my wife, she growing up always knew she wanted to have 5 boys and that was her dream. And I, I gotta tell you right now, I would've been a terrible boy dad. I would not have been a good boy dad. Uh, we have 2, they're girls, they're 19 and 23 right now. The 2 best days of my life were in the ultrasound room where they told us there was no penis. I was like, yes, good. I was, I was terrified. So I don't know if I'd had a boy or 2 boys or 3 boys, I, I would have been, I don't know, bereft. So you are uniquely equipped in a way that I definitely am not.

And I would have probably been terrified if I would have had 4 girls. Well,

I think that's, I think that's a real thing. I think there are people who are, who are boy dads and girl girl dads and boy moms and girl moms, and they're wired that way, and somehow it works out. Maybe that— maybe the actual gender trained you. That's a possibility. I suppose you might have a different philosophy about that than I would. But if I could have guaranteed that the third one would be a girl, we might have tried again. But, um, but I was happy. We were happy.

You're like rolling the dice at that point.

I was like, no thanks. I'm like, I'm not a gambler. This is exactly what I want. So we also miscarried between the 2 that we have. And, uh, without any— like, there's no glee in this, but we sort of go, that was our boy. Like, that was a boy.

So it could have been our scenario too. It could have been a boy, and let's reject that and work for the girl.

Right on.

I don't know,

we just moved on.

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so now your family— there's your family, and they're from top to bottom, they're what? I can't really do the math. What, 12 years or so from top to bottom?

So,

well, no, I think 17 years between. So because Nick was a junior in high school when Mia was born, so I believe they're 17 years apart.

Because he's 39?

Yeah, he's 39. She's 21. And she's 21.

Yeah. So 16 years.

I'm terrible at math. I can coach people all day long, but I'm terrible at math.

Yeah, same thing. See, we get to live into our specialties and go from there. I feel like for me, I had kind of this pretty condensed experience of parenting. Like, I could sort of say that my parenting philosophy is is pretty condensed. I tried to raise these, these 2 girls in this way. Do you think you have a parenting philosophy that's condensed, or did you have phases, or how did that work out for you? Were you different parents— I mean, were you different parents with Nick than you were with— who is it, Mia?

Yeah,

Mia. My youngest is Mia. Um, okay. I would say—

Were there phases, or what would you say? I'm interested in your philosophy now of parenting.

I'm sure that the way I was raised had an influence on the way I parented. And my mom was very involved with me and was a great support when I had my son at 18. I think a lot of what I did came from what I learned from my— and just experience in my own childhood. I also, though, think I subconsciously or whatever, as time went on, and especially as Nick, like, got into his preteen and teen years, started to really think about some of the challenges that I had had with my parents and some of the ways they handled me as a teenager and wanted to do differently. And so I would— I started, you know, like reading parenting books and really thinking about what did my parents not give me that I felt I needed emotionally that I can give to my son. And so through a course of trial and error, and Nick certainly over the years has, he's had challenges with mental health and addiction issues, but trying to figure out the best, healthiest way to parent him as a result of that has helped my parenting of the 4 other kids that we have for sure.

Well, you definitely parent each one differently because they're a different personality.

They're a different personality. And I was 18 when I had Nick. I was 36 when I had Mia. You know, there's no question that I was a different parent. I think we tried to instill similar values. I think, I think value-wise, you know, honesty, accountability, validating feelings. I think that I think that was fairly consistent with them. But obviously, as you know, with even 2, they're very different personalities and temperaments.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess the other thing that I'm aware of with so far apart, I mean, the world also changed a lot between 36 years ago and 21 years ago. There was a lot of different, like, cultural reality that was probably also underneath what it meant to be parenting, whether that was technology or whether that was you know, educational environments or whatever it is. I wonder, I wonder what, you know, what wisdom have you collected around parenting that would be worth passing on to those of us that are— well, I guess it's not me anymore, although I have this canned line that I say all the time. People who listen to Marriage Therapy Radio will be sick of hearing me say this. I wonder if you agree, but I think parenting adult children is harder than parenting young children. Do you, do you have that experience at all?

I say that parenting when they're little is physically exhausting. Parenting at this stage is mentally sometimes exhausting, right? Okay, yeah. I mean, there's huge physical sacrifice. It's not to say that it isn't mentally challenging when they're young. However, it's physically taxing, and there's a lot of demand on your time and whatnot. However, at this stage, it can be more emotionally challenging because the choices that they're making— whatever illusion of control you thought you had is gone. And The choices that they're making at times now can be much more detrimental to their future. So I think that's why at this stage it can be more mentally taxing.

Mm-hmm. Tom, are you also in real time, are you forming a parenting philosophy? Like maybe not that you would write a book about, but as you think about sort of raising children over this span of 3 decades, Did your own philosophy evolve or change, or do you, did you form one that you could point to and go, this is what I think about parenting?

Um, I don't think I changed probably dramatically. I'm not into reading the books and all the stuff. I was probably, again, more of, you know, you want a car, you're getting a job. You know, you want to start driving, you're going to, you know, pay for gas and you're going to, you know, those kinds of things. And, you know, as you're growing, you take on big boy or girl responsibilities, you know, young adult type things. And so that was probably more of my, you know, approach to things, I would say. I mean, obviously, I was more active with the boys from the sports side of things. And, you know, I probably could be considered probably a little bit more harsh. Right. Or question things, you know, especially even when we had Nick, and there were some differences there and thoughts at times or, whatever. And when it led up to finding out, you know, eventually he had an addiction problem and stuff like that, but questioning, you know, is he taking our liquor? And it's like, I know he's taking it, you know, or something like that. So I was always kind of more of the harsher, um—

The heavy?

The heavy. Um, I was on a thin line though with more with Nick because his dad was there. I didn't want to, you know, I mean, we had rules and stuff. And so eventually Nick went to his dad's house 'Cause he didn't like our rules. You know, you have to be home by 11 or, you know, whatever they were type things. And he'd go to his dad's house and have a free-for-all if he wanted, 'cause it really wasn't enforced.

And so at 18, when we knew he was taking alcohol and we had rules—

Well, I knew he was taking it. I tried to convince you. He told you he wasn't.

Right.

You know, when you— so then I felt like, was 2 against 1, you know, more of, um, because like, well, I know my son, he wouldn't, he wouldn't lie to me.

Yeah. And I mean, I, I definitely, I was wrong about that.

Um, but that, but that was probably a little challenge in the parenting side of things. And again, you know, we were, we, I would enforce more rules or have more things even with Nick, you know. So you want to drive a car, um, you want to live in, you're going to get a job at 16. You're not gonna sit around and just play games all day and that kind of stuff.

He also was the first, right? Like he was the first.

Yeah.

We're also trying to figure out.

You're learning in real time. You're like, you're literally paving the way. Yeah.

Yeah. We've always said, or you've always said that, you know, there's no manual when you all of a sudden, you know, the baby comes out and it's like, oh, here's this, you know, follow this, you know, booklet or whatever. You, like you just kind of said, you kind of learn based on maybe the way you were parented, maybe the way you both think and you make some compromises and stuff like that. But, you know, we're trying to feel this out. And I think you've even said that about your parents. They did the best they could or knew, you know, you say it, 'cause you know how to say it better.

Well, I mean, I do believe that parents do the best they can with what they know at that given time and based on their life experience. I think we defer to what we, experienced growing up in terms of parenting, I think we defer to that unless we are really conscious and decide that there are changes that need to be made. Like, for example, going back to my parents, and I mean, I was grounded constantly growing, like in my teen years. Mm-hmm. I was grounded because my grades were bad. I was grounded because I lied. I mean, I literally— and I would— what it taught me was Lie until you can get yourself out of the house, and then you know party and all it. You know, like I wanted my son and my kids in general to be able to be more honest. I wanted to have better communication, and I knew that grounding me for whatever whatever violation didn't solve the problem. So I consequently I have never grounded any of my kids. It just it. Just didn't seem productive. We have found other ways.

I don't even think we've even really spanked them either. No, no. You know, when we were growing up, yeah, we got spanked.

Yeah, I definitely—

yeah,

that is not something.

But that's, you know, so that was something we probably never really—

yeah, we agreed like that was, that was not gonna happen.

Okay, I have two questions. One is, how's Nick doing?

Nick. So what he— it became apparent when he was 20. He actually called me and said— he called me. He was living in our home state of Wisconsin. We had moved to Texas for Tom's job, and Nick had stayed behind because he had a girlfriend and he was going to community college and his dad was there. And so he stayed in Wisconsin. But he did call me at one point and say, you know, I don't remember the last 3 days of my life. And this isn't the first time. Yeah. And, you know, so it became apparent that he was dependent on alcohol to quell some anxiety and depression and some mental health issues that were going on. So there were many things that took place, but eventually he went into inpatient when he was 21 and came out of that, went to sober living. Ended up being able to get a job. He never did go back to college, but was really proficient with computers and has been able to financially support himself since leaving, you know, since leaving home and then going into inpatient and whatnot. Mm-hmm. He is— he has a partner, and they've been together a long time. He did very well in terms of substance use. for quite a while. And in COVID, I think things started to turn around for him again. And this year he has struggled with substances again, not alcohol, but other substances. And he's working his way back out of that at this point. So what I thought was gonna be behind me—

Peaks its head a little bit.

Yeah, became apparent again this year. And so what I realized is that his brain at 21 indeed dealing with this and his brain at 39 and dealing with this are 2 very different things. And it's actually helpful, I think, that he's 39 and, you know, has some sober life experience, adult experience behind him.

Yeah. Um, for the record, I care about Nick. Like, I, I have— I'm sober and I understand that challenge. I just, I wanted to make sure that you knew that. But I, I was really interested to know kind of what What's going on for him. So I guess my second question is maybe more on topic, which is what did the two of you know about how the two of you managed an apparently very different parenting style? Like, how did you navigate that together? How did you negotiate that as you raised 1 and then 2 and then 3 and then 4 and then 5 children along the way? Did you, what changed for you? How did you knit it together?

Well, I think there was probably the foundation was there overall, but we did probably have some differences. And I think that probably balanced also itself out, that if we maybe had the two of the same, then maybe we would have had more challenges with some of the other ones and stuff like that. Hard to say. I mean, that would be my opinion, but I think we may have worked well together through it, even though we had different— Philosophies or different approaches to it?

I would say that I think Tom was the sole provider for the bulk of, you know, of— and he was certainly involved with the kids. Absolutely. I was home with them. And so I think for the most part, I feel like you kind of deferred to me when it came to the parenting portion, you know, the what time they go to bed, the thing, you know, all the, all the things. Not to say you weren't involved. You were providing. I was doing the bulk of the day-to-day parenting that needed to be done. So I think it worked because we both, like, knew our—

Got our lane.

Yeah. And when there was an issue and we needed to talk it through, somehow we were able to— Agreed enough, except again, at times when it came to Nick. But for the most part, we agreed enough that it wasn't an issue.

I was just gonna say, I don't think we ever got into major arguments overall. You know, I know, again, it's stressful being at home with kids. It's stressful having a job and trying to support 5, you know, kids and a wife. And so 7 people and all that. So there was, you know, different stresses and we maybe always didn't understand each other's stresses. You know, oh, I want your freedom. Well,

yeah,

I want your relationship with the kids or something like that, you know. But again, you know, overall, I think we were probably a lot on the same page, the same book, maybe a different chapter once in a while is maybe the way to look at it.

Do you think the Nick thing, does it have its roots in that he's a stepson or he's like, he biologically only belongs to one of you, or is it more unique to the way he He just— that kid in particular happened to express himself as a parenting challenge.

Say that again, Lameem.

Well, I think what I heard you say a little bit earlier was like, for the most part, we were able to get along. We navigated it pretty well except for Nick. And I was wondering if that was because of the particular parenting challenge that Nick presented, or whether that was rooted in the fact that he biologically belonged only to one of you.

I don't think it was. Well, I mean, I think because his dad was there.

Yeah. Okay.

And his dad is the one that—

He has 3 parents now. Yeah.

Right. His dad and I didn't get along. His dad, you know, wanted confrontation and stuff like that. And he had his own challenges. And so we would, you know, I would kind of try to stay away from that situation. It's like, okay, that's your dad. You take care of— Nick never called me dad or, you know, anything like that because he had a dad at that point. I never adopted him. He's kept his, you know, dad's name. But I think it was probably more because he was there at the time. And I didn't want to be that, you know, nasty stepfather per se or whatever it might be. Right. You know, that was always the heavy or whatever. So I let her deal with it. You know, I would stress my opinion or I may step in once in a while. But that probably together then made Nick, well, I'm gonna go live with my dad because there's less rules, you know, type thing or something like that. And those rules were coming from us because we also had now several other kids and we didn't want them to see that kind of stuff or think, hey, they can get away with this as well.

Yeah.

And so we probably enforced, you know, that more. And because of not liking the rules and not having them, 'cause he would go to his dad's, you know, a couple times a week. Or every other weekend or whatever it might have been, depending on the time of you know the the age and stuff like that. So again, rules, no rules, rules, no rules were kind of or different rules. I should say maybe he had rules, but they were a lot different than ours.

Yeah, I'm just very interested in how blended families work because A I don't have any lived experience of my own to compare it to, and B I know it is easily the hardest thing that comes into my office when families come in and they're trying to negotiate the tensions. like parenting tensions or loyalties that take place between, you know, well, my kids versus your kids or whatever it is. So I was interested to know, I don't know how common it is that people, you know, they have children, they divorce, they get married, and then they have more children. Like, I think that's probably a little bit more in the minority structure of like a blended family. It's almost like—

I come across a few of those, just how I deal with people in the travel side of things. Yeah.

In the what side of things?

Yeah, I sell travel. And so when I'm seeing blended families, then they have another of their own and they'll even explain that. But I think what's unique, or I think maybe probably helped in the whole relationship, is that our kids all got together. You know, I don't think they ever looked at, oh, he's the stepson or something like that. I don't think that is, because even to this day, They get along very, very well.

There's 5 of them. Yeah, I don't think there's this— All 5 of them think there are 5 of us.

Right. Yes.

Absolutely. We— yeah, I don't— and maybe also because he was the oldest, and I don't know, we just— I'm not sure exactly why, but they've always— I don't think there's ever been a, you know, you're only my half-brother. I mean, they obviously know that logically, but I don't think they've ever treated each other differently.

Cool. Tell me about Lost in Place. What is Lost in Place meant to accomplish in the world?

Yeah, so Lost in Place is meant to raise awareness for a global problem, and I don't want to use inflammatory language to, I don't know, create fear. I don't like when people do that. However, I will say that Lost in Place is a guide for parents of 18 to, say, 30-year-olds who are deferring or really not becoming independent adults. So they struggle with mental health such as, you know, anxiety, depression, borderline personality. They may be on the spectrum. There may be substance use issues or problematic gaming involved, but there's a combination of issues going on for 18 to 30-ish-year-olds that has created too much dependence for too long on their parents. So this is a book, it's Lost in Place, is a kinder way maybe of saying failure to launch. I don't care for the word failure to launch. I think it's very negative. I think it sounds very final. Lost in Place, to me, if you are lost, you can be found. And so this is a book called How to Support, Motivate, and Launch an Adult Child. This is the guidebook to help parents who are in difficult parenting situations with their late teens and, you know, 20-somethings. Mm-hmm. To move forward, set healthy boundaries, create productive communication, rebuild trust. This is the manual for that.

Oh man, that's amazing. I can immediately think of 3 to 4 families that I could provide that resource for. What is the thesis? What's the heart of it? Like, if you had 1 or 2 pieces of like core wisdom in this situation, what is it?

Parents, they control 3 things at this point. Those 3 things include how they show up in the relationship with this kid.

How the parent shows up in the relationship.

Yes, how the parent shows up in the relationship. They control what they're willing to provide now that this son or daughter is an adult, meaning physically, financially, emotionally, what they will provide. And third, how they're responding to their kids' words, actions, the choices that they're making. Kids meaning the 20-something. Yeah. So when we focus on those 3 things rather than trying to get someone who is in their 20s to go to the therapist, get the job, go back to school, whatever it is, pay the ticket, whatever it is. When we stop focusing on getting someone else to do something and focus on what we have control over, the needle can move. It moves slowly. And the second piece that I wanna add here is under that first thing we control, which is how you show up in the relationship, There are 4 C's that I concentrate with parents on. C number 1 is clarity. The parents need to get very clear on what they will and won't support at this stage in their son or daughter's life. Second is calm, practicing being calm even when they're being triggered by their son or daughter. So that is important. Third, by the time I see parents, by the time they come into coaching, They've lost all their confidence. They've tried everything they can think of to get the kid to do the thing, whatever, and they're parenting out of fear. And especially when mental health and substance use is involved, I understand why they're parenting from fear. However, it's breeding disconnection. And the more they try and parent from fear, which smells like control to their kids, the more pushback they get. So we need to work on regaining confidence as a parent and leadership, not control, but leadership. And then the 4th C is consistency. And I find that parents' words and actions aren't aligned, and they're always upset about their kids not following through or being accountable, which is understandable and frustrating. And when we dig into it, I find that parents will admit that they're also not modeling accountability and follow-through. So those are the 4 Cs that we focus on.

I love it. And private, not privately, candidly, part of the reason I love it is I've got a book coming out in April and I also have Cs. I have 6 Cs in my book. And yours, none of your 4 are my 6. So I'm like, I was surprised and delighted actually to go, oh yeah. I'm into it. Like, 'cause I'll, I'll preach, like, I, I'll preach alliteration from the mountaintops. I love alliteration so much. But like, so what is it? Clarity, calm, confidence, consistency,

and consistency. Yes.

I love it so much. Um, let me ask you one more quick. Yeah, now I'm up to 10. Well, I had a whole notebook full of Cs and I was like trying to pick 'em and I traded one out. I'm actually not sure I love the one that I, one of 'em that I landed on vis-à-vis an option that I had, but I'm not too terribly worried about it. It's too late now. But do you have in your mind an idea of why now in 2026 this topic is relevant, say, in the way it wasn't maybe in 2016 or 2006 or 1996? Like, what do you think is the root or the cause of this moment in parenting?

I'm so glad you asked me that. I'm so glad you asked. That's such a great question. And I can tell you what I think it is.

Yeah, please.

3 things, the 3 most prevalent things that parents come to me and come into coaching for Number one, the 3 things that I think have impacted the lost-in-place situation.

Moment, yeah.

Screen time, which can involve gaming, it can involve social media, it can involve just too much time in front of a screen and not enough face-to-face relationships. So that's number one. Number 2 is we had many 20-somethings who have not socially recovered from COVID They haven't replugged in, and in part because of that whole ability to have screens and be entertained and, you know, the hopelessness that they feel, the information that they're getting, you know, that they, as they continue to scroll. And then the third thing is marijuana, and it's a combination of things with marijuana in that we were, we've been told for a while it's this natural medicinal thing that can help with anxiety. So I think there's a cultural message that has helped gravitate people to that, as well as the extreme potency of it. So the potency— I talk to a lot of parents who are dealing with psychosis with their young person as a result of, or, you know, other things have been tripped in their mental health as a result of consistent marijuana use. So these are the 3 things. But what I think the 4th thing is that is just as important, I'm 58 years old, Gen X, as we know, and I feel like our generation and previous generations didn't have the emotional validation, the language, our parents didn't understand as much the importance of emotionally supporting their kids as they were growing up. And I think we had kids, and many people, not all, but many people swung the empathy, the importance of feelings, the tiptoeing around feelings, the letting the kid rule the house with the feelings too far. Mm-hmm. And that's what I'm seeing with parents now is the 2 things that keep them lost in place with their young adult is the fear of self-harm, which we have to have great respect for. Right. And the parent's inability to tolerate their own feelings, their inability to tolerate their anxiety when their kids are having big feelings, because we, weren't allowed to have, you know, a lot of us weren't allowed to have anxiety or anger or sadness. We were told to suck it up, buttercup, you know, like move along.

Yeah. Well, I don't know what I said before. I said maybe I have 3 or 4 families that I could immediately point toward this resource, but now I have like 5 or 6 because that—

Well, that's good.

I think what you're describing is real, and it actually validates this thing that I think I've been saying, which is, Parenting young adults is harder than parenting young kids, at least in terms of what we— I mean, I get the part that you're describing, that it's a mental challenge in a way that it maybe used to be a physical challenge, but I, I'm really grateful for some clarity about where, where that comes from based on your experience and coaching. If I want to work with you as a, as a coach, how do I do that?

Well, the easiest thing to do is go to my website, which is reallife. Parentguide.com. And I have many resources there as well as information on my parent support group, which is twice a week, and private sessions as well.

Yeah, cool. Well, I'm gonna make sure I set up like an affiliate link or something so that when people come, I get a kickback because I think what you're doing is really important. And I'm really grateful to have talked to you both. Thank you so much for coming on to Marriage Therapy Radio. And if I can be of value to you in any way, I hope that you'll let me know. And next time I'm in Flower Mound, I'll make sure to give you a shout out.

Wonderful. Thank you. And I'll keep in mind for, you know, the Seattle area, because I do talk to— this is a global issue, and I have clients all over the globe. So it's not out of the realm that I would— somebody would ask me, hey, therapist in the Seattle area, and I'd be happy to.

We'll actually be up in Seattle in April, late April.

Yeah.

Well, you can come to my book launch party.

There you go.

Hey, that sounds good. I

don't know when it is or where it is or what. I have no idea. My wife is determined that we're going to have one. So I guess I'll keep you posted.

But that sounds lovely. Yeah, maybe we'll come.

All right. Thanks so much.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.