The Challenge of Prodigal Children
There are few challenges more difficult or more common than dealing with a wayward child. It’s frustrating, tests our limits emotionally, drives us to prayer, and can even leave us feeling like a failure. Many parents experience feelings of shame and regret when they compare themselves and their children to others. These are hard seasons of life, but they can be weathered. Here are some markers for you to remember if or when that season comes.
Four Things to Remember for the Parent of a Prodigal
One | Remember their failure is not your failure
When your children reach the age where they begin to make their own decisions, this should remind you that they are an independent creation of God. Each child is unique, with distinct wiring, challenges, and encounters that will shape his or her life. Often in error, you will want to compare your experiences as a youth to your child’s, but each of our experiences is unique. As you did, your kids will make their own decisions, and in the transition from childhood to adulthood, they will start making independent choices that will result in great pain for them and you. While you will foresee the consequences of these decisions and issue a warning, your children will insist, ignore, and incite choices that will not match up with values you embrace. This is sometimes devastating.
During this time, you should be careful about comparing your child to other kids who appear to have their lives together. In reality, these other kids probably have their own struggles and problems. Know that God has a plan for your child. He knew that they would choose the direction they have chosen and still loves them deeply. This season is going to be tempting for you as well. You might experience this sinking feeling of losing ground and influence over your child. While at some point they will move from dependence to independence, the way we imagine it is not always the way it happens.
Also, it is going to be tempting to live in shame as other parents might appear to be critical or judgmental. Treat their comments or criticisms as mere misunderstandings. They have not walked in your shoes. Surround yourself with parents and friends who will encourage, support, and love you—people who want to treat your child with respect and love based on the truth of God’s Word. Remember, there are no perfect families, kids, or parents.
Two | Remember tough love
Sometimes it’s necessary to take tough but critical action with a prodigal child, such as when a behavior threatens others or himself. This is especially true when the child is living under your rule, roof, and resources. Tough love is a parenting decision that promotes God-honoring choices, choices that enforce certain constraints that cause a child to take responsibility for his actions; tough love is not a tactic for getting your way or exerting command. God never wants us to provoke our children but rather to guide, persuade, and direct them.
Choose your battles wisely, as not everything demands tough love. Weigh the issues carefully and decide what sort of response is appropriate. If your child is struggling with dishonesty, drugs, or persistent disobedience, he may be in need of tougher love at this moment. Be thoughtful, calm, and less reactive. Sometimes children make choices to elicit a reactive response from parents, hoping to expose your reasoning and emotion.
The most powerful tool that you have as a parent is love—unconditional and tough. No child will ignore your love, even though at the moment it may feel like she is doing just that. As you find all kinds of ways to love your child through her rebellion, it will not be forgotten or go unnoticed.
Three | Remember to remain in a relationship
Perhaps the biggest mistake parents make in parenting a prodigal is forfeiting the relationship. Remember that God never does this. He is patient, loving, merciful, and graceful to a fault. To the extent that you can, always stay in a relationship regardless of your child’s choices. While God hates sin, He loves sinners, and you are one too. Somehow, He was patient with you. And you need to embrace this same patience with your children. By retaining relational capital, you leave the door open for future grace.
Four | Remember the parent and prodigal will both be transformed
Consider this: Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, fits the description of a prodigal. Read his story sometime; it’s the story of the Prodigal Son. God used his prodigal experiences to make Franklin and Billy into better men. God uses the circumstances of our lives to mold and shape us in different ways. Some will take the path of Billy Graham and some the path of Franklin Graham. But as parents, we too are transformed. We need to continue to believe, trust, and have faith that God can redeem anything, including us, through these experiences. We learn what it is to love when it’s hard, to dispense grace when we want to deliver judgment, and to wait in a relationship when we desire to cast it off. Prodigal children often transform us through a process of personal trial. In this, we become more like Christ.
Henri J. Nouwen wrote an insightful book on this subject called The Return of the Prodigal Son. If you are in this situation, get a copy and breathe deep into God’s grace. Build a prayer team around you that will pray for you and your prodigal. Often God has two plans in these situations—one for you and one for your child.
