Prayers of Blessing Over My Adult Childrenনমুনা

Although parenting continues to our death, how we parent must radically change during the seasons of our children. Obviously we parent a six-month-old infant differently than a ten-year-old or a sixteen-year-old. When our sixteen-year-old son yells, “Stop treating me like a child!” he’s alerting us that, from his perspective, we haven’t made the transition quickly enough to his teenage life.

The Bible reveals that the age of accountability was established by God when He stated to the Israelite nation—which had rebelled the final time against His will and ways—that everyone in the adult generation would wander in the wilderness for forty years and die before the nation could inherent the Promised Land. God stated that if you were twenty years old or older, you were responsible for your decision to rebel against His commands. Children who were nineteen years old or younger were excluded from His judgments as they were under their parents’ decisions and were not held accountable (see Numbers 14:26-35). The Lord also revealed that when a couple married, they were not under the authority of their parents any longer but must continue to honor them.

This, then, is the basis for making the final break between the parent and the adult children. At that point, the adult children are equal to the adult parents. Both are viewed by Heaven as having full and complete autonomy and freedom of choices, attitudes, and actions.

The implications of this are vital to your life and parenting. When your children turn twenty or are married, before God they are no longer your direct responsibility as they were when they were younger. Therefore, we parents must change our parenting style, or it will displease not only our adult children, but also our heavenly Father.

We must transition as quickly as possible from “final authority” to “loving mentor.” If we are wise, we hold our tongues until our adult children raise an issue and ask for our opinion. Our opinion may be accepted with gratitude or summarily dismissed. That choice is not ours but our children’s.

If our children seek to move back home, we must have a clear heart-to-heart regarding the rules under which they live in our household—including the time when they commit to move out of our home. What breeds conflict and codependency is when parents don’t discuss the household rules for their adult children while they live in their home.

Ultimately, all parents seek the best for their children—including their independent life, separate from the purview of their parents. They must make it on their own unless there are special conditions such as physical or psychological limitations.

We’ve discovered that unless parents officially make the break from parenting to mentoring, both the parents and the adult children suffer. This damages the relationship and the hearts of both parties, often hindering their prayers. Bitterness and rebellion can surface and eventually breed the desire for vengeance—and directly hinder the blessings of God.

If you need to have “the conversation” with your adult children, first discuss the issues with your spouse. Then hold a family council to clear the air, offer any needed apologies, and establish mutually agreed upon household standards. Although life will likely bring some challenges along the way, these can surely be negotiated, or the adult children may need to be asked to leave. 

No matter what you may be facing with your adult children, God stands ready to hear and respond to your prayers and relieve your burdens. Start a cycle of praying each day for each of your adult children. The Lord has some wonderful answers awaiting your prayers! Live in hopeful anticipation of what He will do in your own life and in the lives of your adult children as you seek His heart and His will, for His glory.

Lord, our children do not remain dependent children forever. There comes a time when they are to leave home and provide for themselves. When they do, or even if they are still living as adults in our home, they make their own decisions for their lives. They make their own choices, good or bad. While we can seek to influence those choices for good, we cannot control them. Help me release the lie that I can, or should, control their actions. In doing so, I am preventing their own growth and maturity through learning about life. Help me to transition from parenting my child to mentoring my adult child. It is not easy or quick, but I want to cooperate with You in making the transition. Show me where I am combating this transition rather than embracing it. In Jesus’ name, amen.