Todd: 0:00

This is the Clutter Path, a compass for midlife. Are you ready to let go? In a world where parents struggle to balance supporting their kids while teaching them independence, today's guest has a mission to help them launch their kids into a self-sufficient and responsible adulthood. Today we're talking to Dr. Jack Stoltzfus, also known as America's Launch Coach, about how to transform your parenting approach from that of a safety net into a launch pad, helping your kids thrive as independent adults. We're going to discuss some of the common pitfalls that we experience as parents, and then we're going to explore the journey of letting go while orchestrating a successful launch. Jack, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Would you mind giving our audience some background on your credentials, some books you've written, and also the work you do as America's launch coach?

Jack: 1:00

Okay, sure. My background is basically I'm a psychologist, my PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Did my dissertation work, and that that's really kind of the origin of my interest in parents at launching, that I did my dissertation work on how to define a healthy separation of adolescents from parents. And it was driven somewhat by my estranged relationship with my father. Had a kind of distance relationship, had a lot of insecurity about it, whether he really loved me or not. And and, you know, I kind of worked that through to the point where we reconciled, and I could hear him tell me he loved me, and it was a really reassuring kind of experience in my life. But I I wanted to study, well, how does that work? How do how do you deal with those distance or that separation or that sense of insecurity, you know, as a as a teenager or young adult. And then fast forward um the last 10, 15 years, I've been a parent of young adults myself. So I thought, well, I can I can speak to the experience of my own parenting of young adults, as well as an understanding as a young adult myself. And that kind of that uh was part of the uh undermining of my work in launching young adults. And and I didn't see a lot of resources out there, so I I started to uh uh develop a website, and I do my clinical work is really focused on parents of young adults with the mission, and you and you just stated it fairly clearly, uh, and that is to help parents launch their young adults into self-sufficient, responsible adulthood while maintaining a caring bond with them. And that last part's really important, and and not all people who work in this field would define a positive launch in that way. But I I do because I think that's that's the natural way that we want to have that experience occur. So we let go of our kids, but we keep this caring connection with them as well.

Todd: 3:13

So that's a worthy goal, and that's born out of your own life and your desire to have a good relationship with your dad. So I appreciate that. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. Now, we'll just jump right in. Let's talk about some of the common pitfalls and struggles that we have as parents. Now, you've done a lot of research and you've coached many parents. Can you talk about and tell us some of the reasons parents have a failure to launch?

Jack: 3:37

Well, I think it has been a growing problem, and uh, and I I would own it as a I'm a boomer, basically, I guess that's the way you would label me. And I think it started somewhat with our generation, because I think our generation became more invested in the success and the happiness of our kids than past generations. I mean, I my father, mother raised me in my age of 18. They expected me to leave, and I was expecting to leave. I wasn't coming back home. And good luck, we've raised you at 18. You're on your own now, and make it or break it type of thing. But today's parents are more invested in their success and happiness of their kids, and that continues on when they're 16, 18, 20, 21. And if your kid at 21 or 22 is uh struggling in some way, parents continue to be involved. And that's where that I think the term helicopter parent has often been used to describe parents who keep trying to control or direct or fix or whatever their their young adults. So I think that's probably the biggest uh contributor to the difficulty parents have in letting go these days.

Todd: 4:59

Yeah. Now I've personally felt this pull in my own heart to shield my kids from hardship. What's the danger to our kids when we do too much of that?

Jack: 5:09

Yeah, it's yeah, that that overinvestment ends up creating the problem. So we talk about parents being helicopter parents, overinvestment. The overinvestment ends up creating a generation of entitled young adults, teens and young adults. I have a funny story when I I my daughter went off to uh school about five miles away, Bethel College, and about two months in, and we're happy to see her go. I mean, she was there was a little bit of a contentious situation. It's time to be on your own, time to be off to college. She called me about two months into the into being at college, and she said, Dad, she said, you know, I didn't get back to the dining room tonight uh and it closed. Would you would you bring a sandwich over to me? You know, it took me a minute to get off the floor from laughing at this. What planet is she coming from? And she so she says, Well, I guess you're not going to bring a sandwich. No, not in this lifetime, and I could do that. And, you know, I thought, I wouldn't even, I would never think of wanting my parents to come over. I didn't want them coming to the college campus when I was there. But then I started thinking, where does she get the idea that she could call me to door dash a sandwich offer to her? It must be me doing something to set that kind of mindset into her entitlement. So I think parents have to stop and think about that. What am I doing that's taking over too much or creating this kind of dependency that I'm going to do things for them that they should be able to do for themselves, or that we we're going to intercept the natural consequence of that situation and fix it. Okay, she's going to be hungry for a night. Big deal. Yeah.

Todd: 7:03

So breakfast in the morning. You'll be good. Yeah.

Jack: 7:06

Yeah.

Todd: 7:06

Yeah. So my um that that's the way my parents were when I was coming up. It was like, hey, you got 18. You're an adult now. So a switch was flipped.

Jack: 7:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: 7:16

We were expected to uh either go to school or military, go get a job, something. All right. But as I was a boy, you know, being a boy, we just couldn't wait to get out of the house. So that was it wasn't too much of a problem for for us. So yeah. I decided to join the military. That's uh that's how I got my launch, but uh worked out pretty well. Now, what's your advice to parents who didn't have a good model for parenting when they were kids? And how do they execute this launch without a good model?

Jack: 7:45

Yeah, that's a good question. And and I I guess I would say, Todd, I think I think we're wired to love our kids, and that in our hearts is this hard wearing that that's what we should do. And if you didn't have that with your parents, you still know what's the right way to be as a mother, as a dad. I had a guy I worked with and his his father was an abusive alcoholic and beat him, learned a lie, you know, just to get out of stuff, uh, ended up having an alcohol problem himself, but then became sober and has maintained his sobriety. But he said to me, I will never treat my kids like my father treated me. So I think we can learn from good modeling and we can learn from bad modeling, how not to be as a parent. But I think there's no excuse. I mean, I'm not I don't give somebody a break and say, well, I had bad parent things, so I can't I don't know what to do. No, you know what to do. You know how to be a good mother or a good father. You know, you know what it would what you wanted, what you wanted to have from your parents. Uh e if that's the way you want to think about it.

Todd: 8:54

So yeah. Yeah, one thing that I enjoyed was having good folks, good seeing good dads interact with their kids. And uh that was a good influence on me, so I appreciate that. So yeah, so so those are the some of the common pitfalls and struggles, but now let's talk about starting when they're young and how to train them. Now, and I say that in this context, it hurts to watch adult children experience hardship. Yeah, what are some of the things we can do while they're young to save them a lot of pain when they become adults?

Jack: 9:29

Yeah, I think that I think it's important for us to allow them to experience certain consequences of their behavior. So my son and his wife, and they've got four boys, nine down to sixteen months, and they're wild. They're flying all over the place constantly. But they're pretty strict with their boys, and and the boys will eat anything. They've learned over time that whatever's set in front of them, you know, and they say, Well, I don't like it, I don't think I'm gonna I don't want to eat that. Well, they're gonna get it for breakfast. So you don't have to eat it, but it will be your breakfast, you know, the next day. So that's the consequence of that. So I think you know, being able to not not protect the kids from something that you know is is going to be a life lesson for them. You know, um, they have a they run into a bullying situation in in in elementary school or something. Parent can be there and be supportive of them. And I always start with encouraging parents to ask them, what do you what do you think you should do? What are your ideas about how you want to handle this? And then maybe I might make some suggestion to them. But I'm not going to jump into the situation and call the parents and say, your kid is bullying my kid. I mean you know, I remember growing up, I I thought if I ever got in trouble in school, I would get it twice as bad when I got home. But now I have a sister who's been a teacher and a brother-in-law as principal, and they're saying, now the parents come in and complain, you know, about it. My kid's in trouble. You know, he said something, you know, told the parent, you know, F off or something like that. Now I'm coming in to defend my kid against that kind of behavior. It's a different world today. But I think kids have to face the consequences, and I think we can't just jump in there and try to soften that experience for them.

Todd: 11:33

Yeah, my my sister-in-law was a teacher. She retired she's a retired teacher, and the same. Basically, parents coming in defending the kids, kids doing horrible things, not doing their study, not studying, not doing their homework, yeah, and then getting in trouble, and then the parents came in, they would come in to defend them and attack the faculty. It was it's a different world out there.

Jack: 11:54

So yeah. Absolutely. And I and I don't know if that's part of the overinvestment of parents, you know, which I think has continued into the Gen X and the and the millennial and then uh and now into the Gen Z generations, because it seems like each generation seems to be doing more and wanting more and more for their kids to be happy and successful, and more activities they're involved in. The parents are running right and left and being sure they're happy and they're involved and they're successful in these activities.

Todd: 12:27

So yeah. Yeah, one thing one of the things that my son, after he started college, so he's out in the world now, he's encountering other children, other kids his age, young adults, and he told us that he he was surprised at how many of his peers just didn't know how to take care of themselves, just washing, doing laundry and stuff like that. And uh, you know, I'm not saying I was a great parent. I have a lot of shortcomings, but that was one of the things we we made sure they knew how to cook and clean and do their laundry and stuff like that. But uh that was kind of rewarding to hear that from him, so that was good. But yeah, they've got to experience that hardship though.

Jack: 13:07

Yeah, you you did something right then in terms of helping your son learn to be more independent while he's at home. And that's what I say. If you've got a young adult living at home, uh you've got a roommate, and if they're going to school or if they're working, and those are the two options, doing nothing is not not an option. But then you need to contribute in the house. You need to do your laundry, keep your room clean, cook some meals, and all that helps you get prepared to be on your own. It becomes a more easy transition once you've done all that stuff. Oh, I can live in an apartment, I had to cook, you know. So I think as parents, we have a responsibility preparing our young adults, our teens to become more independent young adults and self-sufficient.

Todd: 13:55

Agreed. That leads to another question. You just triggered something here. What is the problem with having an adult child living at home with you and doing nothing?

Jack: 14:05

Yeah, first of all, uh let me let me be clear that my definition of a launched child, a launched young adult, has nothing to do with where they live. You can have a young adult living at home, working full-time, paying rent, having a good relationship with the parents, helping out at home, cooking meals, you know, doing laundry and everything. To me, that's a self-sufficient, independent young adult. Doesn't mean but I think the stereotypical notion of uh launched young adult will have to be living on their own. Now you could have somebody living on their own on their own, but the parents are paying for all their expenses and apartment, and that's not a launch young adult, in my opinion. So, but what I do say is I wrote a blog, never evict your uh young adult from the home. And people will, wait a minute, there's never to do that? Well, what I say is that you as parents have expectations and rules, and there's some some what I call kind of rules with some consequences, and then there's deal breaker rules. Things like no drugs in the house, no violence, no threats, you know, no stealing, those kinds of things. And if you have a young adult at home that basically doesn't want to abide by the rules, they're choosing to live someplace else. They're saying, I don't like this environment, I'd like to live someplace else. You know, so it's not the parents kicking them out of the home, it's them saying, either verbalizing, I want to live someplace else, or by their actions saying, I want to live someplace else. Now, what I tell the parents is don't just say, well, you know, hit the road, don't let the door hit you in butt as you go out the door. Say, hey, help them move out. Listen, it's not working. But we we love you and we want you to be happy. And if if if this is what it takes for you to live someplace else to feel better about yourself and more self-sufficient, we'll help you. We'll give help you get into an apartment, we'll give you some furniture and some dishes and stuff. So don't just kind of leave it in a rejection kind of thing. Okay, get out of here. You don't like it here, get out of here. We'll help you. Because it is natural for young adults, late teens, young adults, to want to move on. So some maybe don't know how to say that, but they act out in ways that indicate they really do want to live someplace else. So yeah.

Todd: 16:36

Yeah, a couple of thoughts on that. First off, my in-laws, they had four daughters and one son. And yeah, the daughters after college, they moved back in for a time, but they were charged rent and they were expected to help out around the house. And it was not an angry thing or so I appreciate what you're saying and how how to deliver that message. You set the expectation, but you're not you're not being mean about it. You're just saying, hey, this isn't working. I appreciate that. So that's nice.

Jack: 17:04

Yeah, I mean I was gonna say those deal breaker rules are what society, they're society rules. So I mean, it's not like you're saying some unusual rules, you know. Now, yeah, look, if you if you're making a lot of noise at night or something, and you know, maybe we cut the Wi-Fi system off or something, you know, maybe there's some things that we do in terms of consequences. You're not busting your dishes back uh from your bedroom or something. There, those are things you don't say, okay, well you're out of here because but these deal breakers for sure, you can't just have somebody stay at home and enable them to do behavior like that that's not going to be accepted in society. You're not doing any doing them any favor.

Todd: 17:48

Yeah, when my kids were younger, they we had an we had something that went on. I can't remember what it was, but it it was an adult or a teen or someone that was it was a failure-to-launch situation. And it was a it was a time where the kids were asking about it, and at dinner I just said, yeah, I mean, our goal as parents, we're here to help you learn to become responsible adults. We want you to be contributing members of society, and we kind of preach that to them now. So I yeah, I'm saying these things, and I don't want to hold myself up as a an ideal parent because I I did things like my son wouldn't eat a piece of hamburger meat, and you know, then I tried to force the issue with him. I should have stepped back and just said, yeah, you know, okay, you're gonna eat it tomorrow, but um yeah, not a perfect parent, so I'm not trying to hold myself out like that.

Jack: 18:40

So I had I of course I grew up with you know, you had to eat everything on your plate, and so I I revised that a little bit. You have to eat some of everything on your on your plate. That's a little easier on my kids than than I was, than my parents were.

Todd: 18:57

Right. Yeah, I mean if I was doing it now, I would be a totally different parent knowing what I know now. So now now back to teaching them while they're young. How do we support our kids without enabling them or stunting their growth? And in some of your your writings, you say love and backbone. Can you talk about that?

Jack: 19:14

Yeah. Well, I think that parents have to make a shift as the kids are moving into their adolescence from a control and directing kind of way of operating as a parent to more of a consulting and coaching. There should be more freedom for them to make decisions on their own with with the consulting and and coaching that you can give them. So some some people in this field would say we you should really back off and not be involved. And I'm not sure that's the right message because it it could be experiences abandonment. You've been directing and controlling me and telling me what to do. Now you now you just stopped completely. I I think, and I that wouldn't fit for me because I would like to give my opinion, uh, you know, or give them some ideas. But I also I tell them as a consultant, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you, look, you make your own decision on this, but I'm gonna give you some ideas. And so I it's kind of a sandwich approach. Um, you make your own decision, here's some ideas, and then afterward, but you have to make your own decision, and I won't be mad at you if you don't follow through on the on what I suggested. So yeah, I have a uh guide for parents. You know, parents are saying, well, how do I how do I balance this love and background background? And I and I ask parents to ask three questions of themselves. First is, am I acting, am I deciding and acting in love and not out of fear, anxiety, worry, guilt, resentment, or whatever? So and secondly, am I acting and deciding consistent with my principles, being responsible, telling the truth, following through? And finally, is the action and the decision I'm making likely to increase their independence or increase their dependency on me? So it's a good way if parents ask those questions when they're trying to make a decision or take some kind of action. You can't necessarily I can't necessarily respond to every particular situation that comes up. But I think if parents kind of look in the mirror and ask themselves those questions, they can come out with a pretty good combination of love and backbone.

Todd: 21:36

I like that. Yeah, and a couple things. When my kids were coming up, I didn't really make that transition from when they were hitting their teen years to becoming a consultant, you know, just being transparent. I I still kept focusing on controlling situations and you know, doing things like that and not really switching over to being that consultant. So I recognize that now. And uh yeah, that can cause problems. But I I appreciate the principles that you're throwing out there, doing it in love. And that made me I realized that a lot of times as a parent, I did things out of fear. Fear that, oh, they're going to grow up to be ex and that's not a good thing. And so just being driven by fear, so that happens a lot. So do you see that? Is that common for parents?

Jack: 22:25

Yeah, that you know, it's it's kind of maybe protecting them in some way. Um it's kind of the fear that they could get hurt or be you know protect them. I probably was over-controlling with my girls. I had one boy and two girls, and I mean, I pretty much said, no, you're not driving down to Minneapolis and go to a club down there. It's not gonna happen. You know, they're in their teens, it's just not happening. Yeah. I was aware of some of the statistics around one in four girls by the time they're 18 being sexually molested or something. So that's in the back of my head. And I'm saying, I'm gonna get you to this point. When you're 18, you're moved out. I won't be able to tell you you can't go down to the club down in Minneapolis. Yeah. But as long as you're in my house, you're not going down there.

Todd: 23:14

Yeah, my wife, I've heard her say several times when the kids were in the house. My goal as a parent is to get you to adulthood with as little baggage as possible. So that's a good that's a good goal, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And I heard, I think it was Jordan Peterson. He said, he said that as parents, we're supposed to be proxies for our children to the world. So we're introducing them to the world. And I I like that thought. And yeah, so introducing them to the world like that. Now, let's talk about money.

Jack: 23:43

Okay.

Todd: 23:43

You've said that over 60% of young adults are financially supported by their parents. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that and how do you approach the subject of finances with your children?

Jack: 23:55

Yeah, I I don't think that uh that parents who help their young adults in in some specific ways is a particular problem, uh, such as helping with the cost of a wedding or helping maybe to get them into a house, helping with down payment, some of those types of things. Um but I I think that beyond that, I think if parents can't think of what will this do to the person if I take over and I I pay for this cost or this expense. You know, when my my oldest daughter and son-in-law had twins and they had pretty close to their oldest child, and at one point they had them all in daycare because they both worked, and they were spending $2,400, $2,500 a month on daycare, which is a a decent mortgage payment, you know, to have that. And it was it was crushing them and because they had some college debt and stuff like that. I talked to my wife and said, well, you know, we could afford to maybe pay for some of that that child care cost, and and we just said, no, let them struggle with that, you know. They're gonna have the biggest pay increase ever when those last two twins go off to school. But now they're gonna have $2,400 more dollars uh to work with. And we didn't jump in. And you know, I think that was the right thing to do, but it was hard to watch them. And they would my daughter would complain, you know, we just don't have any money, we're just barely getting by and all. But they did it. And I think there's a pride now that they got through that, uh, that kind of a hardship.

Todd: 25:40

So yeah, when when my wife and my wife and I got married really young, we were 21. I was in the military, and we didn't have very much money at all, and my pay was pretty low. But my father-in-law, the way he had a policy with his kids where he would pay for things, but then he would he had a little black book and he would write it in the book, and you had to pay him back. And so my wife and I got married. She had a problem with her car, uh, may have needed brakes or whatever the case. It was some kind of problem with the car. And we were really low on funds. He paid for the job for the job to be done on the car and then put it in the book. And we were adults and out of the house, and then we we paid him back pretty quickly. But I think that was a good approach to it. He wasn't, you know, we weren't he wasn't supporting, they weren't supporting us out just being just blowing all of our money and living a lifestyle we can't afford. But that was just a basic need for transportation. They stepped in and said, Oh, okay, cool, we'll we'll help you out with this. But then expect the expectation was set, you're going to pay it back. So they were super nice about it. It was very cool. So I appreciate my inputs for that.

Jack: 26:49

And there's some things like that where the you you have to have the car for work and it's broken down, you just don't have the cost, or there's some kind of health care expense that's just is really right tough to handle. And you know, I think you can do that kind of, hey, we'll do it as a loan. Sometimes I think I I I encourage parents to consider a matching kind of thing. I'll pay half of it, you need to pay half of it. Yeah. Or sometimes maybe there's even some work you could do. You know, come over, I got things they need to be that need to be done at the house, and then we'll pay you for that, that you could use that to kind of uh take care of some expenses that you have. It gives them a feeling that it's not in charity. It's not just a right, you know, you're just a charitable contribution to them. Yeah, no.

Todd: 27:38

You don't get an expectation that you're just going to give them money. And uh yeah, we've done stuff like that with our kids too, paying them to do jobs and stuff like that.

Jack: 27:46

Yeah, very good.

Todd: 27:47

So, and and another thing, just thinking about finances in general, that's you know, teaching my kids about saving and investing. That was important. That's a little bit outside of the scope of our conversation, but uh teaching them to be good with their finances, that's I think that's primo. So being responsible for that. Yeah. So that's uh that's training them when they're young. Now, let's talk about learning to let go. Now, assuming, let's talk two sides of this coin. Assuming we've laid the groundwork for a successful launch, what does it look like to make that transition from teen at home to independent young adult?

Jack: 28:25

Yeah, it's uh well, there's a challenge from both sides. Obviously, the young adult challenge is to uh be able to be that self-sufficient, responsible, independent person. And from the parent side, I think it is to make that make that transition into uh you know a new new situation in which the kids are not the primary focus of of your relationship. Because while they're at home, parents tend to be pretty kid focused, okay, and we're responsible, and okay, what are they doing tonight or where are they going? That all changes when they've left home and now they're they're established. Um it's you know, it can be a time of some sadness and grief as you're uh you don't hear their voices in the house anymore, and that's that can be difficult, but it's also an opportune opportunity. It's it's uh this uh kind of uh I think the Japanese symbol for crisis is danger and opportunity. So there's there's some danger here and there's some opportunity. What I found for my wife and I was the return of the ability to be spontaneous, go out for pizza, do things together, take some trips and stuff. Because we didn't have that. Okay, who's taking care of kids? Are they we gotta are they gonna be home tonight or not? You know, when they were out of the house, we slept really. Really well when came home from college in the in the summer or whatever, and they weren't home at night, and then we weren't sleeping very well. So there's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind relief that I think that uh goes with that. Uh but it's there's some transition here. I think it's a great opportunity for couples to reinvent their marriage, to focus on each other. And okay, now we're we don't have to be you know always concerned about what's what's going on with our kids. I that's why I say it's a little bit of a crisis because there's some danger there. If you've been so kid focused, it might be like, well, who are you now? We don't know each other outside of our ma and pa role. Right. And but and we have to kind of reform our relationship at that point in time. So right.

Todd: 30:50

Might be time for some counseling for the parents.

Jack: 30:52

It's yeah.

Todd: 30:53

Yeah, some uh little boost there.

Jack: 30:56

Yeah, it's I mean it's a little bit of a risk. There's a certain time of it where divorce takes place. I've had parents say we're waiting for the kids to leave and then we're gonna get divorced. So wow. Which which is a shame, you know. Well, the problem's now, you know. Yeah.

Todd: 31:12

Yeah, that's tough. Now now my daughter, she she was the last I've got a son, one son, one daughter. Daughter, she's the last one, she's out of the house. And there was that transition. There's a little bit of sadness, but yeah, then she comes home for breaks and stuff like that. It's nice whenever she's not there to be able to just talk without having to watch what you're saying, being able to you don't have to think about okay, she had food. Think just little things like that, because you're always concerned about your kids and whether or not they're they've gotten supper and things like that. So it's a weight lifted off. Sure. But at the same time, you're missing them.

Jack: 31:49

So yeah, yeah, it's a it's a bittersweet kind of experience in some ways. Right.

Todd: 31:56

Yeah. Yeah, and just complimenting my my in-laws. We were married up in Alexandria, Virginia area. And after we got married, the parents never called us. They left they hands off. They didn't want to inject themselves, they didn't want to get in involved in and they just didn't want to bother us. And so my wife had to call them and say, you know, it's okay if you if you call every now and then. And then they started inviting us for for dinner and things like that.

Jack: 32:22

But uh Yeah, well, that's a bit, but it's you'd like you like that kind of model of hands-off, and I can I can't remember my parents said, Okay, you're married now. This is your primary relationship as your wife, not our. We're not the primary relationship. So they stepped back and very much supported us as a couple. So it was no longer this real primary relationship with me. The relationship was primary relationship with was with us as a couple. And that felt that was really very affirming and supporting of our marriage.

Todd: 32:58

So yeah, that's that's really good. So the other side of the coin now, assuming we haven't had or we haven't laid the groundwork for a successful launch, is it possible as a parent to just make a course correction? And what does letting go look like in in that scenario? What are some of the not necessarily bad stories, but rocky situations that you've encountered?

Jack: 33:21

Absolutely. I worked with this couple, they had a 28-year-old son living at home. He actually had a pretty good job, but it was very contentious. And they were saying, It's time, you know, this isn't working well. You don't appreciate, I just want to keep your room clean and this this and that, but you're just obviously unhappy here. And the relationship was contentious, particularly with the father, too. So he threatened them. He said, Well, you kick me out, I'll never speak to you again. You know, I threatened him with that. And so I I worked with him, and my approach, it's interesting you use the word path. My approach is to help parents and young adults just get a path forward. Because in s in most cases, they're both stuck. The parents are stuck and not knowing what to do. The young adult is stuck because they're afraid, they're not sure you know how to move forward in their lives. So I interviewed a young adult, and then I interviewed this young adult, and it turns out that he was bullied as a kid. And he had all this resentment from his with his parents because he didn't feel like they supported him, that they were they were really sensitive to how damaging and upsetting this was to him. So I took that back to the parents and encouraged them to write a letter of apology to him. And in in the case of the mother, it was quite a nice letter. The father, I think, maybe told him personally just how in a in a in a verbal exchange with him how sorry he was he didn't see that, and and if they could do it over again, they they would have been much more supportive of him. Well then that changed, and and pretty soon he moved out with a couple of uh friends living in an apartment. I got a uh note from the what was a clip from the mother here a few months ago showing him at a graduation for a two-year computer science course, thanking the parents for always being there for him. You're always being there. So I one of my practices that I encourage parents to do is to apologize, apologize. Unless you're a perfect parent, then you then you're you're you're excluded exempted from this. I haven't found that person yet. Nope. It helps for the parent, because I think parents are the I feel like the guiltiest segment of our society. I mean, most parents think, particularly if there's some problems with your kids, well, what did I do wrong, or must have been this, or that I didn't do this, or whatever. So for the parents to be able to just say, hey, I'm sorry, I can't I I can't do it over. Uh all I can do is say that I'm sorry and I apologize for this. So that that also has the potential to soften the young adult's anger or resentment toward the parent. It can't be done to be sure you get that response from the young adult, but it does typically reduce some of that anger, resentment that's going on there. And then I encourage parents to forgive themselves for this. Yeah, one thing say apologize, and then just don't keep carrying around, forgive yourself for this. Okay, there's nothing you can do other than forgive yourself. And sometimes parents have to forgive their kids because the kids have been really difficult or challenging or in a lot of trouble or whatever, and the parents have some anger and maybe resentment toward their kids that they need to forgive their kids in order to really establish that positive relationship that they want to have with the kids as they leave. So right.

Todd: 37:01

Yeah, and I I appreciate what you say. You talk about forgiveness as a gift.

Jack: 37:06

Yeah.

Todd: 37:07

That's uh that's a loving approach, man. I really appreciate that.

Jack: 37:11

Yeah, uh apology is the antidote to guilt, and forgiveness is the antidote to resentment and anger. So Wow, that's deep. And they're they're both gifts, you know.

Todd: 37:23

Yeah. Yeah, I've had to apologize to both my kids for various things.

Jack: 37:28

Yeah.

Todd: 37:29

And uh one of you know, making my kid eat that hamburger when he hated it. So he kind of laughed about it though. He was like, Oh yeah, okay. He said, I haven't really thought about it, but uh sometimes I felt better about things.

Jack: 37:44

I was able to let things apologize to my son about something he didn't even remember it, you know. So but again, it was something I was carrying around with me, you know. So that's a similar situation.

Todd: 37:57

So yeah, same. Yeah, I appreciate so what you're alluding to here is that you provide coaching services for you know parents with kids and smaller children and also parents, kids that have adults. Um so you're doing work with both of those demographics, right?

Jack: 38:12

Yeah, it's well, it's mainly with a teen and young adult demographic. I I'm not so much working with parents with younger kids at this point. And I I do my work in Minnesota as a licensed psychologist. If I see parents outside of Minnesota, I I do that as a parent coach. So it's got it, it's a little bit different. It's uh you know, one is more of a therapeutic. I I I would be able to do some therapeutic work. The other one is more of a coaching role. Uh but that one, but then that's not covered by insurance, so people would have to pay you know privately for that. But I do see a number of people outside of Minnesota in that coaching role. So that's good.

Todd: 38:54

Yeah, well, that's a good place to uh talk about your books. Uh you've got a number of books out there. And uh what's the most recent one? Can you talk about that?

Jack: 39:03

Well, uh I'll mention one older book, which is a shorter one. It's called Growing Apart. Uh, and this is really one in a series of six small books that speak to these practices that I think parents need to strengthen to launch their young adults. So this is really about the period when they leave home and how you need to kind of uh reinvent yourselves as a couple. So that's now I took those six six practices, and I I wrote one book, which is this one, the The Parents Launch Code. So it has all six of these practices, and and it describes this process they use of helping to create a path forward for the parents and the young adult to work together in a partnership way on a on a direction that the young adult wants to go uh in terms of their launch process.

Todd: 40:00

Yeah. And uh I understand you're a man of faith. How does your faith influence or inform your approach to parenting?

Jack: 40:07

Well, you know, the first practice that I talk parent I talk to parents about, which is found I say is foundational, is that of communicating unconditional love. Love no matter what, and that creates a sense of security. So that really comes right out of my experience of God's unconditional love for me. You know, and I think we as parents need to express that same kind of love to our kids that creates this sense of security that in their darkest moments and times they know mom and dad love them no matter what. May not approve of behavior, but there's nothing that can break that bond that exists. And that's the that's the message of the gospel, too. Nothing can break the bond of love there that we have in in Jesus Christ. So forgiveness, apology, I mean, those are very much rooted out of my my Christian experience. You know, so uh a lot of it's not explicit, I'm not it's not written as an explicit book about those Christian underpinnings, but they they clearly are there, I think, if if you're you know looking for them.

Todd: 41:19

Yeah, universal truths. So that's uh that's good. Now, how do people get in contact with you?

Jack: 41:25

Well, my website is called parentslettinggo.com. So they can go there and they can get on my mailing list if they want and uh check out my website. There's probably 150 blogs that I've done there. Usually, and they those blogs are written in response to parents' issues that have come up. So they do um so it's it would be hard for a parent to not find something that they're struggling with that I haven't written about at one time or another. But you can get on the mailing list. I'm gonna probably I'm probably gonna do a webinar this fall yet. Uh, and I'll invite parents to attend that that would be just going through my basic approach and and things that they can do to uh you know be able to facilitate a uh positive launch of their kids.

Todd: 42:17

Excellent. Yeah, I've I've gone to your website and just a testimonial here from my side, there's just tons of parenting resources. It's parentslettinggo.com. And there's also an area. Do you still do? I saw an area where you can book a 50-minute parent consultation. Do you still do those?

Jack: 42:34

Sure. Perfect. Sure. That's the you can go back there and you can uh just connect to me and request that consultation. So yeah.

Todd: 42:43

Okay. Yeah. And if uh if you're in the Minnesota area, he can provide therapeutic services, but uh outside of the case. Yeah, so we'll put links in the description for his website and also uh for the books that were mentioned here. But uh Jack, I appreciate your time. It's been a good good conversation, sir.

Jack: 43:05

Yeah, I enjoyed uh enjoyed talking with you about this.

Todd: 43:07

So yeah, same. Now, just to my takeaways here, parenting, it's it's a tough job, and they're we can't do it alone. I remember our our children were born. I just thought, I have no idea what I'm doing. I remember driving my son home from the hospital for the first time, just thinking, why are they letting us do this? Someone should have someone should teach me. There should be a license or something, but there isn't. And they just put the baby in the car and went home. And uh it's a tough job. And many of us haven't really had a good example of a parent, but there are resources out there, and we've got access to coaches like Dr. Stoltz was here to help us. So check out his books, check out his website, and uh sign up for his newsletter and uh seek out the help that you need to get better. So thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review, share it with your friends, and until next time, we'll see you on the path.