Have you ever looked at your adult child and wondered, “How did we get here—and how do I love them without losing myself in fear, grief, or control?”

In this powerful episode of Power Your Parenting Moms with Teens, Colleen O’Grady sits down with bestselling author and parenting expert Jim Burns to talk about one of the most painful and confusing seasons of parenting: when an adult child begins to drift—whether from family values, faith, responsibility, or even the relationship itself. Jim shares practical wisdom and deep compassion for parents navigating estrangement, emotional distance, poor choices, or the heartbreak of watching a child struggle in their 20s and 30s. Together, Colleen and Jim discuss how to shift from controlling to connecting, how to set healthy boundaries without pushing your child away, and why staying in the “messy middle” matters more than perfection.

Jim Burns is the founder of HomeWord, a ministry dedicated to helping families thrive, and the author of multiple bestselling books including Doing Life with Your Adult Children and When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope. He speaks around the world on parenting, marriage, faith, and leadership, and has more than three million resources in print in over 20 languages. Jim and his wife Kathy have three adult daughters and several grandchildren, giving him both professional expertise and lived experience in navigating the emerging adult years.

In this conversation, Jim explains why parenting adult children requires an entirely different skill set than parenting teens. He discusses the importance of “giving your child the passport to adulthood,” why unsolicited advice often feels like criticism, and how fear can quietly drive unhealthy parenting patterns. Colleen and Jim also tackle difficult topics like estrangement, deconstruction of faith, enabling versus helping, codependency, and the grief many parents experience when their dreams for their child don’t unfold the way they imagined. Throughout the episode, Jim emphasizes that the goal is not controlling your adult child—it’s preserving connection, becoming a safe person, and building bridges instead of walls.

3 Takeaways from This Episode:

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