Hey guys, we're glad you're here. This is Cynthia Yanov, and thank you for joining us on our newest segment of Pardon the Mess called Asking for a Friend.

Each episode, we take roughly five minutes to answer tough or awkward parenting questions that you or, air quotes, a friend might be dealing with.

Today, Janet Dennison is with us,

and we are going to talk about raising a prodigal. And so the question, Janet, is, I think I might

be raising a prodigal. How do I know? And if I am, what do I do about it?

There's every one of our kids looks like a prodigal at some moment. So there are some

prodigal weeks and some prodigal months. And truthfully, there's a couple prodigal years,

usually. So you have to look at your child, though, and look at him from a perspective of

he's growing up in the Lord and he's trying to become he or she is trying to

become who God's called him to be. But what if your child doesn't know the Lord?

That's on any prodigal conversation. I always start there. The place you want to stand on first

is should I be worrying about my child's salvation?

So go back and revisit those moments.

Did you see the presence of Jesus in their life?

Or did you just assume your child because he or she had gone to church knows God and is a Christian?

I think we ask the wrong question sometimes and get the

wrong answer. The very first question you need to settle is, is my child, a child of God, too.

And a prodigal was a member of the family who just started making wrong decisions and went another way.

So the first thing you want to know is, is your child a member of the family before you

think of them as a prodigal? But if you are seeing a child who you know at one time had such

a sweet relationship with the Lord that it just makes you so sad. And it

happens. It happens in families where two kids just walk it and a third runs down the road.

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