Thank you for downloading the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast. You can find more helpful advice at

Focus on the Family.com.

slash parenting podcast.

You know, it could be really, really painful to watch an adult child drift from the

faith and reject your family's values especially these days maybe take a

politically different approach to life,

you want what's best for them, but you can't tell them what to live or believe or how to vote.

I'm John Fuller along with Danny Werther. He's the vice president of parenting and

youth here at Focus on the Family and Danny it is not helpful to lecture an adult child

especially if they have different values.

Isn't there a way, though, to kind of sheer my beliefs

and to also respect their independence?

I mean, there has to be a way for us to kind of coexist even though we have differing sets of values.

There is. I mean this is very difficult. There's no easy answer to the fact that children do leave the faith sometimes and you have completely different

belief systems and so that's not easy so I don't want to pretend that this is an easy answer

and dive into it. What I want to pretend that this is an easy answer and dive into it.

I what I want to say is that you can still in a respectful way share what you believe,

what you think, and seek understanding for what they're believing.

If you just shut it down, they're going to get louder and louder

and try to assert that they've got this, that they're adults,

they want respect as adults, that they can make their own decisions, remove that by just

respecting them at the beginning. So this is what you've chosen. Help me

...