What if trusting your adult child’s agency means accepting that they get to make choices you desperately wish they wouldn’t make?
That’s where agency gets hard.
It’s easy to call agency a gift from God when you like the choices your children are making. But what happens when you don’t?
Maybe your adult child has left the Church. Perhaps they’re in a relationship you’re worried about. They could be making choices that leave you lying awake at night wondering where all of this is going.
You love them. Of course you want to protect them.
Still, there comes a point when we have to remind ourselves of something that can be incredibly hard to accept.
Their agency was never ours to give them, and it isn’t ours to take away.
Agency mattered so much that there was a war in heaven over it. God’s plan included our freedom to choose, knowing we wouldn’t always choose what was right, easy, or free from painful consequences.
He gave us agency anyway.
So maybe the question isn’t, “How do I get my child to make a different choice?”
A better question might be:
Can I trust God’s gift of agency when my child uses it differently than I hoped they would?
Why Agency Is Necessary
Second Nephi 2 teaches that we are “free forever” and able to act for ourselves rather than simply being acted upon.
God didn’t create a plan where His children would always make the choices He wanted them to make. Instead, He created a plan where His children could actually choose.
For agency to be agency, choice has to include the possibility of making decisions we don’t understand, disagree with, or know will bring painful consequences.
That applies to your child too.
If agency is necessary for your growth and development, then there has to be room for it to play a role in your child’s growth as well.
Your adult child gets to decide what they believe, what they do, and what kind of relationship they want with God.
Meanwhile, you still have agency too.
You get to decide how you respond.
Will you speak or listen? Do you need a boundary? Can you ask a curious question instead of trying to convince them? What kind of mom do you want to be when your child’s life doesn’t look the way you pictured it?
That’s your agency.
And sometimes fear makes us forget we still have it.
Fear Takes You Into a Future That Hasn’t Happened
Fear is often future-focused.
Of course, sometimes fear protects us from an immediate threat. If you’re hiking and suddenly see a grizzly bear, you want your brain and body to react.
Most of the fear we experience about our adult children looks very different.
Your child makes one choice today, and suddenly your brain jumps five years ahead.
What if this gets worse and what if they never change?
Another question, What if this relationship doesn’t work out or what if they leave the Church and never come back?
What if they regret this?
Notice where all of those questions live.
The future.
None of it is happening right now.
Yet your body can react as though it’s already happening. You can’t sleep. Your stomach hurts. Your thoughts race. You replay conversations and plan what you’ll say next time.
I like to think of this as watching a scary movie in your head.
Your brain writes the script, casts your child in the starring role, decides how everything will turn out, and then scares you with the ending.
Change the Channel on the Scary Movie
When you notice yourself watching that movie, change the channel.
Sometimes that means giving your brain something else to work on. Go for a walk. Organize the closet. Bake bread. Work on your business. Serve someone. Learn something new.
Give your brain a problem that actually belongs to you.
Another thing that has helped me tremendously is bringing myself back to the present moment.
Ask yourself:
Where is my child right now?
There were times I felt tremendous fear about something happening to my grandchildren. My brain wanted to show me everything that could go wrong.
So I practiced coming back to what was actually happening.
Right now, she’s riding her bike, and she’s okay.
Right now, he’s riding his scooter in front of me, and he’s okay.
That question pulled me out of a future that existed only in my head and brought me back to what was true right now.
Fear Pretends It Knows the Ending
Your brain loves asking, “But what if?”
Okay. Let’s play the what-if game.
What if this choice does create a difficult experience for your child?
There’s also another possibility.
What if this challenge teaches them something they couldn’t have learned another way?
You could also ask, what if they grow because of it?
What if God works with them through an experience you would have taken away?
You might also ask what if ten years from now you look back and realize you couldn’t see the whole picture, even though you were positive you could?
We don’t know.
That’s the point.
Fear pretends to know.
Worry Is Fear Disguised as Wisdom
Worry can be tricky for moms because it feels responsible.
You might even think, “What kind of mom would I be if I wasn’t worried about this?”
But worry isn’t the same thing as wisdom.
Think about getting into your car.
You buckle your seat belt, you pay attention and you drive carefully.
Those are reasonable precautions.
However, you don’t buckle your seat belt and then spend the entire drive gripping the steering wheel while imagining every possible accident.
You buckle up and drive.
The same thing happens when you brush your teeth. You take care of them because you want to prevent cavities. Then you move on with your day.
You don’t brush your teeth for three hours because you’re terrified you might get a cavity.
Wisdom takes appropriate action and moves on. Worry keeps going.
That difference can help you when you’re deciding what to do with your adult child.
Maybe you need to have a conversation.
Perhaps you need to offer help.
At times, a boundary needs to be set.
Those actions can come from wisdom rather than fear.
Ask yourself:
Am I buckling my seat belt, or am I watching the scary movie?
Is Your Worry Actually Helping Your Child?
Here are a few questions I like to ask when worry starts feeling useful.
Is my worry changing my child’s choices?
Is it making our relationship better?
Does worrying help me listen to my child?
Am I more curious, compassionate, and loving because I’ve spent hours thinking about everything that could go wrong?
Probably not.
Fear often does the opposite.
We lecture. We withdraw. Sometimes we get angry. Other times, we ask questions that aren’t really questions because we already know the answer we want.
We may even avoid our child because we don’t know what to say.
So if worry isn’t changing your child, improving your relationship, or helping you become the mom you want to be, what is it accomplishing?
Mostly, it’s creating suffering for you.
Worrying Now Won’t Protect You From Pain Later
Sometimes we believe worrying will prepare us for something terrible.
It won’t.
If something painful happens in the future, you will experience the emotions that come with it then.
Worrying today doesn’t make tomorrow’s grief smaller.
It simply gives you more days of suffering.
I call that pre-suffering.
Pre-suffering doesn’t protect you from future pain. It asks you to experience pain now over something that hasn’t happened and might never happen.
Instead, come back to today.
What is happening right now?
What actually needs your attention?
Deal with what’s here instead of trying to emotionally survive a future your brain invented.
How Do I Manage My Struggle With My Adult Child?
This is usually where a mom says, “Okay, Sherylee. I understand that fear is future-focused. I understand that worry isn’t helping. But I’m still struggling.”
Of course.
Knowing something intellectually doesn’t make the emotion disappear.
So change the question.
Instead of asking, “how do I make my child stop struggling?” ask:
How do I manage my struggle?
That’s a question you can actually do something about.
You can look at what you’re thinking and process your emotions. Coaching can help you see thoughts you can’t see on your own. You can decide what boundaries you need and how you want to show up.
What you often can’t do is fix your adult child’s struggle, especially when they don’t want your help.
That doesn’t mean you stop caring.
It means you stop making their struggle your problem to solve.
Your Child Is Supposed to Have Hard Experiences
I know. Nobody looked at that beautiful baby in their arms and thought, “I can’t wait for this child to struggle someday.”
We want to protect our children from pain.
Yet our children weren’t sent here to have perfectly comfortable lives.
Neither were we.
They’re going to have beautiful experiences, happy experiences, disappointing experiences, painful experiences, and challenging ones.
That’s part of being human.
As moms, we often believe we know the solution to our child’s struggle. Sometimes we probably do know what we would do.
That doesn’t mean we know what their life is supposed to look like.
Maybe there’s something here for them to learn.
Perhaps there’s something they’re figuring out.
There could be something happening between them and God that you simply cannot see.
Your Child’s Life Is Not Your Report Card
This took me a long time to learn:
How my children turn out is not all because of me.
Yes, we influence our children.
We raised them. We taught them. We made mistakes. Some days we did a great job, and other days weren’t so great.
But I don’t want to take all the credit when my children are doing beautifully and then take all the blame when one of them struggles.
Their lives aren’t my report card.
Your child wasn’t supposed to have a perfect mother.
They got a human one.
Now they’re human adults with their own agency.
That realization can bring so much relief.
Loving Them Isn’t the Same as Controlling Them
Instead of asking, “How do I fix this?” try asking:
How do I best love my child right now?
Loving them doesn’t mean controlling them.
Love also doesn’t require you to know what’s best for every part of their life.
You can support them.
Stay curious. Listen. Have a difficult conversation. Set a boundary. Say no.
Choose not to rescue them from a consequence.
You can also take care of yourself.
Sometimes loving your child and loving yourself will require different choices than fear wants you to make.
You’re Still Allowed to Feel Pain
Trusting your adult child’s agency doesn’t mean becoming emotionless.
There will be moments when something your child does hurts your heart.
Have a good cry.
You can say, “I love them so much, and this hurts.”
That’s clean pain.
Dirty pain piles a story on top:
I failed.
They’re ruining their life.
This shouldn’t be happening.
Everything has gone wrong.
I have to fix this.
Now you’re carrying the original sadness plus fear, guilt, shame, and responsibility for another adult’s life.
Peace doesn’t require your child’s life to change first.
You can learn to be okay while still wishing something were different.
Stay in Your Lane
One of the simplest ways I know to figure out where your energy belongs is to picture three lanes on a highway:
God’s lane. Your lane. Other people’s lane.
God’s lane contains the things you cannot control.
Timing belongs there. So does tomorrow. The length of your child’s process, unexpected circumstances, and so much of what happens in life belong in God’s lane.
Other people’s lane includes their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, choices, and relationship with God.
Your adult child’s testimony Their lane, their timetable is their lane.
Their choices?
That is their lane.
Then there’s your lane.
What Belongs in Your Lane?
You get to decide how you respond.
Your thoughts belong here.
So do your boundaries.
You choose when to speak and when to listen, you decide how to care for yourself. Your behavior, your relationship with God, and the kind of mother you want to be all belong in your lane.
Something interesting happens when we spend too much time in our adult child’s lane.
We feel powerless.
There’s a reason for that.
We are powerless over someone else’s agency.
However, the moment you come back to your lane, you get your own agency back.
God Is Still on the Road With Your Child
Your child’s life belongs to them.
They get to experience it, learn from it, and make choices along the way.
Most importantly, God is still on that road with them.
Even when they take roads you wouldn’t have chosen.
Even when you can’t see where those roads lead.
God’s ability to reach His children isn’t limited to the route you wanted them to take.
I used to think about this when my kids were teenagers. Their focus was often Friday night. They could see what they wanted to do Friday, who they wanted to be with, and what sounded fun.
As their mom, I thought I could see so much farther.
Now I realize I’m not that different.
I can see Friday.
Our Heavenly Parents can see far beyond what I can see.
So maybe I can put some of that trust back in Their hands.
Trusting Agency Doesn’t Mean Trusting Every Choice
Trusting your adult child’s agency doesn’t sound like:
“I trust my child will eventually make the choice I want.”
It sounds more like:
“I trust that their life belongs to them, and I trust God enough to stop believing I have to control the outcome.”
That’s very different.
Doctrine and Covenants 123 teaches us to “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power” and then “stand still.”
Sometimes we forget the standing-still part.
We do everything in our power.
Then we try to do everything in our child’s power.
After that, we move into God’s lane and try to manage His part too.
No wonder we’re exhausted.
Your Child Has Agency, and So Do You
What if your child’s agency isn’t simply something you have to endure?
What if this is also an opportunity to practice your own?
You can choose love when you disagree.
Curiosity can replace correction.
Prayer can replace panic.
A healthy boundary can replace resentment.
You can choose to trust God when the story isn’t going the way you wrote it in your head.
Trusting agency was never about believing your child will always make good choices.
They won’t.
Neither will you.
Neither have I.
Instead, trusting agency means making room for choices, struggles, consequences, repentance, learning, and growth to be part of mortality.
Your child’s life doesn’t have to look the way you pictured it for God to still be at work.
So when your mind races 500 years into the future, come back.
Ask yourself:
What’s God’s lane?
What’s my child’s lane?
And what’s mine?
Their agency is theirs.
God’s business is God’s.
And your agency is still yours.
Want Help Knowing What to Say?
It’s one thing to understand that your child has agency. It’s another thing to be sitting across from them, your heart pounding, trying to figure out what to say without turning the conversation into an argument.
That’s why I created my FREE Conversation Scripts.
They’ll give you words to use when you want to stay connected to your child without lecturing, convincing, fixing, or pretending you’re okay with something you’re not.
Get the FREE Conversation Scripts here
And if you’re thinking, “The scripts will help, but I need help with everything going on inside of me,” let’s talk.
If your child’s choices are taking up way too much space in your head, you’re constantly questioning what you should say or do, or you’re struggling to stay in your own lane, coaching can help.
You don’t need your child to change before you can feel more confident in yourself and more connected to them.
Schedule a FREE coaching call with me here
We’ll talk about what’s happening with your child, what’s been hardest for you, and what coaching could look like for you.