When Fathers Need Grace: David Ask on Faith & Forgiveness

 His leadership and communication background could lend itself well to an introspective title—especially if you touched on themes of speaking life into adult children, healing misunderstandings, or navigating silent estrangement. 

Want to be a guest on ABCs of Parenting Adult Children? Send James Moffitt a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/parentingadultchildren

Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

Hello, James here !

Please click on the subscribe button to gain access to premium episodes.

Please go to parentingadultchildren.org website and sign up for the email list and leave a review for this episode. 

If you have any requests for future topics send me an email to TalkPAC@proton.me

Please share this podcast with your friends and family. Now for today's guest intervi

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.294)
Hello and welcome to Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today we have a guest speaker by the name of David Ask. David, thank you for being here. How are doing?

David Ask (00:13.034)
What's up? Yeah, I'm doing great today. Thanks.

James Moffitt (00:14.572)
Yeah, so I'm glad you're here today and I always love having men or dads on the show because dads always bring a different unique perspective to the role of parenting and as I've said before in other episodes, know, moms and dads love their kids equally, I think and

David Ask (00:32.953)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (00:43.276)
moms tend to be the primary caregivers in the home. Some moms stay at home, they home school or they're just more actively involved in the day-to-day activities of homemaking, taking care of the kiddos. And dads are a little bit more of those who maybe provide more of the discipline and set boundaries and guidance and provide the guardrails.

and help to prepare the children for the real world, right? And we all know that once you step outside the front door, little Johnny's just not as special to everybody as he is to us, right? And sometimes the world's a little bit on the hard side, know, reality sets in and we're like, wow, this is nothing like what I had at home, you know? So anyway, I'm...

I'm glad that you can provide a dad's perspective. I'm just going to read this little profile that you have on Podmatch. So, it's exploring identity and authenticity, David Aske brings insights into fostering resilience and grit in young adults and their families. The episode could discuss how a deep understanding of personal identity transforms parenting strategies.

David Ask (02:09.272)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's a funny thing. I've spent the last, man, I guess six years now, you know, really digging into this idea of self-awareness and how do you, you know, what does it look like to, you know, to understand yourself and help someone else understand themselves, you know, i.e. parenting, right? I like that you use that term guardrails and, you know, it's...

James Moffitt (02:22.274)
you

James Moffitt (02:32.716)
Right?

David Ask (02:38.326)
Obviously when children are younger, you know, we provide those guardrails, but as they get older, what does it look like to provide internal guardrails so that they can, you know, have that, yeah, that sense of, you know, of confidence as they launch into the world. My, good friend of mine, Dr. Andy Garrett, who I work with closely, he uses that term.

clinical term self-actualization. And he, you know, what does that really mean? It's, you're basically, you know, able at that point to have those internal guardrails to navigate life with.

David Ask (03:23.63)
So, and James, I'm hearing some feedback here. Are you hearing that on your end?

James Moffitt (03:28.837)
No?

David Ask (03:30.084)
I'm hearing myself for some reason.

That's kind of strange.

on test one two.

James Moffitt (03:39.19)
No, you're only coming across on my earbuds.

David Ask (03:41.836)
Okay, that's strange. Anyway, let's keep going then. Sorry.

James Moffitt (03:47.596)
You're fine. I can I can actually cut this out. So I'll edit it with Riverside.

So, know, fathers...

James Moffitt (04:03.63)
Well, I'll just back up and say that one of the recurring themes that we have here at the pod, all our podcast episodes is failure to launch boundaries and all of that sort of stuff. There's about 30 of them. can't name them off the top of my head, but boundaries is a very prevalent important topic that we discuss because

they're so important for not only the parents, but also for the children. And before our kids turn 18, we have a parent-child relationship with them. then so we're very active in their day-to-day activities and enforcing boundaries, making sure they don't crash into the guardrails too hard. then when they turn 18, they start becoming an

you know, between 18 and 26, they become adults, you know, more and more so, they start maturing and it seems like the female gender, they seem to, their frontal lobe seems to mature a little bit faster than the guys for whatever reason. And we like to crash into the guard rails and flip over, you know, as much as possible, because it seems to be fun to us.

David Ask (05:18.964)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

David Ask (05:28.493)
Right.

James Moffitt (05:29.238)
But anyhow, once they start becoming an adult, then we become a mentor and we become a support system. And obviously once they become an adult, you know, they can be like, you know, I hear what you're saying, dad, but I don't necessarily agree with it. And I may not actually follow that. Right. And so what we hope is that we have enough of a relationship with that new adult.

David Ask (05:48.034)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (05:58.764)
that there's respect has been baked into that relationship. hopefully the new adult child will operate within the bounds of that respect and still listen to us and still come to us with their issues and problems and things that they're facing out in the world.

David Ask (06:25.624)
Yeah, that's a really good point. And like you said, I think it's that type of a relationship, you know, needs to be cultivated for years. You know, I, again, Dr. Andy uses this phrase called, you know, psychological safety. And I think, I think it's more of this idea too of psychological respect. And, and what's fascinating though is I think that's generated quite often through the ability to be wrong and get through the weeds together.

James Moffitt (06:38.158)
like a

James Moffitt (06:47.203)
I that's...

David Ask (06:54.968)
You know, cause I think that quite often when, you know, teenagers are wrong and that kind of stuff, if they get shut down too many times and they don't feel like they can, you know, they've got a safe place to process some of their thoughts and ideas and hormones and all the other stuff, right. And they're just like, Hey, I'm not going to go back to that well. If that well is filled with, you know, alligators and, know, yeah, it's so, so the boundaries end up getting really.

James Moffitt (06:55.223)
Right.

David Ask (07:23.78)
you really messed up. It's there's no sense of, hey, we're on the same team here. Let's let's do this together. And let me give you rope, you know, long enough so that you're you can't hang yourself. But yet you can, you know, learn some things with still being safe to.

James Moffitt (07:40.706)
Yeah, and children and young adults want to be heard and they want to be they want to be heard. They want to be seen, which means that fathers, especially fathers, they need to be present in their children's lives. They need to be there. There's another term that we talk about a lot. Emotional resilience or emotional maturity. I'm not hitting the second word right. I'm not emotional. Intelligence, right? So.

David Ask (08:08.634)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Moffitt (08:09.902)
The emotional intelligence needs to be the father and the mom. You know, got a husband, you got a wife, a mom and a dad, and the marriage relationship needs to be grounded and have a good foundation before the children come into the scene. Of course, we know that a lot of times we're all just growing up together. know, moms and dads are growing up. We don't have a...

We don't have a manual per se. They pat you on the head and give you a bag of diapers and send you out of the hospital and go, good luck. They seem to be healthy, good luck. then we had these fragile human beings that are babies in the animal kingdom. Human babies are the most fragile and most susceptible to danger.

David Ask (08:49.283)
Ahem.

James Moffitt (09:07.246)
than any in the animal kingdom. And so we have the awesome role of nurturing and feeding and protecting and raising these children. Katie and I have been married for, we're going on 35 years and we raised four children and they're grown and gone and we're empty nesters. Well, wait a minute, I have two dogs and two cats. We're not really empty nesters, but our adult children don't live here anymore.

David Ask (09:33.639)
Hahaha

James Moffitt (09:37.196)
And we're still in contact with two of them. Yeah, two of them. And so.

emotional intelligence. It's important that while we're trying to shape and form the minds and hearts of our adult children, we need to be cognizant of what's going on inside of us.

David Ask (10:07.298)
Yeah, isn't that the truth? you know, something you mentioned about boundaries, I'll revisit. I think that, you know, something that dads, you know, bring to the table is this idea of certainty. And again, I referenced Dr. Andy because I've learned so much from him I work with him. But I asked him one time, because I'm working on a book called The Guardians of Grit for dads. And I asked him, said, so what's the number one thing that a child needs?

you know, from their father. And he said, without hesitation, it's to remove as much uncertainty as possible, which I thought was a really fascinating thing, right? You would think it's protection, you would think it's love and, you know, but what's fascinating is, is if you, if you actually look at kind of the umbrella, you know, of uncertainty, right? Well, that encompasses all of those things, right? The kid, the kids feel safe. They feel loved. It's, there's no question mark around any of that.

James Moffitt (10:49.933)
Sure.

James Moffitt (11:03.95)
There's no question.

David Ask (11:07.518)
And what's fascinating too, though, is I think with regards to boundaries and so on, is I really believe that we are called to raise our children. And quite often, I think there's a new, probably a new paradigm in our culture, which I think is just complete nonsense, is that, well, I'm going to let my children choose what they believe about X, Y, and Z.

James Moffitt (11:31.203)
Well,

David Ask (11:35.692)
and on some really, really huge issues. That doesn't mean, right, that we need to ram our beliefs down our kids' throat. But I really believe as a father, I'll steal this from Seth Godin, you he says, people like us do things like this. So I want my kids to know, you know, as the leader of my family, we have an ethic that we live by, right? People like us do things like this. But here's the funny thing, right?

James Moffitt (11:38.711)
Right.

James Moffitt (12:00.513)
Right. Right.

David Ask (12:05.742)
They're gonna ask why. And as the dad, if I cannot back that up, well, you know, come on. You know, if you're gonna say something is true, well, you better be able to back it up. And I believe there are absolute bedrock truths in this life that you can base your entire existence on. So when we remove as much uncertainty as possible,

James Moffitt (12:07.992)
Right.

David Ask (12:30.54)
I want my kids to know by the time they leave my home, I'm getting, you know, the last, we're going to be empty nesters in about six months. You know, I want them to know full well while they're self actualizing, they can look back and see the consistent plumb line that dad operated his life through. And, and it's going to be such a stabilizing force. If they choose not to believe what I believe, well, that's, that's on them and that's okay, I guess. At the same time,

I want to be extremely confident in what I believe and why I do the things that I do. And I think that brings so much stability to a family.

James Moffitt (13:13.154)
You know, as fathers, set, we kind of set the tone for what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable. And, and, and our, our role as fathers is that, is that we, we,

David Ask (13:18.692)
We totally set the tone, absolutely.

James Moffitt (13:30.402)
We help put those guardrails in place and we communicate our heritage. I was raised in the 70s and 80s and I didn't have a very healthy childhood. My sister and I were adopted in Germany. I was raised by military family and they were

David Ask (13:52.462)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (13:59.212)
very authoritative, authoritarian, and don't do as I do, do as I say, don't question me. We go to relatives, we go out in public, you sit with your hands in your lap and you don't speak unless you're spoken to, yada, yada, yada. And so there was a lot of garbage there that I had to unlearn when I became a father, right? And you're exactly right that whatever tone that you set and whatever, you know, we...

David Ask (14:02.009)
Yeah.

David Ask (14:14.178)
Yeah.

David Ask (14:25.668)
you

James Moffitt (14:30.654)
for a lack of better terminology, we pass our ethics and our morality onto our children. We define what's right and wrong, right? It's right to love one another. It's right to respect one another. It's right to say, I'm sorry. It's right for me to discipline you when you make a mistake. And it's wrong for us to do anything different than that, you know?

David Ask (14:38.318)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

James Moffitt (15:00.138)
It's wrong for the parents to make excuses. And it's wrong for us to say, I don't want you to do drugs. But yet they see mom and dad lighting up a doobie at six o'clock in the evening or drinking a beer and popping up their feet and flipping the channels on the TV and being emotionally non-existent, being absent from the

David Ask (15:25.102)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (15:29.23)
our children's lives, you know, and that's where the terminology latchkey children, you know, I guess it was 50s, 60s and 70s when that was such a phenomenon because mom and dad were out of the house working, you know, making money to pay the bills and put food on the table. And the kids had keys to the front door and they'd get out, they'd get off the school bus and they'd run home and open the door.

and go in and sure you may have a list of chores and stuff you expected for them to do, but and I'm talking about how I was raised. you know, that that as you said earlier, that paradigm has shifted. You know, now we're now we're in the 2000 or the 21st century. And and a lot of that's changed. But it's but I think that even even though we're in

21st century as fathers, it's still important that we set the tone for our family and that we are the leaders in our family. Our wives and the mothers of our children need for dads to be engaged and they need to be the leaders of their families and they need to provide a, like you said, a constant. There needs to be a constant line of certainty in the family.

David Ask (16:54.424)
Yeah, you know, it's funny. I'll put it this way. And again, I'm probably quoting somebody that I don't remember. You know, no, nobody stumbles into success, right? You don't, you don't get rich by accident. You don't get a six pack abs by accident. You don't have a great marriage by accident. You don't have, you know, you don't have great relationships with your kids by accident. And, you know, you could just run with that. Right. So the cool thing about it though is, is,

James Moffitt (17:05.091)
Right.

James Moffitt (17:20.536)
Sure.

David Ask (17:24.356)
I think that, I'll put it this way, and I think a lot of people misunderstand this word authentic. If you lead authentically, you know, that's really where it all starts. And I love this idea of, you know, even for my kids to define what does it mean to be authentic? So one of the things that I do a lot of, you know, talks on is this idea of authenticity and identity and how people get it wrong. I, so,

James Moffitt (17:34.581)
where it all starts.

James Moffitt (17:51.854)
So.

David Ask (17:54.304)
You know, I often ask, you know, a crowd or group of people, does anybody know where the term authentic came from? And of course, a lot of people kind of scratch their heads. Well, you know, I don't know. Well, it came from the word author. Right. We didn't we didn't make us. I didn't choose my eye color. I didn't choose my taste buds. I didn't choose my skin color. I didn't choose where and when I was born. And here's the fascinating thing is, is we often think that in the land of the free home of the brave.

James Moffitt (17:59.182)
Thank

James Moffitt (18:04.172)
Right?

James Moffitt (18:17.581)
Right.

James Moffitt (18:23.214)
you

David Ask (18:23.96)
that we get to choose everything, right? I'm free. Well, guess what? You didn't even choose your own personality. So what's fascinating is, is when children are, you know, zero to, I don't know, five or six years old, and I often talk about this paradigm, because it's really important to understand, you know, kids, like, you know, names like you and me, like we're trying to be authentic all the time, they're not thinking about authenticity, right? They're not thinking, how can I be a better version or,

James Moffitt (18:53.998)
you

David Ask (18:54.08)
of myself and all that kind of stuff, right? They're just doing their deal. And every single bit of their authenticity is just on display, whether it's their taste buds or what makes them cry or laugh. And it's different from the person next to them and the things that they gravitate to. And what happens if you get older is you start to identify, like literally write it down, your identity, right? You're writing it down, the things that make you authentic. So what I think the best way for a father

James Moffitt (18:57.4)
Sure.

James Moffitt (19:01.102)
of you.

Sure.

David Ask (19:23.608)
you to set the temperature in his home. And you actually brought this up earlier, this idea of seeing your kids, you know, it's, well, what does that really mean? It really means to see and help them identify the wonder, the riches, their, you know, all the little Piccadillo's, their strengths and what gives them goosebumps and all those things that make them unique because it's different from their brother or sister. And as a dad,

James Moffitt (19:42.316)
string.

James Moffitt (19:50.232)
Right.

David Ask (19:51.917)
You you get to mine for gold, you know, and they're beautiful little souls and start to identify, you know, and read their label for them and name those things and call those things out and get behind those things and help them to explore their authenticity and become more of themselves. And quite often in our society, though, we think that we have to generate that authenticity, right? We have to become somebody, you know, or at least not be a nobody.

James Moffitt (20:06.936)
They're off.

David Ask (20:20.712)
And the pressure that especially teenagers feel nowadays is just insane. And I think that as fathers, we get to set the temperature in our homes by not only living authentically in ourselves, loving our kids the way that's kind of natural to us, but to let them exhale while just being themselves and to encourage them in their own lane, as it were.

James Moffitt (20:42.595)
Right?

James Moffitt (20:48.567)
Yeah, I

I had a thought and it just flew right out of my head. guess I'll run with real life is not the same as a 30 second TikTok video or Facebook, right? there's social media has thrown up some artificial barriers for parents to overcome because, you know,

David Ask (20:54.148)
You

David Ask (21:03.94)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (21:21.344)
You know people, you you have friends, you know, everybody that's a friend of yours on Facebook is not necessarily a friend. They might be a casual acquaintance, they're not necessarily your friend and they're certainly not your best friend, right? Those are relationships that you develop away from the computer and away from social media. But social media projects a false narrative that adults as well as young adults, you know,

adults of all ages, they get confused with what reality is. it's like, you see all these stories of perfection. You see all these families that are always on vacation. They're always buying new cars. They're always going on cruises and their kids are perfect and they're winning all the accolades and awards, you know, but you don't see the garbage on the other side of the screen, right? You don't see the...

David Ask (21:55.225)
Man.

James Moffitt (22:17.678)
you know, the screaming arguments at three o'clock in the morning or none of that stuff, you know, and so it's important that when I talk about children being seen, I think I'm remembering what I was thinking about.

David Ask (22:19.143)
Uh-uh.

James Moffitt (22:37.834)
I had to learn and I never really perfected it, but I had to learn how to demonstrate love towards my children. Right? And because my dad never did that for me. The only time my dad interacted with me was when he was doling out punishment for my misdeeds. And so when we became parents,

David Ask (22:46.852)
Mmm.

David Ask (22:56.792)
Hmm

David Ask (23:00.452)
Yeah, yeah, that's tough.

James Moffitt (23:08.654)
I was still learning how to be a dad. I was still learning how to be a young man. Right. And I was, I was having to undo years of

for better or worse damage that was done to me, right? And so I was learning how to be an authentic young man, right? And I was learning how to build a new identity. And I had to understand that I didn't have to be perfect, I just needed to be me, right? And I needed to do the best I could with what I had at the moment, right? And so I knew when my kids,

David Ask (23:24.74)
Sure, yeah, that's pretty common.

David Ask (23:36.664)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (23:50.094)
Chuck Swindoll, and who is that child psychologist? my goodness, I can't think of his name. James Dobson. So as a Christian, as a Christ follower, you my wife are both believers and we go to church and we try to live a life that's becoming of, you know, a life of faith.

David Ask (23:57.124)
James Dobson.

James Moffitt (24:15.026)
And so I knew that I needed to listen to James Thompson and unlearn the garbage that I was raised by and with. And I had to learn how to see my children. And I needed to be emotionally present in their lives and to demonstrate love towards them. did I figure it out? Probably not. Did I try? Yes, absolutely. I did try.

knew that I had to be transparent with them and I had to learn how to say I'm sorry. You know, when I reacted to them or with them in a way that my father would have reacted to me, you know, in anger or in frustration or whatever, I had to learn how to take a breath. And sometimes you just have to let the, you have to let the situation cool down over a period of hours or maybe a day or two and then revisit it and go.

David Ask (25:08.996)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (25:11.576)
Hey, this is what happens. This is how I perceived that I responded. And I'm sorry I did that because that was wrong of me, right? And I think.

David Ask (25:20.228)
takes a lot of guts and that takes a really deep level of authenticity to do that. So yeah.

James Moffitt (25:26.03)
Right. And I think dads need to understand that it's okay to say, I'm sorry. You know, it's okay to be human, right? We're all human. We're not perfect. No matter what kind of image in your head you may have of what a perfect father is, well, you know, our example of what a father is, is God the father and Jesus, you know? And we see what he did for the woman at the well and all these...

David Ask (25:31.917)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (25:55.778)
different Bible stories and things of how he handled other people and how he demonstrated love towards them. He didn't accept or condone or engage in sin or pat them on the back for being stupid, but he loved them and he appreciated them and he showed them that God loved them and that

that they had value, right? And he showed them a different way. And I think that that's probably the best example that dads have when it comes to engaging with their children, right?

David Ask (26:45.112)
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I think that saying, you know, I'm sorry piece is huge. In fact, we have a, on our wall in the hallway, we have kind of a, like a stencil that says, you know, in our family, and the first thing is, is we say, we do, I'm sorry's. That's the first one. And it's, you know, that's, it's absolutely vital. Yeah. And I think you're right. think that.

You know, so many, of course, examples, right? The real stories that happened are those in which, you know, Jesus, you know, God in the flesh, you know, looked at someone and didn't condemn them, but he said, hey, you're missing the mark. You know, you're missing the mark. You know, let's go do this together. Come with me. And, yeah, all right.

James Moffitt (27:15.694)
stories.

James Moffitt (27:27.694)
Right.

James Moffitt (27:34.542)
especially the religious people. Those who were striving to live a perfect example, a religious, you know, all these rules. If you're going to be like God, you have to obtain perfection through all of these rules, right? You look at the Old Testament, we all screwed up horribly. Mankind in general screwed up horribly, right?

That's why there's grace. That's why Jesus hung on the cross. That's why God sent himself to the cross so he could redeem us from all of that silliness, right, and stupidity and vanity and, you know.

David Ask (28:17.796)
Yeah, it's, I remember my pastor said one time, he said that Christians not only repent of their sin, but of their righteousness. And it's amazing how our righteousness, right, if we kind of, if we think that it's, you know, Jesus Christ plus my good works. Well, what is that really saying? That it's what he did is not complete. And then I start focusing on all this behavior and extrinsic type of

James Moffitt (28:22.358)
So they're Christian.

James Moffitt (28:30.446)
Thank

David Ask (28:45.612)
you know, behavior and it just starts to crush us because we cannot live up to it.

James Moffitt (28:50.722)
Right? And we start comparing our quote unquote best behavior with our neighbors. Well, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. I don't go out and corrals, you know, chase women until three o'clock in the morning. And I always come home, you know, after work and prop up my feet and drink a beer and flip the channels while the wife's doing all the work in the kitchen and tending to the children. you know, it's so, I think it's part of human nature.

David Ask (28:56.745)
Right.

James Moffitt (29:19.842)
ourselves to others, know, and to, it's like you said, our acts of righteousness, which are, you know, like filthy rags and eyes of God, you know, we're, we, there was only one righteous person and we hung him on the cross, you know, so that, that whole, that whole story is like, yep, that's humanity. That's exactly who we were and who we are left to our own devices, right?

David Ask (29:21.316)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (29:49.346)
That's why it's important that we love our kids and we try to provide the best example that we can for them.

David Ask (29:57.73)
Yeah, and I think that, you know, that, you know, the term grace means, you know, unmerited favor. And sometimes we think that the word unmerited stands by itself, but it's actually the favor that matters. And I think that, you know, we as dads, you know, when when our children understand, you know, that you are the object of my delight, you know, I love you just like so much that it hurts.

James Moffitt (30:04.706)
Right.

David Ask (30:25.75)
And I mean, they really need to understand the depth of our favor towards them. And it's amazing what happens in a relationship when the children understand that, man, dad is for me like a hurricane. Like I can't get away from him. He's just always for me. And that type of a relationship long into adulthood creates such a team.

James Moffitt (30:42.882)
Right.

David Ask (30:54.518)
you know, effort, right? In fact, I had t-shirts made a years ago for Christmas. You know, my last name is ASK, like ask, it's pronounced osk. In fact, so I actually had team osk, you know, shirts made. In fact, my hat says, you know, osk on it. And I, but I always wanted my kids to know that, man, if we sink, we sink together, right? If we win, we win together. And I want them to know that no matter what, I am absolutely for them like a hurricane.

James Moffitt (31:03.99)
Okay.

James Moffitt (31:24.45)
And what's the best way that a dad can demonstrate that to the children and in a living example is how you treat your wife, right? You love and respect your wife and you treat her as the best thing in your life, right? And that's how young boys and young men learn how to treat women is they have an example of a father at home.

David Ask (31:34.794)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

James Moffitt (31:53.654)
He doesn't beat his mother. He's not an alcoholic. Doesn't treat her irreverently through verbal abuse. know, there's physical abuse. Domestic abuse takes on many, many colors. And emotional abuse is sometimes even worse than physical abuse. And so I think it's paramount that dads

David Ask (32:15.876)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (32:22.67)
revisit that marital relationship and do everything in their power to make that as strong as possible. And that's why you go to retreats and stuff. Your churches have a couple retreats.

David Ask (32:32.216)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (32:41.848)
whatever they call, you know, it's good. It's. Yeah.

David Ask (32:41.858)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, marriage retreats, all kinds of stuff. And I think, I think too, right? It's, think, I think there's a lot of people that, you know, their definition of success is do no harm. But I'll be honest, I think that indifference or just this, you know, okay, at least I wasn't mean. That's, that's not, that's not success. I want Lisa to understand that I am thrilled with her. I mean, the more I love her with

James Moffitt (33:02.893)
Right.

James Moffitt (33:07.938)
Right.

David Ask (33:11.348)
know, the same, hopefully the similar love that God gives me, right? And of course a broken way, you know, she shines and it just makes the entire family better. But I'm with you. I think the number one way to love our children is to love our spouses.

James Moffitt (33:27.416)
Yep. It's an example that's needed horribly in our families. know, in the family, you know, the world that we're living in right now, families are, not the nuclear, it's not the nuclear family, it's not the bedrock of our society anymore. Right?

David Ask (33:33.71)
Yeah.

David Ask (33:46.882)
Yeah, and the proof's in the pudding too. Everything's kind of falling apart because of it.

James Moffitt (33:52.64)
Right. And I remember, you know, I didn't become a Christian until I was like 17 years old. And that's a whole other story. But I remember as I was becoming a young adult and exploring my faith and growing in wisdom with regards to God's Word and the people I was listening to, Chuck Sundahl and James Dobson and Billy Graham and other

warriors of faith that are out there, or either Billy Graham's not with us anymore, but Franklin Graham's there. so there are...

There are people that we look up to and we hopefully can learn from so that we can grow inside as people and that growth, hopefully in turn, we fill our cup and then we can turn around and we can let that love and that knowledge and that wisdom leak out towards our family.

David Ask (34:56.27)
Sure, yeah, well said, yep.

James Moffitt (35:00.91)
All right.

James Moffitt (35:05.134)
Here's some example questions. How do identity and authenticity influence parenting adult children?

David Ask (35:13.864)
You know, I think that the, again, to understand those words is paramount, right? And we talked about that earlier, right? Authenticity is just identifying what the author put in you that's different from the person next to you. But that entails things like, you know, your values, right? Your convictions, your virtues. Those are different things. And most people don't understand that. You know, what are your strengths and how do you want to apply those things?

James Moffitt (35:20.685)
Right.

James Moffitt (35:35.661)
Right.

David Ask (35:39.554)
You know, what is it that gives you goosebumps? What is it that breaks your heart? What problem do you want to solve? Like what makes you just furious? And when you start to, again, identify those things, literally write them down, and then maybe put those in a hierarchy, it's amazing what rises to the top for everybody. So I think that, you know, they need to be understood and they need to be identified. And it's amazing when you start operating your life.

James Moffitt (35:55.169)
It's amazing,

James Moffitt (36:00.654)
they need to.

David Ask (36:06.498)
through that lens, right? You start to feel natural because you've identified you. if you start to operate your life, for instance, through your values, it's amazing how much more grit you can experience and resilience, this idea of bouncing back because you don't have just this whitewashed, vague understanding of who's showing up to the problem.

James Moffitt (36:28.908)
Right. Describe your approach to teaching resilience to young adults. That's a good one.

David Ask (36:36.374)
Yeah, so we do have some coursework and so on for young adults, but mainly we really like to teach the parents and other adults, know, to basically to identify these things for themselves, because you really can't teach something you don't understand. And I really, really believe in leadership. So whether you're a parent, you know, a coach, a pastor, mentor, you have to understand these things for yourself first, and then you can

James Moffitt (36:49.55)
for themselves.

James Moffitt (36:54.189)
Right?

James Moffitt (37:03.502)
Thanks.

David Ask (37:05.954)
you know, start mining for gold and younger people.

James Moffitt (37:09.23)
So when you say teaching resilience, what does that mean?

David Ask (37:14.02)
So yeah, kind of a definition of terms. So grit and resilience, why are they different? So resilience is this idea of bouncing back quickly, right? You get knocked down, you get up quicker. If you're resilient, right, you get up quicker. If you're not resilient, you get knocked down, right? It might take you weeks to kind of recover from whatever comment or job loss or whatever that hardship was. And grit,

James Moffitt (37:28.792)
Right here.

James Moffitt (37:38.84)
Gotcha.

David Ask (37:40.896)
is best understood by this idea that you're doing something over a long period of time that's difficult because what's on the other side of the difficulty is worth fighting for, right? You have staying power. But I think it's really important to understand when you do that from an intrinsically motivated place, right? Your values and things like that. It's amazing how much grit and resilience are generated. But if you're doing it from an

James Moffitt (37:42.539)
Good, Marvin.

James Moffitt (38:09.486)
What is your DNA?

David Ask (38:10.612)
extrinsically motivated place like people pleasing or shame or embarrassment or things like that, you know, it's easy to kind of falter and hide.

James Moffitt (38:23.022)
Well, that's also one of the ways that we teach that sort of thing is by showcasing it in our lives, right? Yeah. That's the best, most authentic way that we can do that.

David Ask (38:31.586)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

David Ask (38:38.904)
Yeah, for sure.

James Moffitt (38:41.294)
What key differences exist between grit and resilience? You already said that, you already explained that. Explain starting with who and understanding family dynamics.

David Ask (38:54.518)
Yeah, so I love the idea that, you know, there's a lot of people that say you have to have a strong why, because your why is what matters. Truth of the matter is, I agree with that. But what if your why is your brother's why? What if your why is your dad's why? What if your why is James Moffat's why? What if your why is Joe Rogan's why? You know, so this idea of who, when you really dig down into who you are authentically,

James Moffitt (38:59.234)
people that say you

James Moffitt (39:07.032)
What if your why is your right? What if your...

James Moffitt (39:17.56)
Right.

David Ask (39:23.022)
then your why becomes your why.

James Moffitt (39:27.736)
Gotcha.

How do you define and cultivate an uncrushable spirit in children?

David Ask (39:35.414)
You know, I think it goes back to, you know, this idea that, you know, love, right? My kids, I need to identify, forgive me, the uncrushable spirit in our children, you know, comes from, you know, this bedrock of love, right? This safety net that, you know, you can do nothing that's going to remove my delight in you, my love for you, right? It's unconditional. And

James Moffitt (39:52.974)
Steve.

David Ask (40:03.608)
And then also coupling that with introducing to themselves, you know, those intrinsic qualities that are powerful and precious and good. And it's amazing how the support and love coupled with authenticity and identity are an absolute recipe for success.

James Moffitt (40:04.526)
So...

James Moffitt (40:14.478)
This is important.

James Moffitt (40:22.304)
Amen. I appreciate that. like what you bring to the table. And David, David, thank you for being here and being on our podcast episode today. And to my listening audience, I'm going to say thank you for the privilege of your time. can, you can listen to this podcast episode on Apple Podcasts, Activate FM, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music and Public Radio. And I upload the video.

David Ask (40:26.34)
Well, thank you.

David Ask (40:31.268)
It's a pleasure.

James Moffitt (40:53.07)
podcast episode to Rumble. It's R-U-M-B-L-E. It's a conservative alternative to YouTube. You can go to parentingadultchildren.org. That's my website, parentingadultchildren.org. And you can see my contact information. You can send me an email. You can leave me a voicemail. You can see an upcoming show schedule if you go to the blog. I always list two months in advance as who's going to be on and when. And there's a place for you to click on review.

And if you like a specific podcast episode, please leave us a review. You can do that on, if you're on your iPhone and you're listening to Apple podcasts, you can do that right there from your iPhone. I release a new episode every Friday morning at 8 a.m. And thank you again for the privilege of your time and everybody have a wonderful day. And David, thank you for being here.

David Ask (41:44.29)
My pleasure.