Parenting Adult Children: What They Still Need From You

In this episode, James Moffitt and Robert Hunt discuss the complexities of parenting adult children, emphasizing the importance of accountability, modeling behavior, and transitioning from a parent-child relationship to a mentoring role. They explore how parents can foster healthy communication, navigate differences in perspectives, and encourage personal growth in their children while maintaining their own accountability. The conversation highlights the significance of being present, understanding, and supportive as children navigate their own paths in adulthood.

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. 

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.426)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of parenting adult children podcast. My name is James Moffitt. Our special guest today is Robert Hunt. How are you doing Robert? Good. Yeah, absolutely. do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Robert J. Hunt (00:09.976)
Fantastic. Thank you for having me on your show.

Robert J. Hunt (00:17.6)
I live in North Texas area, North of Dallas with my beautiful wife, Kathy. We have two adult children. Lauren is 33 and lives in Austin and James is 22 and he lives still at home while he's in his last year college at UT Dallas. What I do for my day job is I run peer groups for CEOs. That means I bring business owners and CEOs together each month to help them work on their business and to live the lives they really want. It's a lot of burden and responsibility if you own your own company. Most people really don't understand.

the burden that these owners carry. Having a group where can go and create a world of accountability and getting the support you need to be your best, that's what I do for a living. So that's led me to where I am today.

James Moffitt (00:59.374)
Awesome. Well, I was raised in a little town called Quinlan, Texas. Are you familiar with that?

Robert J. Hunt (01:06.978)
Must be a little town I don't know of.

James Moffitt (01:09.832)
Well, uh, Dallas Fort Worth, if you go south of Dallas Fort Worth, you run into Mesquite and then you run into, um, Terrell, Texas. And if you take 34 North, that takes you up into, uh, Quinlan, Texas, where Lake Tewakenee is. And if you keep going North about 15 or 20 miles, uh, then you'll run into Greenville, Texas, which is the geographic hub of Northeast Texas.

Robert J. Hunt (01:17.613)
Yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (01:20.963)
Yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (01:39.256)
There you go.

James Moffitt (01:40.488)
Yeah. So you got cattle mills, uh, rock wall, all those little towns up in that area. But yeah, I graduated high school in 1980 and, uh, my father, um, converted me into Dallas Cowboys fan, which I don't, I don't admit in public very often anymore because they suck horribly. And, uh, but I was, I've been a Cowboys fan six, six 69 and,

Robert J. Hunt (01:56.491)
All right.

James Moffitt (02:08.648)
Every year I go, I'm not going to watch the Dallas Cowboys anymore. I'm just so tired of them, blah, blah, blah. And then the NFL season rolls around and guess what I do? I always, I always give the excuse of, well, if I have nothing else to do in the Dallas games on, then I guess I'll watch.

Robert J. Hunt (02:25.358)
They're still a great team. They're having their struggles, that's for sure.

James Moffitt (02:30.022)
Yeah, they're not, they're not the team they used to be, but anyway, so Robert, I'll just, I'll just read this little blurb off your pod match profile and we can just roll from there. This is focus on how accountability can enhance family dynamics and improve relationships with adult children. Robert can provide insights into personal growth and leading by example.

Robert J. Hunt (02:32.972)
No, definitely not.

James Moffitt (02:56.378)
emphasizing accountability and work life balance as essential tools for parents navigating these dynamics. And so, yeah, I, after I read that profile, I was like, this is a perfect match for this podcast. Cause that's what we're about is we're about supporting parents who are, have adult children ages, you know, 18 to 30, et cetera. And we also have parents that are, you know, have preteens and teenagers that are transitioning into adulthood. And so.

your content is going to be of huge benefit I think to the listening audience.

Robert J. Hunt (03:34.998)
I hope so, I think it will.

James Moffitt (03:39.634)
Well go ahead and talk to us.

Robert J. Hunt (03:43.502)
Okay, well, where do you want to start? At this point, let me start with the idea of really why I accountability is a big deal. When we raise our kids, we do a lot of just living life together so they can pick up what they are supposed to be like by watching us. And I think we as adults have lost the responsibility to model a behavior that we hope our kids will adopt. That whole thing about do what I say, not what I do is very prevalent.

And really what our kids are gonna become some kind of version of themselves based on who we are and less on what we say. And so when I model accountability, when I model humility, when I model grace and mercy and kindness and honesty, the things that I want my kids to pick up and do, it doesn't guarantee they're gonna do it.

But it sure is more likely they're going to do it if you're modeling it than if you're just talking about it. And especially as they get older and you want to try and throw down your standards on them, they've looked at you your whole life and realized it's a joke. That you say to do one thing, but then when it comes to taxes, you lie. You say you're supposed to show respect unless you don't like someone. And then your kids watch you talk crap about them around the dinner table. All these things that we want our kids to be, we're not modeling them. We're not taking accountability for this. Accountability means you own it.

That means if you're raising a child, you own the journey that you contribute towards their development. You can't guarantee how they're gonna turn out. That's up to them. God decides the kinds of things they're gonna go through in their journey, and those kids get to decide the people they grow up to be. But you can control how you behave in front of them and how you model the kinds of things you hope they pick up. And I don't think we as a society have taken that very seriously anymore.

And so I think we're losing the chance to really teach our kids about accountability and about really owning their own journey.

James Moffitt (05:33.608)
Yeah, one of the, started this podcast in May of 2023. And as I was developing the content for it, I got to thinking about it. You know, the first episode of course was the introduction to it, what we were going to talk about, blah, blah, blah. Some of the topics. Then I got to thinking about it I thought, before, before we start talking about parenting adult children and the parent child relationship, uh, or the mentor relationship or the supporter relationship, what have you.

cause there was a transition that happens, both for the adult child as well as the parent. But, I thought, you know, the first thing we need to talk about is the marriage relationship, right? And you already hit on quite a few of those issues in that how do our, how do our children learn how to be kind? How did they learn how to be respectful? How do they learn grace? How do they learn empathy? How do they learn all of these qualities that we want our adult children to adopt and make that the fabric of their life?

Well, they watch mom and dad, right? They watch how dad treats mom and how mom treats dad and how we exhibit those qualities, know, the fruit of the Spirit that the Bible talks about, you know, and if mom and dad model that in front of the children on a consistent basis, then you're going to have a much likely chance of those adult children becoming those types of individuals, right? And, you know,

Robert J. Hunt (06:59.276)
Yeah, it's not a guarantee video, right?

James Moffitt (07:01.754)
No, it's not a guarantee. we all hear of horror stories where parents are the model parents, you know, they raise them correctly. They do all the right things, take them to church and introduce, introduce them to Jesus Christ and, and, and, and, and, teach them the importance of, of having a Christ worldview and all of that. and they turn out to be hoodlums, you know? yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (07:26.55)
or first season at least. mean, my mom raised me to love Jesus and to go to church and to be a godly man, but I smoke weed with my friends in college and I stole things and I cheated in school and all the things that, you my mom would have been appalled. She couldn't lock me in or guarantee my performance, but.

I think that that verse that says, your child in the way of the Lord and they won't depart from it, doesn't mean they'll never have moments where they get off the rails. It means it's part of who they are. And even if they're rebelling or ignoring God, that sense of information of who God is has been implanted in them. And then God will do what God's gonna do in his time and his way. And I think that's, we don't put enough credit in the fact that God has an awful lot of ability and control over things.

James Moffitt (08:13.426)
Well, it's not our job as humans or believers to change people. It's our job to model Jesus in front of them. It's our job to love them. It's our job to encourage them. It's our job to invite them to go to church where they can hear the word. The Holy Spirit is the only thing that can change people's hearts, right? And so that's, know, and sometimes, you know, I spent some time in ministry when I was a young man and

Robert J. Hunt (08:34.798)
That's right.

James Moffitt (08:41.776)
And I had to learn this little thing about compassion. It says, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. You know, and I used to like to hit people in the head with the Bible and, and, you know, make little funny statements like, you know, if you don't turn, you're going to burn and, know, ridiculous statements like that, because I thought I, I thought I had come into all knowledge because I knew my Bible and I knew how to quote the scripture and I knew how to teach it. And anyway, I had to learn.

a very valuable lesson about compassion and about who God is and who God isn't, you know, in that He is the one that molds people. He is the one that makes them into His image and shows them the path that they need to be on.

Robert J. Hunt (09:28.428)
Yeah. Yeah. I think right now, one of the things that I've noticed in my relationship with my adult children is that, let's take politics for example, that could be a very...

volatile topic between a young adult who from from their view of the world. This is how things are I'm 62 and I've gone through a whole lot of things over the 62 years of my life and I see the world for a different way than my 22 year old son sees it and and that's a good thing and that's a bad thing But how do we coexist with each other to show respect?

to be able to have dialogue and not to make, well, that's off limit and that's off limits. We can't talk about this. We can't talk about that. I mean, don't want to have anything that comes between my relationship with my kids. And so we have to figure out a way that we as adults can model the things that we believe in and then show respect by the way we listen to them. It's easy for me. I've been in adult mode or daddy mode for so long to just tell them what to do and just keep telling them.

but I'm realizing they don't need me to tell them anymore. And they don't even really want my opinion. Really what they want is to be heard. They want to know what they think matters. And so I have now, even though I'm a fractional consultant in their life that is tapped in when they need it, I'm also really an investigator.

I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to understand. My daughter's really smart, she's really smart, and she's got her head screwed on solid. She owns her journey, she's doing a great job. And so I don't need to call and speak to her like, you need to listen to me, I'm your daddy. telling you, I need to listen to her and understand her and be interested genuinely. Not interested enough to be able to argue that she's wrong, but I need to listen long enough to know that she's right.

Robert J. Hunt (11:16.31)
And that way I understand where she's coming from and then can treat her that way. We don't have to agree on everything. There's a lot of things we don't agree upon. But I want to be able to stay a part of her life. I want to be able to know what matters to her. And so asking questions and listening and not even debating it, just being curious, just asking questions. She really doesn't need to know my opinion. She's heard it for 33 years. I think she's got enough of it already.

James Moffitt (11:40.828)
Yeah. In one of the, talk a lot about transitioning, you know, from, from being a teenager, preteen teenager into becoming an adult. And we talk about the importance of, of parents. They, we, we as parents go through a transition as well. And when they turn 18, 19, 20 years of age, we've spent all that time, hopefully, imparting all of this knowledge.

and modeling all of these behaviors and values to them. And so we transitioned from the parent child relationship where we're intimately involved in their day-to-day activities, brush your teeth, go to bed, turn your device off at the supper table, all of these things that we are used to doing. Now we have to step back and go, okay, I've done my job. My job's not over, but now I'm not a...

Now, now it's not a parent child relationship. Now I'm a mentor. Now I'm a support person. I'm somebody that they can bounce ideas off of. I'm somebody hopefully if they want to. Yeah. And, and it's important that we have a decent relationship with our kids. Right. And, and some of us.

Robert J. Hunt (12:43.66)
if they want it.

Robert J. Hunt (12:54.146)
Yeah, it's hard not to get hurt though. I think that derails us. get offended when they don't tap into us. We watch them making decisions and we sit there going, come on, ask me, ask me, ask me. And when they don't, we get uptight. And that's not the right journey. There's a lot of things that I only learned the hard way. I mean, look at your own life. Did you learn? Cause your parents said, hey, when you get older, do this. You're like, okay, thanks. And then you went and did something that didn't work out and you learned that. And some of it, they were right. Some of it they didn't get, some of it we didn't talk about.

But I think that if you end up getting butt hurt, that your kids aren't tapping into you and coming to run to daddy for questions, then you shut down and you become a little belligerent. You become a little like, okay, that's fine. You're on your own. You don't need me, that's fine. Don't get butt hurt about it. Stay engaged, stay available, but they're not gonna tap into you like they used to. Just get over that.

James Moffitt (13:46.962)
Yeah, they're, they're adults and they're, they're living their own life, you know, whether they're still at home or not, you know, they're, you know, our, our goal is to kick them out of the nest eventually, you know, one of the, one of the, topics that we talk about is, failure to launch, or actually I have a child, child psychologist that has been on my show several times and he doesn't like failure to launch. calls it something else in this.

It seems a little, it's a little bit less edgy and a little, a little more appropriate, think, transitioning in space or something like that. Anyway. Yeah. So, so, he, what was I saying? I'm going down a rabbit hole here. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we want them to the whole purpose of, of us training them and teaching them.

Robert J. Hunt (14:27.008)
It just breaks.

Robert J. Hunt (14:35.566)
You're having your kids get out and lunch and let them move out.

James Moffitt (14:45.628)
you know, for 18 years, 19 years, whatever, is so that they can launch out into the world and be the adult that they're going to be, you know, and hopefully who they become is some, something that we can be proud of. Right.

Robert J. Hunt (14:59.126)
And they're probably not gonna be. I mean, that's the reality of it. My mom was not really pleased with some of the choices I made in my life. As simple as the fact that I wore shorts to church. I mean, that was like heresy. when you get dressed up to go see the king.

James Moffitt (15:11.045)
Right, yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (15:14.092)
Yeah, I'm thinking Jesus is pretty casual too and I'm gonna wear shorts. My mom could never get over that. Even as an adult, if I wore shorts to church, she'd still look at me like, why do you do that? Or I like cigars and I like bourbon. Does that mean that I'm not a good Christian? And my mom would say, well, I don't think you should smoke cigars. I don't think you should drink bourbon. And so my mom would be disappointed in some of the things I would do, but that's okay. It's okay.

I'm not here to please my mom. I wanna honor my mom. I wanna listen to her and show respect when she says things, when she says it, go, mom, you're done mentoring me. You don't need to give me your opinion. That would not be honoring my mother. But I will listen to her, but I'll still be who I am. My goal is to honor the Lord. My goal is to represent Jesus in the world I live in. And my mom has her own hangups.

And so I have to be able to do what I can to show respect to her. But at end of the day, it's my journey, my version. My daughter is who she is, and she's cool and awesome, and she's different than me. And my son is cool and awesome, and he's different than me. And that's OK.

James Moffitt (16:16.806)
Right. That's the, that's the, that's the beautiful part of being human. Right. We're all a little different. You know, it would be, it would be so boring if we were all the same, wouldn't it?

Robert J. Hunt (16:23.213)
Yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (16:28.982)
And I think that we're created for the journey that God's planned for us. The Bible says that there are things that God has planned for us to do before we were even born. And I think that my daughter will have a journey that will affect the lives of people that are unique to her. My son will have a journey that is created by God that is unique to him. And so for me to be standing back and saying, well, I really wanted you to be this for a living, or I really wanted you to live here. My daughter lives in Austin. She's hours away. I wanted her be nearby where she could have dinner with us every week.

That doesn't happen, but that's her choice, right? So I have to be okay with the fact that God is doing something in her life that he will use for his glory. And I just have to be okay with that different version of the story than what I thought it would be like when she was first born. I was holding her in my arms, this little angel, and then she grows up to be her own woman and have her own life. And we gotta be okay with that.

James Moffitt (17:19.826)
Does she go to the University of Texas?

Robert J. Hunt (17:22.188)
No, she graduated from UT Dallas up here in the Dallas area and then moved to Austin afterwards where her people are at, as she said.

James Moffitt (17:29.768)
I got you. Yeah. My wife went to the university of Texas. Many, many moons ago, she graduated from there.

Robert J. Hunt (17:37.358)
It's a good school from what I hear. I don't get into the college rivalry about hook them horns and guns up and all that stuff. I know they're out there, but I went to Cal State Fullerton in Fullerton, California. Nobody cares about Cal State Fullerton. This is school, man.

James Moffitt (17:44.701)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (17:49.734)
Right, right.

All right. So let's talk a little bit about, accountability. And I know you had me take this assessment. and, so I think he wanted to go over that assessment during the, episode.

Robert J. Hunt (18:04.854)
Yeah, we wrote a book about accountability because I've learned that if you really want the life you really want to live, you got to be accountable because accountability is power and freedom. We look at accountability as kind of a threat. I'm going to hold you accountable like it's a bad thing. But in reality, when you're accountable for your life, you gain the power to change your life. When we play life as a victim, we blame, we make excuses, we say we can't do anything about it, or we just wait and hope. And that's not true.

Your life isn't like that. You don't have to be a victim. If you take accountability for everything in your life, you gain the power to change anything in your life. And we've seen that in our own personal life. As my beautiful wife, Cathy and I, we owed $90,000 in debt at one point, and that did not include the house or the cars.

And we decided we weren't living the life we wanted to, and we needed to do something different. We needed to own it and stop blaming God and stop blaming the economy or the president or the market or anything. And we need to own it and do something about it. So we did, we sold our house and we started over. We downsized and readjusted our lives. And so as I teach people about the principles of accountability, our book, Nobody Cares Until You Do, is out there to teach you to be aware of the times when you play a victim in your life and you're not aware of it.

to have the tools to break through that and to pursue the life you really want. That's what accountability is all about, is living the life you really want.

James Moffitt (19:29.64)
and we'll look your book up.

Robert J. Hunt (19:32.908)
Yeah, you can go to NobodyCaresBook.com. That's where our website is. And the satisfaction assessment was put on there. It's in the book. But we also wanted to put it online so people who didn't want to buy the book or didn't have the need at the moment could go online, take the assessment for free, and get their results. And then they could be honest enough with themselves to say, look, I'm not happy with my health. I'm not happy with my marriage. I'm not happy with the way my relationship with my kids are. Whatever the things are you're unhappy about, then you ask yourself why.

And based on the answer, you can see the times where you play a victim in life, where you blame, make excuse, or say you can't do something about it. And that's what the journey up the mountain towards accountability is all about. At the bottom of the mountain, you're completely unaware of what accountability looks like. And as you make your way up from stage one, two, three, all way to the top, you're learning about the principles of accountability.

James Moffitt (20:26.362)
Right. So yeah, it's a nobody cares book.com. You can see it on the screen. That's very interesting. you can download a preview and, that's, that's very nice. Very good.

Robert J. Hunt (20:33.602)
Looks like it froze.

Robert J. Hunt (20:40.226)
Yeah, the assessment. What did you learn from your assessment? When you can you show your assessment on the screen?

James Moffitt (20:46.022)
Yeah, hold on. Let me find it.

I think I saved it.

Robert J. Hunt (20:55.532)
We hope that this tool will stir in people's minds and awareness of whether or not they're happy in their life, challenge them to think about what they want to do about it.

James Moffitt (21:05.554)
Guess I should have found it before we got online, huh?

Robert J. Hunt (21:08.302)
Well, that's OK. You just want to pop onto the screen that shows the assessment. We can look at that.

Under the Resource tab, if you look for resource, you should see a page that says the assessment. Yep.

James Moffitt (21:22.982)
On your website. Okay.

Robert J. Hunt (21:26.414)
What I'm seeing here looks like it froze. Are you seeing the whole mountain or is it still frozen?

James Moffitt (21:31.494)
No, no. The text is, I'm in dark mode, so the text is real light. Where is the resource page?

Robert J. Hunt (21:39.636)
It's up at the top right corner normally, but it doesn't show up that way on your screen.

James Moffitt (21:51.784)
I see Indeed, I see LinkedIn, and I see Facebook.

Robert J. Hunt (21:56.64)
Well, somewhere there's a drop down menu that says resources. I don't know what's your web browser you're using. I don't know.

James Moffitt (22:00.444)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (22:05.765)
Edge.

Uhhhh

Robert J. Hunt (22:10.882)
That's okay. We'll, we'll skip it. The whole point of the assessment is for you to be able to take a little bit of time and think about what matters to you the most. And what I found is that when people are really honest with themselves, they're not happy with things, but they're not doing anything about it. If you have a bad relationship with your kid, what are you willing to do about it? Are you blaming your kid? Are you making excuses as to why it's bad? Are you saying there's nothing you could do about it? Are you just going to wait and hope it gets better? That's not owning it. That's not accountability.

You're the adult here. If there's a problem, you need to go and do something about it. And that may mean that you have a hard discussion or it may mean that you just give grace and move on. know, sometimes you've talked about things so many times that you just figure it's not gonna get any better. Then you can either choose to alienate yourself and lose the relationship with your kid, or you can choose to give grace and mercy, just like God has given us a million times over. And just decide that, you know, that issue is not a big enough issue to end my relationship with my kid.

and get back to loving and caring for one another.

James Moffitt (23:15.026)
trying to bring it up in Chrome. Let me see how this is going to work. that didn't do well. Let me see. What if I change that? Can you see it now?

Robert J. Hunt (23:28.844)
I do, I don't see the wheels, but I see the page.

James Moffitt (23:31.816)
I see though that's because I'm in dark mode. Hold on. Let me

get out of dark. I hate the...

I don't like the white screen.

Robert J. Hunt (23:48.718)
Mm.

James Moffitt (23:51.088)
my eyes are... What in the world?

Robert J. Hunt (23:57.294)
You're gonna have to edit all this out,

James Moffitt (24:00.69)
nah, we're fine.

James Moffitt (24:12.722)
Well, I'm trying to get out of dark mode.

Robert J. Hunt (24:21.294)
How about the three dots on the side? Does that get you out of it? good job. All right.

James Moffitt (24:24.242)
Here we go. Yeah, here we go.

Robert J. Hunt (24:28.174)
Okay, so if you look at the assessment, there's two categories. One is your personal side, one is your professional side. And we put them both in there because whether or not you own your own company or not, you have people you work with, you have things that are part of the business. This is really designed for business owners who I spend most of my time with. But even if you're not the owner of the company, you certainly have certain feelings about how the sales and marketing is doing or how the financial stability of the company is. All these things affect how you look at life.

And if you're not satisfied with something, it shows up in your attitude and how you go to work, how you deal with things at home. And so we invite people to go take this assessment and really spend some thinking about where are you not satisfied and what are you willing to do about it?

James Moffitt (25:12.882)
So where is my assessment at?

Robert J. Hunt (25:15.266)
You would have had the opportunity to download it at the end of it. Did you save a copy of it?

James Moffitt (25:21.284)
I did, where it's at right this second, I don't know. I know. So I want to stop sharing that. We'll get back to this screen.

Robert J. Hunt (25:24.639)
I can't help you with that.

Robert J. Hunt (25:31.531)
Okay.

James Moffitt (25:33.116)
But, so I got some, some questions here. guess I can ask, what role does accountability play in family communications?

Robert J. Hunt (25:43.342)
Wow. Yeah. Again, accountability means you own it. That means if you said something that you shouldn't have said, you need to own that. That means if you have a feeling that you're hurt or uncomfortable because of something someone else said, you need to go and deal with that. Accountability is we don't look the other way and hope it gets better. Accountability is we're not blaming each other or making excuses for why things are bad. We're owning it. We're dealing with it.

And again, as I shared just a few minutes ago, that means you're either going to resolve it or you're agreeing to give grace and move on. But either way, you don't let it rip between the family because of some bad disagreement or misunderstanding or just difference in philosophies of politics or faith or finances or anything.

James Moffitt (26:28.956)
Right. How can parents model accountability for adult children? We've kind of touched on that a little bit.

Robert J. Hunt (26:35.286)
Yeah, I just encourage you to really think about, I modeling what I hope my kids will embrace? I think we get a little numb to the fact we can get away with stuff at home because nobody's busting our chops about it. If you're at work and you behave like a jerk, you probably got someone you're dealing with about it. But if you're at home and you do something rude, you pretty much could get away with it and your kids have to put up with it. But if you really step back and say, is this the kind of behavior that I want my kids to pick up and model, then you really will think.

about how you behave.

James Moffitt (27:12.53)
What challenges and accountability might parents face with adult children?

Robert J. Hunt (27:16.558)
Well, again, accountability means you own it. So you own your junk. You don't own their junk. And so with adult children, you have to let them go ahead and do their own journey. If I spend all my time just trying to own my own stuff and dealing with that, I'd be very busy. But it's a lot easier to look at everyone else's problems, analyze and critique and want to correct their behavior, when in fact, you're really struggling to take care of your own.

And I think that's where we just need to focus. Am I doing the best job of me? And at this point, you're done. Tell them how to live their life. Let them go do their thing. Be there when they want you, but support them the way they want to be supported and work on you. It's a good time to double down and go, hey, how's my marriage? How's my health? How's my faith? How's my relationship with God? How's my relationship with my other family members? Be intentional. That's one of the things about accountability. Accountability is intentional. It's not.

responding to things when they come up and owning it, that's called responsible. It's proactively doing something that you hope will get the result you're looking for. If you want to raise kids to love Jesus and to be godly contributors in society, you have to proactively do stuff all throughout those days in hopes that it sticks, in hopes that they will follow the way you go, but you can't guarantee it. But if you're not doing anything, it's less likely you're gonna see any of the things you hope for.

And so to wait until they're adults and then try and correct them or change them is a joke. So you really have to proactively pour into them the kinds of things you hope that they will see and live by. And the best way to pour into them is the way you behave when you model.

James Moffitt (28:57.394)
So as I look at my parenting journey, we've always, we've always recognized the fact that a lot of times we parent the way we were parented, right? Because you don't, you don't necessarily get an owner's manual when you get the baby at the hospital or whatever. And they just pat you on the head and send you on your way. And, you know, so you don't have an owner's manual and you have to, you're in the beginning, you're kind of flying by the seat of your pants. And, and so it's hardwired into us.

who parent the way we were, we were parented and I had a horrible childhood and my parents were not believers and they were authoritarian type of parents and they expected kids to be, you know, seen, but not heard, you know, that sort of thing. And so when I became a parent myself, I recognize the fact that, I couldn't parent my kids the way my parents parented me. Right. And, and, and

Thanks be unto God. had a relationship with Jesus and, I was, was and still am a Christ follower. And I try to model that as much as possible, but you know, I'm, I'll be 64 in November. So I, I guess the older you get, hopefully the more wisdom you obtain, right. And hindsight's always 2020, right. And so I know that there, I know, and just,

being honest, you know, I know that I didn't always pour the right thing and things into my kids. And I didn't always, there were days that I reacted the way my dad reacted to me. You know, he was hot tempered and he was, you know, he was abusive emotionally and physically. And, I certainly tried not to do those things, but sometimes I just reacted right. It's so we have, we have parents listening to this podcast going, well, that's all great.

And fine, but you know, I'm, sitting here looking in the mirror going, wow. I kind of blew it in these areas, you know? And so, so, so now parents are in sort of a recovery mode and they're, they're trying to do better. Right. And so we can't, we can't fix the damage that's been done through the years. So what do you, what do you tell parents now that are, they're looking at in that 2020 mirror going, I blew it.

Robert J. Hunt (31:23.694)
Sure, sure. Look, there's nothing you're gonna do that is so bad that God can't fix it. And there's nothing at all that you might forget or do poorly or the kid not respond to that in God's timing, through God's glory, He'll make it happen. I didn't have a good relationship with my father either. And so when I grew up and got married, I just knew what not to do. And that left a whole lot open as to what to do.

The only thing that I think helps us have a guide for raising our children is truly walking so close to Jesus that he pours out through you. And I think every decision you make, should they watch TV? Should they not watch TV? Should they have a phone? When should they have a phone? Do they go to dances? I mean, all these things that seem like they're so important, they're nothing compared to what God can pull out for them.

And I've known people who grew up in really horrible situations. My friend Vince, his mom was a drug dealer and he saw people get murdered in bars when he was a kid. And he grew up to love Jesus and to be a godly father and a solid dude. And so I just believe that God can jump in and fill the gaps on anything we do that is short of what is needed. God is gonna take care of and make up for that. So don't beat yourself up for it. However, if you realize that you've not been who you wanna be, start now.

draw close to Christ, really walk with Jesus in such a way that the love that is in you is pouring out of you. And then God would use that to do whatever he's gonna do, whether it's a restoring relationship with kids or modeling for them as they're older. There's never an end to it. There's always hope as long as we're still here on earth, we've got an opportunity to be used by God.

James Moffitt (33:07.144)
Very good. How can accountability help improve work life balance for parents?

Robert J. Hunt (33:14.598)
Well, we always say in our CEO groups, there's no such thing as work-life balance. The reality is you're never going to have a little bit of this, a little bit that and kind of keep it spread out evenly. Instead of that, we've really decided there needs to be work-life integration, where I just be one person everywhere. And then I pop back and forth between work. So if my wife calls me in the middle of the day, I pick up the phone, hey, you doing okay? I talk.

and I can go right back to work. And if I'm at home having dinner with the family and a client calls me and I can answer the phone, you okay? Yeah, and I take care of it and I come back to the dinner table. And it doesn't ruin my life because one side of my world interrupted the other side, because I'm one person everywhere. If you have to amp up to be a jerk at work to try and survive and keep your job, not only does that cause stress inside of you, you bring that home with you.

or you have problems at home and you bring that to work with you. Either way, you've got to be the person you want to be all the time. And the only way you're ever going to do that is by owning it, by really saying, who do I want to be? What do I want my life to look like, personally and professionally? How do I want to show up at work? What kind of person do I want to be with my neighbors, with my friends? One person everywhere, but the only way you ever consistently do that is by truly owning the journey, owning who you are and being true to who you are.

James Moffitt (34:32.072)
I remember years ago when I was going to this church called grace fellowship here in goose Creek. And we went there for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. And, there was, uh, a, uh, I wasn't, wasn't the youth minister or anything, but I was, you know, involved with it was small church. You know, we had like 50 people. So everybody knew everybody, everybody knew each other's families. And anyway, one of the teenagers was on Facebook. Right.

And, I was a friend of hers on Facebook and, and I saw some of the things that she was saying and doing and, and portraying on Facebook. Right. And I was like, Whoa. And so she was in, she was getting a cup of coffee or something in the kitchen. And I asked her, I asked her about it. I said, you know, and I kind of got in trouble from the pastor for this, but I asked her, said, what's, what's going on with your Facebook newsfeed? I said, I.

Seeing some interesting things there, you know, I was trying to be politically correct. And she basically got in my face and said, Hey, I'm a completely different person when I'm not at church. And I was like,

Robert J. Hunt (35:35.884)
Wow, she just throws that out there, huh? Okay.

James Moffitt (35:39.61)
And I was like, I was like, I don't think that's the way this is supposed to work. I think you're supposed to be the same person in the world. said, if you're, you're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. Right. And, well, anyway, she got mad at me and went and talked to her parents and her mom came to me and chewed me out. Pastor came to me after church that day and said, James, this is not your job. You let me handle these things. Just don't worry about what's on Simone's Facebook page. I'm like, okay, pastor Tom, I'm sorry.

Robert J. Hunt (35:42.134)
Yes you are.

Robert J. Hunt (35:46.157)
Yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (36:07.864)
Well, the fact that the parent came and chewed you out for challenging their kid is probably an indication why the kid behaves the way they are. Instead of the parents saying, hey, you should be one person everywhere, they're coming to get on your case about it. But again, this is where we as parents, we blame somebody else for our problems with our kid. That parent coming to blame you for what you did, really the parent needs to own that they're allowing their kid to go on social media and make statements like that.

James Moffitt (36:14.887)
yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (36:34.07)
and they need to be the one who is pouring into their kid. And when they're young, we need to guard them and look at what they're doing and help them see that that's not a good choice and have more of an influence on their lives because they're young and impressionable. They don't make good decisions. So as they get older, they're quick to do that, but we've got to walk them through that.

James Moffitt (36:52.828)
Well, in reality, the young lady was literally just a mirror image of her mother and she was modeling. She was modeling the behaviors and decisions that her mother had been making in front of her. know, and again, that wasn't my job to, it wasn't my job to illustrate that or to hold a mirror up in front of her, you know, anyway, but yeah.

Robert J. Hunt (37:07.874)
Yeah, yeah, it's real.

James Moffitt (37:21.98)
What key steps can families take to foster mutual accountability? Last question. Last question.

Robert J. Hunt (37:26.274)
Hmm. I think, sorry. I think it's healthy communication. Communication is not what is said, it's what's understood. And as when they're, when your kids are young, we often get comfortable just saying, just do it. Cause I said so just do it. And that kind of mindset isn't equipping them to make decisions. It's equipping them to obey. And in life, they need to learn to make decisions.

And so if we're gonna take the time to really help them think and process and understand why we do things, we have to take the time to talk. As you get busy as a parent, it's a lot easier to say, just do it, than to say, well, here's why we're doing this. This is what this is about. And especially if we want them to follow Jesus, we have to connect the dots between why we decide to do this or that. How can we respond in a certain way is because this is what God's called us to do. So I think it-

You having healthy communications is the foundation of that. You modulated by how you live, but you've got to take the time to help them understand the reason behind why things are done so you equip them to make better decisions as they get older.

James Moffitt (38:35.336)
All right. So I want to give you like a, an opportunity for like a two or three minute elevator speech and just talk to the parents that are listening and what would you tell them?

Robert J. Hunt (38:45.538)
Well, I wanna encourage the parents that are listening, I know what it's like to have adult children and don't give up. It is frustrating in a lot of ways, but we also rebelled, we also were goofy, we also made bad decisions in our life. And so remember what it was like to be a kid. Remember what it was like when you first moved out after college and you had your own place and every decision seemed like such a big deal.

Be there in prayer for your kids, stand in the gap for them, pray earnestly over them and be patient with them. Because I made a lot of really bad decisions as a young man. It took me a long time to figure out how not to suck. And so I think if we can give grace to our kids the way that we needed it when we were growing up, it's a good start. And just remember that God loves them more than you do.

And as much as you love them and care about them, God loves them even more and he is able and he will protect them. He will stand in the gap with them. Don't give up on your kids. But you do need to own your journey. You need to own how you respond, how you communicate, how you treat them. You need to be the one that models what you hope for them, but don't give up on your kids.

James Moffitt (39:56.634)
Amen. Robert, thank you for being here today and to the listening audience. I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time. And, if you listened to this podcast episode on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever, leave a, leave a, a review. So other people will know to check it out and, everybody have a blessed day and we'll talk to you later. Bye bye.