When Parenting Grows Up: Nancy Pickard on Communication, Healing, and Healthy Relationships

James Moffitt (00:01.641)
Hello and welcome back to ABC's of parenting adult children podcast. The podcast where we tackle the joys, challenges and real life transitions of parenting our grown kids. I'm your host James Moffat. And today we have a very special guest, Nancy Pickard. Did I say that right? Picard, like as in John Luke Picard of the star ship enterprise. Right? As soon as I saw that I was like, Ooh, Star Trek. Nancy is a certified master.

Nancy  Pickard (00:18.434)
Picard.

Nancy  Pickard (00:23.052)
Yeah, correct.

James Moffitt (00:30.171)
integrative life coach, a bestselling author, a bigger, better, braver, and a powerhouse in helping people break through limiting beliefs and live more empowered lives. After reinventing herself in her sixties, Nancy brings a unique perspective to parenting, boundaries, personal growth, and how we show up for ourselves and for our adult children. Whether you're navigating conflict, struggling with letting go, or simply trying to build a new kind of relationship with your grown kids, Nancy's wisdom is going to resonate.

So get ready to feel seen, heard, and inspired. Let's dive in. Nancy, thank you for being on the show.

Nancy  Pickard (01:06.904)
Thanks for having me.

James Moffitt (01:08.413)
Yeah. Do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Nancy  Pickard (01:13.054)
My name is Nancy Bacard and I'm an integrative life coach and I'm actually also a relational life therapy coach and I've been doing that for the last three years and that's where I work with couples of all types. So that includes adult children and their adult parents, know, their parents and or romantic couples, siblings, all kinds of two people who are in a relationship and need some skills.

James Moffitt (01:41.161)
I got you very good. how, how did you get into this?

Nancy  Pickard (01:46.37)
Well, I've been a coach for 12 years and then I started to listen to Terry Real. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's written a book on male depression called I Don't Want to Talk About It, Fierce Intimacy, New Rules of Marriage and Us. when I, Us is his latest book. And when I heard him talking about that he has coaches and therapists in his school, I was all in because I'm, I just love everything he says. think his work.

works and it's phenomenal and I just dove in and I've been doing it for the last three years.

James Moffitt (02:24.399)
Awesome. So I'm sharing your website with the viewing audience. It's www.nancypiquardlifecoach.com. It's common spelling. So there's your website. And I also found your book, Bigger Better and Braver. And obviously you can get it on Amazon and paperback Kindle edition.

So talk to me about your book.

Nancy  Pickard (02:55.982)
Well, my book, I wrote my book in 2019 after I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and it was really, and I was a coach at the time and it was bigger, better, braver, conquer your fears, embrace your courage and transform your life. The book was for people who actually would like to hire a coach to make a big change in their life, but maybe they can't afford it. So it's a step-by-step how to do it yourself.

how to get out of your disempowering beliefs, how to get unstuck, how to move forward. And it's a great first step in case you don't want to hire somebody.

James Moffitt (03:35.121)
I got you. Pretty good.

So are you a parent?

Nancy  Pickard (03:41.544)
I am and I'm a grandparent.

James Moffitt (03:42.749)
Yeah. Tell, tell us your parenting story. you don't mind.

Nancy  Pickard (03:47.95)
I have two sons that are both in their 40s, want 40 and 44. I have five grandchildren. So I take my parenting very seriously and I take my grandparenting very seriously. And I think that the best advice that I've learned is that we don't, we as adult parents don't have the right to give our opinion to our children unless it's asked.

And that's very different than the way we were brought up. We were brought up, you know, my mother was 94 on our deathbed still doling out her opinion, right? So it was a, it's a hard thing for, you know, parents to learn these days that our children don't want that. They know where to go if they want it, but unless they ask for it, we need to keep our opinions to ourselves. And that's really hard for us to do. But

It makes a huge difference in keeping in a good relationship with your children, and it's important.

James Moffitt (04:50.081)
Right. One of the things that, that we talk about a lot on this podcast is the, the fact that, uh, well, our children are growing up, they're in preteens, teenagers, turn 18, you know, 18 to 30, they're adult children. They're always be our kids, no matter how old they get. Right. Because we're older than them and we'll always look at them as our children and we want the best for them. But one of the things that.

happens is, is that the children have transitioned into being an adult child, but the parents forget that they're supposed to transition with them. They are supposed to become mentors and support people to those children. and you're absolutely correct. Sometimes we just need to keep our, our lip and keep our opinions to ourself and be there, to support them. If they come to us and ask for our, our advice, right? If they come and they ask for the advice.

Then we can ask them what's going on and listen to what they have to say and then give our advice. But if they're not asking us for advice, then it's probably best just to love them and, and support them the best way we can. And, our kids are going to make mistakes, right? We made mistakes. They're going to make mistakes. That's how people learn is by making decisions. And some of them are going to be good decisions. Some are not going to be not so good. Right. And then they have to live through the consequences of those decisions.

And we can, we can certainly be there to support them, as they walk through that. But, we certainly shouldn't be saying, told you so, or, know, any of those little sayings that us parents like to, to, air out, you know? And, so yeah, that's great.

Nancy  Pickard (06:37.152)
Also, if you overtake responsibility for your children, they're going to undertake responsibility for themselves. So just because you're a very competent adult person, if you're overdoing and overdoing and helicoptering your children, they're not having their own journey. We're all put on this earth to have our own journey and we need to let them fall and fail so that they learn and they become stronger. And so when we overdo, they under do.

James Moffitt (07:09.865)
That's right, that's very good.

Nancy  Pickard (07:10.155)
It's really important to let them have their own...

They fail, they get up, they move on, they turn. You know, I used to think you're only as happy as your saddest child. That's a saying that used to go around. But it's not really true. You have to have your own life so that they can have their own life. And of course you're always going to be there for them, but you have to just sit back and let them do their thing.

James Moffitt (07:32.957)
Right.

James Moffitt (07:40.017)
And Lord knows we've all seen helicopter parents in action, right? It's a, it's kind of sad. And, there's nothing worse than being the child of a helicopter parent. Like mom, dad, can, can you get out of my hair?

Nancy  Pickard (07:44.056)
Correct.

Nancy  Pickard (07:47.81)
Yeah.

Nancy  Pickard (07:53.698)
Yeah, and also, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. But also, parents wonder why their children are not as successful as they are. And it's because you rob them of learning the same skills that you learned by overdoing, by over giving.

James Moffitt (08:15.793)
I I think one of the things that I was a child of the seventies and eighties, right? was born in 61, graduated high school in 80. And my dad had a TV, TV shop in the backyard. And we lived on a small rural town called Quinlan, Texas. And he envisioned me taking over that TV shop when I turned 18. And that was the, it was very far from the truth. I didn't want anything to do with it.

And I didn't want to inherit it. I wanted to be a athletic trainer for the Dallas Cowboys, which they shot that. They shot that down immediately because they were like, well, that's not going to happen. Cause we don't have the money for that. You'll, you'll, that'll never happen. You know, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't encourage me or anything. And as I, as I grew older, I found out that he wanted me to inherit his, his, his TV shop. And I was like, no Lord, no.

You know, he worked all day and he came home and ate supper, and then went out and worked in the TV shop from, you know, seven o'clock at night until midnight or wee hours of the morning. And I know that he was paying bills, right? He was doing that not because necessarily he loved doing it, but he was doing what he had to do to put food on the table and pay the mortgage and all of that. And I respect that. I, you know, I could have probably responded to that.

a little more delicately.

Nancy  Pickard (09:43.992)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (09:45.577)
But as a child, no, was like, no, not interested. Thank you. Thanks. But no, thanks. And looking back now, I can, I can only under only imagine how that hurt his feelings, you know, or whatever. And, I think the parents, we, we want the best for our kids, right? We not only want the best for our children, but we want our children to have a better life than what we had. Right. And, and we don't want them to.

Nancy  Pickard (10:08.174)
Correct.

James Moffitt (10:12.649)
to suffer the bad consequences of our stupid mistakes. Right. And it's, there's nothing wrong with as you're raising your children and being transparent and, saying, you know, like when I was between the ages of 18 and 26, I was a raging dumpster fire. It's just a, it's my only by the grace of God that I'm sitting here talking. Right. But I lived through all of that garbage, you know, and I came up, I wouldn't would like to think I became a better man, a better husband, a better father. And, um,

I think that parents envision their children's future. Like doctors want their kids to be doctors, lawyers want their kids to be lawyers, you know, and we, and we push that, that vision on them. And when they don't live up to, that expectation, like we have these unrealistic expectations for our kids, right? And in parents, when they, when they finally come to the realization of

this is a living, breathing human being that's an adult child that has a life of their own. have their own dreams. They have their own visions. They have their own likes and dislikes. And all of sudden the parents like, wow. I don't know how to deal with this. You know? And so it becomes a slap in the face or it becomes a, has some shock value, I think for them.

Nancy  Pickard (11:35.138)
Well, I think that's true. think that parents have expectations. They sometimes live out the dreams that they didn't do themselves. They want to live through their children. If they have low self-esteem, they give their power over to their children. So their children's success becomes their success. They feed off of their children instead of just letting their children feed off of them. Our parents are

Our wounds become our children's wounds. If you don't do your own work around them, you pass them on energetically to your children. So one of the most important things that I tell my adult parents is that you have to heal your own wounds so that you don't pass them on. You need to be the hero in your own life so that the generations before you and their beliefs and their wounds

Do not get passed on to your children. You owe it to your children to heal yourself so that they don't get them. It's very important.

James Moffitt (12:43.219)
So we don't, we don't want to pass our emotional baggage onto our children. And we don't, we want to, we want to stop the generational curse. And I, sister and I were adopted from an orphanage in Germany and my parents were very, very strict, very, very, very, very strict. can't, I can't say how strict they were. They were very strict. were downright abusive physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, the whole nine yards, right?

Nancy  Pickard (12:47.438)
Correct.

Nancy  Pickard (12:51.502)
Correct.

Nancy  Pickard (13:07.15)
Mm.

James Moffitt (13:11.985)
If they've done, if parents today were to do a fifth of what they did with us back in the sixties and seventies, they would be under the prison. Right. However, I will say that I think that they did the best they could with what they had, you know, that doesn't mean that they couldn't have learned to overcome their generational curses or, or their bad parenting skills. but I think, I think now that self care, family therapy,

Coaches like yourself are more available and more known. And I think that,

I think, I think we've, I think we've advanced, through the generations or through the years to, provide parents with the assistance and the help that they need to, to be better parents. And I say all that to say this, when I became a parent, I real, I recognize the fact that, you know, how, how do you parent? You parent the way you were parented, right? That we don't get manuals with our book or we don't get a book with our child that says,

Okay, this is how you're going to raise your child, you know, and it's unique unto them. You don't get that. You, you, you fly by the seat of your pants. You have to learn about teething and all sorts of things. Right. And so you don't have a manual. And so you, you, you instinctively raise your children the way you were raised. And unfortunately, uh, that's not good, especially if you had a horrible childhood, like I did. And so I, I recognize the fact that I didn't want to be heavy handed or.

were abusive to my children. And so I started listening to a Christian psychologist, James Thompson, right? And then I'm sure there were many other people in my life that I could have listened to. The important thing is I chose to listen to somebody, other than what was in me, right? I needed to relearn, parenting skills. had to learn how to demonstrate love to my children, which is something I absolutely did not get. Right. My parents provided for me physically.

James Moffitt (15:13.373)
You know, medical care, new books, new school clothes every year, a roof over our heads, food to eat, all of that stuff. But when it came to the, to the emotional and psychological, needs that we had, they didn't know how to give that to us. And so I knew instinctively that I needed to learn how to give that to my children. And did I figure it all out? And was I the perfect father? No, of course not. There are, there were times that I reacted.

In bad ways, you know, and I had to apologize and I had to say, Hey, I didn't mean to act that way. I didn't mean, I mean, didn't mean to blow up at you. was my dad coming out in me and you know, I'm sorry. And, know, I had to move on and try to do better. And so anyhow.

Nancy  Pickard (16:00.76)
Well, I also think that.

model or they react against. So you reacted against you were I'm not going to be that which is great. If you've got bad parenting, you know, if you've got an alcoholic parent or a narcissistic parent, you know, you don't want that. And so you try to be different, but because they still are your parent, you still do have those habits. And so

I still think that the most important thing you can do for yourself is get your own coach or therapist and figure out what your childhood wounds are so that you can do better. It's not actually just your parenting skills. It's all the beliefs that you have that are disempowering and not going to be something you want to pass on to your children. So I think we all live in psychological patriarchy where we believe that

The characteristics of men are power over instead of same as, and that doesn't work in the generations today. And that's where there's a lot of push and pull between men and women and between the generations. And all of this can be worked out, but it's not going to just happen. know, it's not going to happen without some really good work about it. People can know it's not magical.

James Moffitt (17:28.361)
It's not magical. It doesn't, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen through osmosis.

Nancy  Pickard (17:33.526)
No, and it's not like the pizza delivery man where you open your door and it's just gonna get delivered to you.

James Moffitt (17:42.055)
Right. And another topic that we talk about a lot here on the podcast is episodes is self care, you know, and, I like to say that self care is not selfish, you know, and that's, that's primarily addressing the moms, you know, they're listening and the mothers, you know, that are doing a lion's share of the child raising. And, you know, I don't want to be, I don't want to stereotype too much here, but I feel like moms kind of get a bad rap and they, they,

Nancy  Pickard (17:48.898)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (18:11.869)
have a, you know, a large share of, of daily activities and dealing with the kids and emotional support and physical support and all the other things. so, you know, when you're, when you, when you are, when your cup is empty, it's hard for you to flow into somebody else. You have to always say, figure out what you need. You know, you need to meditate, you need to pray, you need to go to Starbucks and get a latte and listen to your favorite music, read a book.

Go to a therapist, you know, whatever it is, whatever self care means for you. It's not selfish to do that. Cause sometimes I think people feel like, Oh, I don't, I don't want to admit I'm going to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a, or a family counselor or, know, I, I, and I don't think there's that stigma attached to that anymore. Like there used to be, you know, back in the seventies, sixties, seventies or eighties.

Nancy  Pickard (19:06.828)
I think that that's why a lot of people like to go to a coach. Because we grow up, you you play pickleball, you can get a coach, you tennis, you get a coach. You you want to be a better swimmer, you get a coach. Coaches are more acceptable in today's society. It doesn't have like a stigma around it. Not that it should, but I do think that some people see that differently.

James Moffitt (19:36.937)
So how can parents effectively support adult children without overstepping?

Nancy  Pickard (19:43.426)
Well, you have to be good listener. You have to be willing to be curious about their subjective reality instead of in the back of your mind thinking, I wouldn't have done it that way, or that's not how I raised you, or I don't think you're right. Just be curious. And you can ask questions without giving your opinion unless it's asked. And you can say,

that's interesting. You know, I have an opinion if you want it. And if not, I'm here just to listen and support you. But you have to get out of your own way to be open and curious about what's up for them. I work with lot of mothers and daughters and the daughters have a lot of hurt feelings. They feel body shame. They can feel all kinds of energy coming from the mother who's

you know, too concerned about her weight and her looks and what she eats and how much she exercises. And then she can just say to her daughter, do you want to go for a hike? And the daughter's hearing, what you think I'm heavy? Because they've lived a whole life already with this mother and her angst and anxiety around her body. And now they have it. And so when I work with mothers and daughters, I give each party the chance to really just

give their subjective reality, what they're thinking, what their hurts are, what their pain is, and then let the other party accept it and hear it. I'm sorry you feel that way. You know, what can I do right now to help you? How can I do it differently? What do you need from me? This is how you heal a relationship. And instead of being resentful or, you know, get your back up that that's not how you meant it, or that's not what really happened, this is their subjective reality.

You have to listen to it. That's how you help your children.

James Moffitt (21:46.301)
Yeah, children, children need to be heard and seen and validated. They want, they want to know that, that they are being heard, you know? And, we have, I have a Christian psychologist. No, let me back up. He's a psychologist, a child psychologist, not Christian necessarily. don't why I said that, but anyway, he talks about the process of emptying out and he talks about how it's important that we allow our children to empty themselves out.

We've got all the emotions and repressed anger and sorrow and all this, all the emotions that are pressed down, right. Shove down deep inside of them. And, and we get into these conversations. Well, the kids are not listening to us. You know, this could be husband and wife. could be any relationship issue. Right. But, but until somebody is allowed to empty themselves out and to let the world or, know, how they feel and what the issue is.

Then at that point, once they've emptied themselves out and they feel validated at that point, you can have a conversation, right? And at that point you can talk to them and they'll, they'll, they're going to be a lot more, willing to listen to something that you have to say. Right. So I like that. Yep.

Nancy  Pickard (23:01.558)
Exactly. Yeah. Everybody needs to be seen and heard. Everybody just wants you to understand their subjective reality, their pain, their hurts. And as an adult parent, a parent of adult children, you don't want to lose your children. And it's easy to lose them. It's really easy to lose your adult children. It happens every day here now. It's like an epidemic of

of adult children saying no more. I don't need you in my life. I'm walking away. Blah, blah, blah. You don't want that. You've gotten that far. You want to have a relationship with your children. You want them to be there for you when you get older. You want to share in their lives and the lives of your grandchildren. And you have to protect it. You actually have to protect it because it's easy to lose.

James Moffitt (23:41.341)
Right.

James Moffitt (24:00.029)
What are common relationship pitfalls when setting boundaries with adult kids?

Nancy  Pickard (24:06.454)
You know, I feel with my, like with my own children, it's hard to be feel seen and heard from them, right? They're so used to you doing everything for them or with them. And it's hard for them to sometimes just see you as an adult. So you need to ask for what you want with grace and ease. And you can say things like I used to go and babysit with, you know, I'd go to visit my kids and

They'd get rid of babysitters or nannies or anything and I'd be there and I'd be working my butt off with their kids the whole time. I wouldn't be spending any time with my adult children and I wouldn't be like working or doing my own exercise and I finally would have to say, this is what I need from you. I wanna come, I wanna feel good about it, but I need X, Y and Z. So you have to ask for what you need and that's how you said it. I feel this, I feel X.

When you do Y, would you be willing to do Z? And usually when you ask for it like that, they'll be like, yeah, no problem. But you can't be angry for not getting what you never asked for. So if you don't set healthy boundaries and ask for what you need, you're not gonna get it. And you're just gonna get resentful. And that resentments gonna build up and build up and build up. That's what you don't want to have happen.

James Moffitt (25:30.173)
So can you give me a good example of that?

Nancy  Pickard (25:33.678)
Well, yeah, I just did the one with babysitting my kids. If I would go there and I would be depleted, I would shorten my trips. I might take more distance between trips. And all I had to do was bring it up in the way I did. And now I go, I spend as much time as I want with the kids, but there's also time that I'm not with them or babysitters or nanny or somebody else in the house. So it's not a 24 seven thing for me.

and I stay longer, I'm happier, everybody's happier.

James Moffitt (26:10.601)
Good. How do childhood fears shape parent adult child relationships today?

Nancy  Pickard (26:18.936)
Well, the fears that you have as a child, you bring into your, it's what we were talking about before with you, you don't, you haven't healed your own wounds. You know, you could have parents that are really anxious and their children become anxious or they're fearful of large groups. They're fearful of travel. All of those, all of those fears that you have, they get passed on to your children if you don't do something different.

Or I know a lot of people, a lot of women who will say, I'm never gonna want a man to take care of me or, you know, I'm gonna always make my own money because they had a mother whose father left and the mother was poor and she couldn't make ends meet. So it all depends on what you've had and where you go or a mother will have had bad experiences and will teach their children.

You can't trust men or you can't trust people. I have a lot of clients that are very untrustworthy because that's how they grew up, because they were taught to not trust people because that was a wound of their parents. So that's what happens. It gets passed on from generation to generation. And if you don't do your own work, it is going to get passed on. You can't help it.

It's, they're seeing it in action. Anxious parents make anxious children. Walled off parents make walled off children.

James Moffitt (27:56.189)
Make sense?

So in your experience, how can parental healing impact generational trauma?

Nancy  Pickard (28:04.686)
my God, it's everything. It's everything. If you heal your wounds, you will be able to give your children the opportunity to be whoever they want to be. You're going to stop passing it on. Think about it's not that many generations before us where we had slaves or the Holocaust or any of the kinds of issues that happened

two, three generations ago, those wounds are still there and they get passed on generationally, energetically. If you don't do your own work, you pass them on. If you're a parent of alcoholic parents, you grow up with no wants and needs of your own because it was never safe for you to have wants and needs of your own.

And then you show up, you raise your children, you give, you over give, you people please, you overdo, and you pass that on. Then they go on and do the same thing. It's just a generational roller coaster on and on and on. You have to do your own work so that your children don't have to carry the burdens of your parents and their parents and the parents before them.

James Moffitt (29:33.693)
I think that, I think some parents miss that. And I think, because I, we have a, we have a private Facebook support group. We started out with like 15 members in 2015, and now we have like 1.3 thousand members and there's a lot of, a lot of parents out there that are, I read all kinds of stories about all kinds of situations. And, and I think that some parents are.

Nancy  Pickard (29:48.28)
Wow.

James Moffitt (30:04.435)
They're not even aware that there's work that needs to be done. Right. There's all kinds of generational garbage, emotional baggage, whatever that is in that relationship with their adult child. And, and they're just throwing up their hands going, I just don't understand where they're getting this. I don't understand why they're being the way they are, you know? And, and so sometimes it's, it's, sometimes it's difficult or hard to.

get the parent to understand that maybe you need to, maybe you need to get some help. Maybe you need to have you, have you had, have you talked to a coach or life coach or a family counselor or. other words, they don't want to admit there's a problem with them. You know, it's all, it's all the children's fault. It's all the children's are the one that are screwed up. And I'm just like, and let me give you an example. My wife's a special ed teacher, right. And,

Nancy  Pickard (30:52.46)
Right.

Nancy  Pickard (31:00.952)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (31:02.621)
She loves kids, bless her heart. She's just wonderful with kids, loves kids. And she has to do IEPs, education plan, individualized education plans. It's like a state and federal requirement. And, she has to have parent teacher conferences, you know, and these kids, a lot, a lot of these kids, understandably, they, they're autistic or they have whatever issue it is that they're dealing with. Right. that's causing.

problems on it unto itself. But then you've got kids that are acting out, they're violent, screaming, they're yelling, they're throwing things, you know, just doing no bad stuff, stuff that they're not going to be able to continue to do into adulthood. And, know, you can't do that kind of stuff, at the workplace or wherever, know, if you go to college, you know, you can't do those things. And what she found out was, was that when she had her parent teacher conferences,

The parents were all whacked out. You know, they were, they were crazier than the kids were, you know, and she's like, there's no wonder that this child is doing what they're doing with, with the, their home life and with the way the, the way the parents are acting when they, know, these adults, these adult parents are coming to these parent teacher conferences are just all, you know, often left field and cursing and acting stupid and inappropriate.

And my wife's like, Hmm, okay. Well that's connecting the dots for me. I can see where I can see what's going on here, you know, and, God forbid you mentioned to the parent that maybe they need help, you know, all of a sudden you're the wicked teacher of the West. You know, you're like, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. You're not a good teacher. My child's perfect. You know, well, we are not perfect and our children are not perfect. Right. And a lot of times our children are screwed up because we're screwed up.

Nancy  Pickard (32:33.449)
Exactly.

James Moffitt (32:56.199)
Right. And so.

Nancy  Pickard (32:58.606)
Most of the time. Most of the time.

James Moffitt (33:06.351)
I I think some people, some individuals are more, more willing to, to realize that they need help. Right. and, so, but then there's, there are people that, know, think that they know it all or that they are perfect or that they are, they have their act together and there's nothing, it's not, it's not about me. It's about you. Right. It's not, it's not my problem. It's your problem. You know, you can't blame your problems on me.

Nancy  Pickard (33:34.828)
Those are the parents that are going to lose their children. Or those are the parents that they'll lose connection with their children. Their children might actually do the bare minimum to keep them in their lives, but they're not going to be friends. They're not going to look up to them as good parents. And when I work with couples, that's my leverage. My leverage is,

James Moffitt (33:39.315)
Right.

Nancy  Pickard (34:01.038)
Is that, you know, I could say to a man, is that how you want your son to think men should be? Or do you want your daughter to marry a man who's abusive? Do you think that you want her to grow up thinking that verbal abuse is what she should expect? So a lot of times that's my leverage is that you don't want your children to end up marrying somebody like you.

And that's unfortunate, but it's true. So you can heal yourself, you can show up differently, you can be a different kind of parent and spouse so that your children marry somebody that you would like them to marry instead of modeling and marrying somebody like you.

James Moffitt (34:53.065)
Yeah. I've always said that if, if I've always said that children, if you want children to be well-balanced and you want them to be loving, kind, gentle-spirited, whatever, you know, all the fruit of the spirit, but the Bible talks about, then parents have to model that in front of them. You know, children are sponges. And if you're, if you're verbally abusive to your husband or wife, guess what they're learning? They're learning how to be verbally abusive.

And to show no respect to their spouse, you know, and if you want, if you want your kids to learn the good stuff, then you've got to model that stuff in front of them. It's got to be, it's got to be a way of life. can't be well behind closed doors. I'm going to act this way. And then out in, out in public, I'm going to act that way, you know, cause kids are not stupid. They, they hear and see what's going on in the home.

Nancy  Pickard (35:46.51)
Correct. I agree.

James Moffitt (35:50.515)
So how do you instigate positive change in communications with grown children? Let's just say things have not been working out and, and, know, the kids are metaphorically on their way out the door and could give a flip less about the parents anymore. How do, how do you instigate positive change with the parents at that point?

Nancy  Pickard (36:12.014)
You have to be vulnerable to your children and you don't make it a you problem or a me problem. You can say things like, we deserve a better relationship. What do you need from me? So we could have that. And you have to be open and curious and able to listen and receive without fighting back. You have to be able to say, like I, I have used this with my children.

I can say, I feel like you don't appreciate anything I do for you. And I know we mirror each other. So I'm assuming that you don't appreciate, you don't think I appreciate anything you're doing because we mirror our children. So when you say that, they'll be like, yeah, you're right. I don't feel it. And then I'll say, great, we're feeling the same way. Let's have a conversation.

So you can't make it, you talk from the I and then you talk from the we. We deserve a more loving relationship.

What do you need from me so you could do that with me?

I want to hear, I'm open, you can tell me anything. I promise I'll just listen. I won't react. I won't get mad. And you have to do that. You have to be willing to take responsibility without excuses for the pain and the hurt that you've caused willingly or unwillingly to your children. We may try our best, but our best doesn't land

Nancy  Pickard (38:01.014)
where we think it's going to. Or we did the best we could, or we're so much better. I hear parents will say, I came from such abuse and I don't do that to my children. I never hit my children. That's amazing. And I'm really glad, but you're still doing X, Y, and Z. And that's still causing damage to your children.

Nancy  Pickard (38:31.65)
It's not a who's right and who's wrong in a relationship.

You want to have peace, want to have open communication, and you have to be willing to rock the boat. You have to be willing to get intimate and vulnerable and speak your needs and listen to their needs.

James Moffitt (38:56.487)
And I think that's difficult for some people to do.

Nancy  Pickard (38:59.616)
It is, but then they may not ever heal the relationship with their children. That's choice. We all have agency. We can all try to make it happen. It doesn't mean our children are going to listen. It doesn't mean that too much has gone by that they're not willing to make amends. Sometimes it is too late, but it's always going to be too late if you don't try.

James Moffitt (39:24.413)
Right. There's no better time. Like now, right. There's always.

Nancy  Pickard (39:29.198)
Correct. Or yesterday.

James Moffitt (39:32.903)
Right. Every day you wake up there, you're, breathing and you're breathing air and you're alive and, there's hope, you know, we can always start over today. And, that's what I like to think is that there's, you know, as long as you're alive, there's, there's hope to make, a better tomorrow. Right.

Nancy  Pickard (39:42.509)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (39:55.699)
So I want to give you.

Nancy  Pickard (39:55.95)
Very well said. I said very well said.

James Moffitt (40:00.553)
Yeah. So I want to, we have parents of adult children that are listening and, um, I would like for you to take two or three minutes to, I don't know, just speak to them and, and give them some hope and tell them, you know, what some next steps might be.

Nancy  Pickard (40:21.654)
Okay, I don't think there's anything more precious than your relationship with your grown children or your grandchildren. And if you don't have a good relationship with them, you have to be willing to take responsibility for your children's pain. You have to want to know what it is. You have to come with curiosity and an open heart to repair. And the best way to do it

Like this is what I do for a living. I work with a lot of adult children and adult parents because I'm the mediator. I basically can hear both sides. can sort of interpret. How can you say that better? You know, I teach you about self-esteem and good protective boundary and containing boundary so you can, they can say what they need to say and be heard without you taking it personally.

by being curious about how it is for them. And it's not that difficult to heal a relationship if you're willing to get somebody like me or somebody else that does this work to mediate and help teach you what the losing strategies are, what are the things that you're doing that aren't working, and then teach you what the winning strategies are so that you can learn to do it better. It's not

It's not impossible. I do it every day. It works really well. And I think it's the greatest gift you can give yourself and your adult children.

James Moffitt (41:59.625)
Okay. Thank you. So I think that's a wrap for today's episode of ABC's of parenting adult children. A huge thank you to Nancy Picard for sharing her powerful insights on boundaries, letting go and how we can grow with our adult children instead of around them. If something Nancy said resonated with you, check out her book, bigger, better, braver is filled with tools and stories that can help you shift your mindset and reconnect with purpose.

Make sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss part two of our conversation. Maybe there's going to be a part two, where we dive into healing old wounds, re-parenting ourselves and doing the inner work that transforms how we show up. Thanks for listening and remember parenting doesn't end, it evolves, listening audience. Thank you for the privilege of your time and have a blessed day. And also you.

Nancy  Pickard (42:33.262)
Okay.

Yeah.

James Moffitt (42:55.239)
You can send me an email at parenting adult children at proton.me. And you can also visit our website, is parenting adult children.org. You can leave a review and all that good stuff. So Nancy, thank you for being here.

Nancy  Pickard (43:09.912)
Thank you for having me.