Why a Prodigal 1: The World We Live In, episode 74

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover, help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. And also help and hope for your own life journey. Today is part one of Why a Prodigal, Living in This World. I get asked all the time, why did my child become a prodigal? Why did my young adult make such bad choices? So we're gonna look at four different, very different areas to see if we can understand this and have it help us walk through this hard journey.

0:45 So I'm hoping that at the end of these four, you will find lots of reason for hope. As you listen today, I would encourage you to identify the realities, cause I'm going to talk about a lot of them briefly, but identify those that have affected your loved one and your relationships or however the prodigal journey you're on is happening. First, a disclaimer though. I am not a trained sociologist or psychologist or counselor. I am a mom who lived through a 15 year prodigal wilderness with our son, sought lots of help, prayed all the time and grew in my trust in God.

1:35 These are things I have learned or gleaned from others that I hope will encourage you. Also know, I am not putting any blame or shame on you. I am identifying many possible contributions to prodigal choices, some of which may fit your situation. This is not a how to fix it, though I do hope recognizing these realities will be helpful to you. A summary of our son's life before he came to us at almost 10 years old.

2:16 He didn't know his dad, his mother was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He had residuals from fetal alcohol syndrome, a lot of instability and abuse and poverty in his living situations, but also some loving grandparents who stepped in from time to time. We had very little knowledge of all that this would mean, but we learned all about reactive attachment disorder, brain damage from fetal alcohol syndrome, abandonment issues, lack of cause and effect reasoning.

2:58 He was two years behind in school, he knew nothing about boundaries in his life and lots of other things. And so we went into this really ignorant and had to depend on God so much because there was so much that was going to happen. It took us a long time to find the help that we needed. And by then he was already well into his rebellious choices. Today's episode is broad and a general overview. I will name some influencing categories that contribute to the prodigal choices or activities or lifestyle that you may be experiencing.

3:46 And under each category, I'll list some specific kinds of things that fall under those. This is not an exhaustive list, and some of these will also overlap. So stick with me and see what is helpful for you here to understand. First of all, a lot of what's going on is just because of growing up. Kids grow up. And as children grow, they want more and more freedom. I bet you've noticed that. They want to control their own lives.

4:27 For some it starts at one, many at two, some it's later. My guess is you still struggle with that as well. You want your own way. I do. Even as I seek to surrender to God, I still often really want my own way. As a teenager emerges, we just celebrated a teenager this summer. Another one of our 10 grandchildren became a teenager. As this happens, this person, he or she, naturally begins to seek self-identity. Who am I as a person?

5:07 And that includes separating from parental control. There are some good and not so good tendencies that occur. There's curiosity about what's out there and who am I and what might I do. There's definitely desiring independence. There's wanting to explore and just check things out and try some things. And of course, there's always finding acceptance. And that causes you to do things you might not have chosen on your own in order to be accepted. And these things are normal and needed.

5:50 And they don't have to turn in to prodigal life choices. But at the same time that those things are happening, the brain is developing. However, it is lagging behind in the development. In fact, they're saying that, in males especially, the brain isn't really developed until the mid or late 20s. And so they've got a long time of wanting to try things when their brain's not quite in control enough to give them wisdom. Also, besides the brain lagging, the hormones are definitely not lagging, they're exploding.

6:33 And they often cause desires to overrule reason. And they have this causing of this lure to take risks, to try things that might be a little dangerous. And then there's the whole pop culture. And since they're spending their lives on screens, they get ideas from others on screens and from the things that are on the screens. All of this, and maybe the friends they've chosen, can precipitate some unwise choices. But remember, it's not abnormal. It's just that it goes in different directions depending on a lot of other things.

7:18 It can become very dangerous and destructive. And that's what you're gonna be watching out for. So here's, in my opinion, one of the most significant things that contribute to this growing process turning negative, turning scary. And people just often aren't aware of this. And that is trauma and pain that this child has experienced in their lives. Trauma is often a primary or at least a secondary cause of prodigal behaviors that are really difficult.

7:59 They're difficult for our loved ones because of consequences. And they're difficult for us to know how to handle them. But some kind of trauma in life can be a major source of those actions. So don't just think they're rebellious. Just don't think, oh, they're bad. Recognize there's causes that you don't know about maybe. Maybe you do. It's really helpful to understand the powerful impact the many traumas in our son's life had. Too often, we, people, society, label a teen or young adult as rebellious or bad.

8:41 In reality, much of their behavior derives from the pain of trauma in their lives. Trauma we know and trauma we have no awareness of. So what are some of those traumas? Major traumas could include the loss of a parent, huge or a sibling. That could be very painful. Being adopted, I'll talk about that in a second. Special needs, whether it's their own special needs or a sibling who has special needs and gets most of the attention. A major illness or injury. A divorce in the family.

9:24 Being bullied at school or in the neighborhood. Instability at home. Economic issues, not enough money. Hunger, frequent moves, and abuse that could be there. Those are all big trauma events. And they can cause, in the midst of the confusion and the instability of a child becoming a teenager and growing, those things can really turn that into a negative event. Well, you might ask, how is adoption a major trauma? It should mean a positive future for a child.

10:07 Yes, and true. But it also means a terrible loss for that child, which may or may not surface till their teen years or later. With questions such as, who am I really? Who is my real family? Why didn't they keep me? And other questions that come from the not knowing or the abrupt removal from one family to another, which was true of our son. These realities often lead to significant number of adopted kids struggling with rebellious attitudes.

10:48 There are other not quite so major life events that can also have significant impact. Birth order, sibling rivalry, lack of meaningful relationships, poor school performance, a harsh or negative teacher. No one will sit with me in the lunchroom. I'm always the last one chosen. Failure in school or sports or anything that matters to this child. There are other influences as well. Their friends, friends are one of the most important, actually, the right friends can really make a difference and the wrong friends can make a really bad difference.

11:39 My son told me at a point where his life was turning around, he said, I figured out I needed to quit hanging with the people I'd been with. And that made a difference in his life. You know, the examples of various family members. If others in the family, whether the immediate family or the extended family have issues that are things like addictions or things like unfaithfulness or criminal activity or just bad, you know, abusive attitudes or not even caring for the kids very much.

12:23 All of those things can contribute to the things that might cause the bad decisions. The culture they're a part of, it's pretty amazingly scary out there. Maybe if their upbringing or the broader upbringing that they're a part of is really rigid and they're not a rigid follow the rules kind of person, that can be a real problem. If they're not allowed to have different opinions, if they can only toe the line with the family beliefs, then that can be an issue. And if they have felt in their religious circumstances that they were judged or really put down or that nobody thought they could have other thoughts or other ideas, those are all things that are part of them, just the trauma or the pain or the things that cause them to struggle.

13:24 But there are others. There are health and medical issues. Physical and mental health conditions can contribute significantly to behavioral concerns. I know many of my friends who have had a child with particularly some mental issues and it's been a hard row. They've had a hard time, but physical ones can do that as well. Physical realities that limit activity or acceptance can trigger anger or rejection feelings in people. These days we are seeing just myriad mental health conditions.

14:06 One of the most common is bipolar, which is a very challenging thing, but there are others. There's oppositional defiance, can start at a very young age. Anxiety, anxiety's rampant. Depression, borderline personality, which is hard to take care of. And these things can be part of what leads to self-harm, to eating disorders. There's also gender dysphoria. Who am I, what am I that people are asking these days? And sadly, these kinds of things, if they're not helped and treated, can often be precursors to addiction and even to the growing numbers of suicides among young adults especially.

14:57 And then that brings us to substance abuse. The starting points for addiction vary greatly. There could be genetic disposition. There could be family history or current family use that makes it available as well as common. There are prescription meds that, hmm, after they've finished their work of helping, can hang around and be available. And then there's this exploring with friends. And some friends might have access to things that your child might not, but then they can try it out.

15:39 There's always alleviating physical and mental pain. And my son, when I would ask him why they did some of the things they did, said, it was fun and my friends were doing it. And so sometimes it's as simple as that. An example that I know of, there was a well-adjusted high school athlete in his senior year starting off a great year playing football. And he suffered a severe injury in that year. It took him off the team. It left him isolated from his friends. He was not likely now to get a college scholarship.

16:21 And he became dependent on painkillers, which continued even after he healed from his injury. And that was his entryway into addiction. And though substance abuse or use may begin innocently enough, we know it can progress to controlling a life, to the inability to hold a job or maintain a family or even drive a vehicle. And way too often it leads to death. That can be from suicide. It could be from an accident.

17:04 It could be from an overdose or the drugs that are now often laced with things that kill. Family matters as well. My husband grew up in a family with an alcoholic father. Even as a boy, he had to protect his mother from his dad's verbal and emotional abuse. Often adult children of alcoholics, ACA is the abbreviation for that, go in one direction or the opposite. They also become alcoholics or they focus on high achievement and making good choices and they rarely drink.

17:45 Gratefully, my husband is in the second group, but it's a very common thing. This functional family background can certainly be a contributor to later issues for a child. Many of the traumas I listed can be found where there are flawed relationships and functions, especially that have been prevalent in preceding generations. It does follow the family line a lot. And so one of our hopes is that if that's been true and of our family line, we want to break that. We want to help our loved one take a different path.

18:27 One other area that I would mention that covers a lot of things is what I would, a broad category of expectations. So people have different definitions of success. So if a child doesn't live up in the academic world or in the social capacity or in their athletic endeavors or in their personalities, then again, they can feel left out or rejected and these are things that can lead to the kinds of decisions that may make. Comparisons, don't compare.

19:08 Comparisons are a terrible thing. And we think we can motivate them to do better, but more often than not, we're going to demotivate them from believing that they can ever rise that high. There's always fear of failure. There are some people who are afraid of failure, there are some kids just achieve and others, first of all, would be called late bloomers, but they're going to take their time to figure out and they're afraid of failing, especially if the people in their circles look down on that. Also, an environment that is too rigid or too loose is not a healthy environment for them to learn to make right choices and on their own.

20:00 If it's too rigid, they're not allowed to. If it's too loose, there's no boundaries, no guidance for them. And here are a couple of things that I asked a lot of people what they would say and in addition to things I've been sharing with you, here are a couple of things that came up several times. First of all, their spiritual environment, background, teaching, the church they've been to, or if it seems hypocritical or judgmental, it drives them away. And they would say that over and over. If you talk to kids now, you say, I don't believe anything, I don't go to church anymore. Yes, I grew up in the church, but I don't want anything to do with it.

20:44 Why? Because they seem to be hypocrites and they just judged me all the time. And another area that was brought up several times is they get sent, like when they go to college, to a place where everything that they've been taught and brought up to believe is pushed aside or pushed down and they come back with no belief and no sense of spiritual reality in their life because at school they learned something entirely different. And I know a lot of people whose kids would be called prodigals because they've just walked away from a relationship with God.

21:25 They're no longer following what they were doing and believing when they were in high school. And instead, they may not be making bad choices. They're not doing addictions and they're not making the kinds of things that will destroy their lives other than their eternal lives because they've walked away from the God that their family loved and taught them about. And so those are really common. And what do you do about that? Well, let me tell you, I'm gonna have in the show notes available with this show, there will be a list of a lot of different kinds of resources.

22:08 Our son spent a year and a half at a place called House of Hope, a residential program. And there are a lot of those kinds of things in varying ways. There are programs specifically for alcohol and drugs. There's rehab places and detox. And then there are places that are gonna help like with eating disorders. There's lots of different ones. And then there are counselors. And there's a lot of new approaches that I know about. My daughter, who I had on the show last year, works with something that's really been helpful for people who are having, their brain is betraying them in a sense.

22:51 And it's really been helpful. So I'm gonna list some resources and you might be able to get the help you're looking for in that way. And then we're gonna be talking about some more. This is where we're gonna stop for today. I know basically all I've done is tell you a lot of issues that could affect your child, your loved one. And I didn't give you much help yet, but we're gonna get to help. But I would just say, I hope it does help you to realize one thing you might think you did probably did not cause this. There are so many issues that come together and make a difference in what a child chooses and what a child doesn't choose.

23:38 And a lot of what we've been talking about on this podcast is to help us, the parents or the ones who love them, to understand how to keep loving them and how to woo them back in a sense. And so I hope those things have been helpful. Next week, we're gonna look at what God's word says about causes and outcomes of prodigal choices. And I'm gonna tell a little more of my story. The week after that, we are going to consider the impact of the spiritual warfare that is going on right now. There are wars in the heavenlies between the forces of evil and the forces of our God.

24:23 And those affect our loved ones as well. And a special word I have from God about your and my prodigals. And then in the fourth episode of this series, we're gonna look at a couple of practices that will help you overcome many of these issues. So did you see your prodigal, your situation in some of the things that I mentioned? Was it helpful to see that there could be many influences that have led your loved one to the choices that they're making? Does this change some of your perspectives on what might have been going on in the life of your prodigal that would cause those things?

25:11 Take a minute and review this episode. I would really like others to begin to hear some of these things, and your review might help them do that. And I hope you join next week because it'll be helpful and important. God bless you.