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

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover,

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help and hope for your wilderness journey right here

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at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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And also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Today is part one of Why a Prodigal,

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Living in This World.

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I get asked all the time,

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why did my child become a prodigal?

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Why did my young adult make such bad choices?

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So we're gonna look at four different,

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very different areas to see if we can understand this

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and have it help us walk through this hard journey.

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So I'm hoping that at the end of these four,

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you will find lots of reason for hope.

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As you listen today, I would encourage you

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to identify the realities, cause I'm going to talk about

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a lot of them briefly, but identify those

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that have affected your loved one and your relationships

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or however the prodigal journey you're on is happening.

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First, a disclaimer though.

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I am not a trained sociologist or psychologist or counselor.

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I am a mom who lived through a 15 year prodigal wilderness

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with our son, sought lots of help, prayed all the time

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and grew in my trust in God.

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These are things I have learned or gleaned from others

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that I hope will encourage you.

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Also know, I am not putting any blame or shame on you.

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I am identifying many possible contributions

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to prodigal choices, some of which may fit your situation.

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This is not a how to fix it,

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though I do hope recognizing these realities

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will be helpful to you.

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A summary of our son's life before he came to us

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at almost 10 years old.

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He didn't know his dad, his mother was addicted

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to drugs and alcohol.

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He had residuals from fetal alcohol syndrome,

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a lot of instability and abuse and poverty

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in his living situations, but also some loving grandparents

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who stepped in from time to time.

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We had very little knowledge of all that this would mean,

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but we learned all about reactive attachment disorder,

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brain damage from fetal alcohol syndrome,

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abandonment issues, lack of cause and effect reasoning.

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He was two years behind in school,

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he knew nothing about boundaries in his life

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and lots of other things.

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And so we went into this really ignorant

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and had to depend on God so much

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because there was so much that was going to happen.

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It took us a long time to find the help that we needed.

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And by then he was already well into his rebellious choices.

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Today's episode is broad and a general overview.

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I will name some influencing categories

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that contribute to the prodigal choices or activities

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or lifestyle that you may be experiencing.

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And under each category, I'll list some specific kinds

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of things that fall under those.

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This is not an exhaustive list,

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and some of these will also overlap.

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So stick with me and see what is helpful

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for you here to understand.

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First of all, a lot of what's going on

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is just because of growing up.

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Kids grow up.

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And as children grow, they want more and more freedom.

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I bet you've noticed that.

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They want to control their own lives.

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For some it starts at one, many at two, some it's later.

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My guess is you still struggle with that as well.

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You want your own way.

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I do.

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Even as I seek to surrender to God,

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I still often really want my own way.

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As a teenager emerges,

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we just celebrated a teenager this summer.

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Another one of our 10 grandchildren became a teenager.

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As this happens, this person, he or she,

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naturally begins to seek self-identity.

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Who am I as a person?

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And that includes separating from parental control.

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There are some good and not so good tendencies

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that occur.

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There's curiosity about what's out there

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and who am I and what might I do.

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There's definitely desiring independence.

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There's wanting to explore and just check things out

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and try some things.

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And of course, there's always finding acceptance.

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And that causes you to do things

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you might not have chosen on your own

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in order to be accepted.

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And these things are normal and needed.

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And they don't have to turn in to prodigal life choices.

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But at the same time that those things are happening,

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the brain is developing.

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However, it is lagging behind in the development.

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In fact, they're saying that,

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in males especially, the brain isn't really developed

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until the mid or late 20s.

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And so they've got a long time of wanting to try things

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when their brain's not quite in control enough

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to give them wisdom.

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Also, besides the brain lagging,

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the hormones are definitely not lagging, they're exploding.

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And they often cause desires to overrule reason.

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And they have this causing of this lure to take risks,

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to try things that might be a little dangerous.

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And then there's the whole pop culture.

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And since they're spending their lives on screens,

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they get ideas from others on screens

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and from the things that are on the screens.

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All of this, and maybe the friends they've chosen,

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can precipitate some unwise choices.

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But remember, it's not abnormal.

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It's just that it goes in different directions

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depending on a lot of other things.

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It can become very dangerous and destructive.

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And that's what you're gonna be watching out for.

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So here's, in my opinion, one of the most significant things

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that contribute to this growing process

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turning negative, turning scary.

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And people just often aren't aware of this.

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And that is trauma and pain

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that this child has experienced in their lives.

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Trauma is often a primary or at least a secondary cause

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of prodigal behaviors that are really difficult.

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They're difficult for our loved ones

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because of consequences.

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And they're difficult for us to know how to handle them.

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But some kind of trauma in life

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can be a major source of those actions.

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So don't just think they're rebellious.

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Just don't think, oh, they're bad.

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Recognize there's causes that you don't know about maybe.

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Maybe you do.

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It's really helpful to understand the powerful impact

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the many traumas in our son's life had.

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Too often, we, people, society,

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label a teen or young adult as rebellious or bad.

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In reality, much of their behavior derives

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from the pain of trauma in their lives.

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Trauma we know and trauma we have no awareness of.

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So what are some of those traumas?

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Major traumas could include the loss of a parent,

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huge or a sibling.

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That could be very painful.

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Being adopted, I'll talk about that in a second.

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Special needs, whether it's their own special needs

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or a sibling who has special needs

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and gets most of the attention.

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A major illness or injury.

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A divorce in the family.

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Being bullied at school or in the neighborhood.

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Instability at home.

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Economic issues, not enough money.

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Hunger, frequent moves, and abuse that could be there.

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Those are all big trauma events.

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And they can cause, in the midst of the confusion

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and the instability of a child

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becoming a teenager and growing,

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those things can really turn that into a negative event.

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Well, you might ask, how is adoption a major trauma?

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It should mean a positive future for a child.

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Yes, and true.

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But it also means a terrible loss for that child,

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which may or may not surface

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till their teen years or later.

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With questions such as, who am I really?

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Who is my real family?

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Why didn't they keep me?

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And other questions that come from the not knowing

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or the abrupt removal from one family to another,

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which was true of our son.

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These realities often lead to significant number

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of adopted kids struggling with rebellious attitudes.

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There are other not quite so major life events

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that can also have significant impact.

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Birth order, sibling rivalry,

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lack of meaningful relationships,

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poor school performance,

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a harsh or negative teacher.

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No one will sit with me in the lunchroom.

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I'm always the last one chosen.

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Failure in school or sports

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or anything that matters to this child.

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There are other influences as well.

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Their friends, friends are one of the most important,

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actually, the right friends can really make a difference

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and the wrong friends can make a really bad difference.

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My son told me at a point where his life was turning around,

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he said, I figured out I needed to quit hanging

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with the people I'd been with.

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And that made a difference in his life.

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You know, the examples of various family members.

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If others in the family, whether the immediate family

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or the extended family have issues that are things

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like addictions or things like unfaithfulness

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or criminal activity or just bad, you know,

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abusive attitudes or not even caring

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for the kids very much.

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All of those things can contribute to the things

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that might cause the bad decisions.

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The culture they're a part of,

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it's pretty amazingly scary out there.

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Maybe if their upbringing or the broader upbringing

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that they're a part of is really rigid

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and they're not a rigid follow the rules kind of person,

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that can be a real problem.

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If they're not allowed to have different opinions,

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if they can only toe the line with the family beliefs,

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then that can be an issue.

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And if they have felt in their religious circumstances

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that they were judged or really put down

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or that nobody thought they could have other thoughts

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or other ideas, those are all things that are part of them,

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just the trauma or the pain or the things

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that cause them to struggle.

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But there are others.

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There are health and medical issues.

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Physical and mental health conditions

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can contribute significantly to behavioral concerns.

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I know many of my friends who have had a child

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with particularly some mental issues

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and it's been a hard row.

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They've had a hard time,

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but physical ones can do that as well.

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Physical realities that limit activity or acceptance

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can trigger anger or rejection feelings in people.

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These days we are seeing just myriad

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mental health conditions.

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One of the most common is bipolar,

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which is a very challenging thing,

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but there are others.

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There's oppositional defiance,

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can start at a very young age.

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Anxiety, anxiety's rampant.

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Depression, borderline personality,

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which is hard to take care of.

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And these things can be part of what leads to self-harm,

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to eating disorders.

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There's also gender dysphoria.

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Who am I, what am I that people are asking these days?

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And sadly, these kinds of things,

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if they're not helped and treated,

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can often be precursors to addiction

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and even to the growing numbers of suicides

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among young adults especially.

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And then that brings us to substance abuse.

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The starting points for addiction vary greatly.

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There could be genetic disposition.

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There could be family history or current family use

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that makes it available as well as common.

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There are prescription meds that,

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hmm, after they've finished their work of helping,

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can hang around and be available.

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And then there's this exploring with friends.

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And some friends might have access to things

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that your child might not, but then they can try it out.

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There's always alleviating physical and mental pain.

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And my son, when I would ask him why they did

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some of the things they did, said,

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it was fun and my friends were doing it.

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And so sometimes it's as simple as that.

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An example that I know of,

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there was a well-adjusted high school athlete

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in his senior year starting off

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a great year playing football.

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And he suffered a severe injury in that year.

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It took him off the team.

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It left him isolated from his friends.

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He was not likely now to get a college scholarship.

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And he became dependent on painkillers,

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which continued even after he healed from his injury.

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And that was his entryway into addiction.

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And though substance abuse or use

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may begin innocently enough,

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we know it can progress to controlling a life,

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to the inability to hold a job or maintain a family

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or even drive a vehicle.

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And way too often it leads to death.

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That can be from suicide.

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It could be from an accident.

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It could be from an overdose

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or the drugs that are now often laced with things that kill.

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Family matters as well.

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My husband grew up in a family with an alcoholic father.

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Even as a boy, he had to protect his mother

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from his dad's verbal and emotional abuse.

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Often adult children of alcoholics,

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ACA is the abbreviation for that,

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go in one direction or the opposite.

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They also become alcoholics

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or they focus on high achievement

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and making good choices and they rarely drink.

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Gratefully, my husband is in the second group,

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but it's a very common thing.

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This functional family background

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can certainly be a contributor to later issues for a child.

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Many of the traumas I listed can be found

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where there are flawed relationships and functions,

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especially that have been prevalent in preceding generations.

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It does follow the family line a lot.

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And so one of our hopes is that if that's been true

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and of our family line, we want to break that.

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We want to help our loved one take a different path.

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One other area that I would mention

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that covers a lot of things

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is what I would, a broad category of expectations.

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So people have different definitions of success.

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So if a child doesn't live up in the academic world

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or in the social capacity or in their athletic endeavors

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or in their personalities, then again,

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they can feel left out or rejected

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and these are things that can lead

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to the kinds of decisions that may make.

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Comparisons, don't compare.

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Comparisons are a terrible thing.

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And we think we can motivate them to do better,

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but more often than not, we're going to demotivate them

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from believing that they can ever rise that high.

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There's always fear of failure.

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There are some people who are afraid

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of failure, there are some kids just achieve

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and others, first of all, would be called late bloomers,

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but they're going to take their time to figure out

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and they're afraid of failing,

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especially if the people in their circles

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look down on that.

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Also, an environment that is too rigid or too loose

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is not a healthy environment for them to learn

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to make right choices and on their own.

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If it's too rigid, they're not allowed to.

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If it's too loose, there's no boundaries,

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no guidance for them.

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And here are a couple of things that I asked a lot

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of people what they would say and in addition

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to things I've been sharing with you,

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here are a couple of things that came up several times.

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First of all, their spiritual environment,

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background, teaching, the church they've been to,

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or if it seems hypocritical or judgmental,

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it drives them away.

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And they would say that over and over.

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If you talk to kids now, you say,

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I don't believe anything, I don't go to church anymore.

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Yes, I grew up in the church,

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but I don't want anything to do with it.

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Why?

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Because they seem to be hypocrites

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and they just judged me all the time.

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And another area that was brought up several times

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is they get sent, like when they go to college,

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to a place where everything that they've been taught

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and brought up to believe is pushed aside or pushed down

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and they come back with no belief and no sense

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of spiritual reality in their life

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because at school they learned something entirely different.

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And I know a lot of people whose kids

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would be called prodigals because they've just walked away

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from a relationship with God.

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They're no longer following what they were doing

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and believing when they were in high school.

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And instead, they may not be making bad choices.

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They're not doing addictions and they're not making

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the kinds of things that will destroy their lives

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other than their eternal lives

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because they've walked away from the God

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that their family loved and taught them about.

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And so those are really common.

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And what do you do about that?

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Well, let me tell you, I'm gonna have in the show notes

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available with this show, there will be a list

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of a lot of different kinds of resources.

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Our son spent a year and a half

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at a place called House of Hope, a residential program.

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And there are a lot of those kinds of things

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in varying ways.

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There are programs specifically for alcohol and drugs.

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There's rehab places and detox.

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And then there are places that are gonna help

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like with eating disorders.

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There's lots of different ones.

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And then there are counselors.

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And there's a lot of new approaches that I know about.

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My daughter, who I had on the show last year,

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works with something that's really been helpful

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for people who are having,

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their brain is betraying them in a sense.

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And it's really been helpful.

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So I'm gonna list some resources

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and you might be able to get the help you're looking for

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in that way.

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And then we're gonna be talking about some more.

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This is where we're gonna stop for today.

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I know basically all I've done is tell you

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a lot of issues that could affect your child,

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your loved one.

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And I didn't give you much help yet,

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but we're gonna get to help.

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But I would just say,

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I hope it does help you to realize

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00:23:23,460 --> 00:23:26,380
one thing you might think you did

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00:23:26,380 --> 00:23:28,860
probably did not cause this.

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There are so many issues that come together

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and make a difference in what a child chooses

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and what a child doesn't choose.

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And a lot of what we've been talking about on this podcast

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is to help us, the parents or the ones who love them,

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to understand how to keep loving them

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and how to woo them back in a sense.

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And so I hope those things have been helpful.

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Next week, we're gonna look at what God's word says

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about causes and outcomes of prodigal choices.

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And I'm gonna tell a little more of my story.

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The week after that, we are going to consider

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the impact of the spiritual warfare

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that is going on right now.

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There are wars in the heavenlies

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00:24:19,900 --> 00:24:23,860
between the forces of evil and the forces of our God.

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And those affect our loved ones as well.

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00:24:28,180 --> 00:24:31,540
And a special word I have from God

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about your and my prodigals.

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And then in the fourth episode of this series,

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00:24:38,820 --> 00:24:41,820
we're gonna look at a couple of practices

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00:24:41,820 --> 00:24:46,420
that will help you overcome many of these issues.

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00:24:46,420 --> 00:24:50,020
So did you see your prodigal, your situation

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00:24:50,020 --> 00:24:52,980
in some of the things that I mentioned?

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00:24:52,980 --> 00:24:57,160
Was it helpful to see that there could be many influences

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00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:58,800
that have led your loved one

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00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,380
to the choices that they're making?

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00:25:01,380 --> 00:25:04,540
Does this change some of your perspectives

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00:25:04,540 --> 00:25:06,740
on what might have been going on

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00:25:06,740 --> 00:25:11,460
in the life of your prodigal that would cause those things?

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00:25:11,460 --> 00:25:15,940
Take a minute and review this episode.

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00:25:15,940 --> 00:25:18,500
I would really like others to begin

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00:25:18,500 --> 00:25:20,020
to hear some of these things,

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00:25:20,020 --> 00:25:23,220
and your review might help them do that.

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00:25:23,220 --> 00:25:24,820
And I hope you join next week

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00:25:24,820 --> 00:25:28,060
because it'll be helpful and important.

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God bless you.