Chapter

A Note to Readers

Every parent dreams of having not only wonderful relationships with their adult children but also meaningful conversations with them across the years. We feel confident in saying that God wants this for you too, because God designed parents to be mentors for their children and signs of God’s love for them. It is our prayer that this little book will give you the means to make that dream a reality.

How will we approach this topic? We’ll give plenty of examples of conversations between parents and adult children, but we decided to avoid discussing specific topics, such as religion, politics, and lifestyle, in favor of laying out basic principles. We hope that this approach will give you, the reader, the confidence and ability to have meaningful conversations on a variety of topics while making your parent-child relationship stronger and deeper.

We’ve divided the book into three parts:

Part One, Preparing the Soil. Before you can plant the seeds for fruitful conversations with your adult children, you need to make sure the soil is ready. We’ll consider how to heal any