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Book Synopsis
Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children:
Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling Parents
The phrase “it’s not my fault” evokes mixed emotions in the hearts of parents and grandparents whose train of belief has reached the end of the line. In an era when personal accountability has become more and more scarce, it’s often the parents who have spent years enabling their children who are now suffering. Feelings of guilt, shame, fear, anger, frustration, and the inability to trust our adult children invade our existence. How do these feelings play into the dynamic of not only accepting, but in some cases encouraging negative behavior in adult children? In this landmark book, parents will learn not only to recognize the negative behavior of their adult children, but more important, their own negative responses to it as well. Responses that will need to be altered before change can occur.
This is not a book about how to “fix” dysfunctional adult children who are making life painful for their parents and grandparents. Yes, the adult children are often in their own kind of pain and anguish—many are suffering from multiple addictions and years of crippling enablement—but this book has not been written for them. Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children is primarily for struggling parents and grandparents—yet it will have a life-changing effect on adult children. Having experienced first hand the enabling of her own adult child, Allison speaks out to parents and grandparents about her own personal journey, identifying and overcoming the lies that kept her and ultimately her son in bondage. Additional real life stories from other parents are woven throughout, and a powerful Foreword by Carol Kent opens the book.
There are two separate yet intrinsically combined things going on when we look at the pathology of enabling our adult children.
#1. We have the issue of the dysfunctional child himself—the product of our enabling. Most often, we are dealing with adult children who have no concept of healthy boundaries as they pertain to their parents and grandparents. Many are dealing with addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, pornogra-phy, gambling, and more. Some of these children are involved in illegal activity, while others have been in and out of jail numerous times. Some are abusive to us. Some have jobs while others do not, most have extreme financial challenges. Others are still living at home, and some have even moved their spouse or “significant other” into their parents’ home with them. Many have been in and out of treatment centers, most often at the urging (and cost) of their parents. While we cannot change the behavior of our adult children, we can change how we respond to their actions and to their choices. We can, and must, begin to establish healthy boundaries and rules.
#2. Then, we have the issue of our own personal health and growth (or lack thereof.) For many of us, we have spent years taking care of, bailing out, coming to the rescue, making excuses for, crying over, praying for, and otherwise focusing an unhealthy amount of time and attention on this adult child, that we have neglected our own mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. Many of us have neglected other family members as well, as the adult child has taken so much of our energy. Some of us are now experiencing severe financial ramifications from having enabled our adult child. Others are finding their marriage falling apart as tempers flair and situations spiral out of control. What is it inside us that makes us respond in such a way—that makes us enable our adult children?
Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children will empower readers with a no holds barred six step SANITY format, stating in black and white the parental behaviors that must STOP, along with identifying new habits to implement if change is to occur. Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children will identify the false conceptions parents believe about themselves and their adult children and will counter each lie of captivity with the truth that setting boundaries is not only a good thing—but a vital part of hope and healing. True stories from other enabling parents and grandparents are woven throughout the chapters. Discussions with and observations from licensed psychologists and psychiatrists are also included.
The Deluxe Kit
A Companion Study Guide to
SETTING BOUNDARIES
and 12-session CD Series
for Individual and/or Group Study
included in the Deluxe Kit with a copy of Setting Boundaries & More!
~ ONLY AVAILABLE HERE ~
Don’t wait another minute!
Begin your journey on the road to SANITY today!
The Road to SANITY today!
AVAILABLE NOW!
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6 Steps
to SANITY
12-Weeks to Freedom
DELUXE KIT INCLUDES:
One Copy of
Setting Boundaries
by Allison Bottke
Compact Discs - Audio
Featuring 12 inspiring and personal messages from Allison Bottke to begin
each week in this powerful 12-week series.
One Companion
Study Guide
Packed with practical information, detailed action plans, and inspiration to
empower and encourage you on your journey of change.
Reminder Wristband
Wear this wristband to remind you daily that you are on The Road to
SANITY
Calendar Magnet
Keep the 6-Steps to SANITY in front of you for a daily reminder.
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While recognizing and identifying enabling issues must come before positive change can be made, it is the eventual peace and healing parents will feel as they gain power in their own lives that is the goal of this book. A tough love book for coping with dysfunctional adult children, as well as getting our own lives back on track, Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children empowers families by offering hope and healing through six SANITY steps. Allison walks parents through a six step program to regaining control in their home, and in their life.
Six SANITY Steps for Regaining a Healthy Relationship
with Adult Children
S |
= |
STOP the Enabling and STOP the Flow of Money |
A |
= |
ASSEMBLE a Support Group |
N |
= |
NIP Excuses in the Bud |
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= |
IMPLEMENT Rules and Boundaries |
T |
= |
TRUST Your Instincts |
Y |
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YIELD Everything to God |
Additionally, while this book is not “Allison’s story,” she has experienced in great detail and depth the pain and anguish of enabling an adult child. An emotional connection of one who has gone before will be made between the author and the readers as Allison shares what it’s like to continually bail an adult child out of jail, to go into massive debt time and again paying for rehab treatment, and finally cutting the adult child loose—and what it takes to do that.
Allison has conducted a considerable amount of research in the development of this book, including interviews with licensed professionals, authors, counselors, clergymen, former addicts, and parents in pain who are dealing with or have dealt with these specific issues.
As a Christian, Allison writes from that perspective. She believes that a focus on God, or on your Higher Power is vital in this healing process. However, the book is written in such a way as to appeal to people of all beliefs and denominations.
