What if the hardest part of watching your grown child struggle is what it quietly stirs up inside you?
In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take on a subject close to both their hearts — and to their own current season of life: the relationship between parents and their adult children.
Requested by several listeners, it's an honest, in-the-arena conversation (neither host claims to be an expert) about what changes when your kids grow up, why you might still relate to them as though they're small, and what's really going on inside you when you do.
Laura and Brian start with brain development from infancy to adulthood and how a parent's role shifts at each stage — from hands-on in the foundational 0–12 years to increasingly hands-off as kids become adults.
Then they get personal about why our own children trigger us more than anyone else's: they're closest to our pain, uniquely connected to whether we could give them the 10 Gifts, so their struggles can stir our deepest shame as parents.
The turn is deeply hopeful — Laura shares walking her own kids (and the "gap-standing" father figures after her husband's death) through the 10 Gifts, and how "learning to be okay when your children are not" frees you to break generational cycles of lack instead of passing them down.
Whether you have adult kids, young kids, or you're an adult child wondering why your parents relate to you the way they do, this one's for you.
In this episode:
🔹 How a parent's role shifts across brain development — and the hard transition to hands-off
🔹 Why your own children trigger you more than anyone else's — closest to your pain, tied to your 10 Gifts
🔹 Why a grown child's struggles can stir a parent's deepest shame — and how to move from shame to hope
🔹 "Learning to be okay when your children are not," — clear-minded, tenderhearted, at peace
🔹 Breaking generational cycles of lack instead of passing them on to the next generation
Dive deeper with these two great resources! 👇
📕 Get your copy of Brian's book Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart Click here to get the book!
📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868
