Tag Archives: parenting

When most people think about anxiety, they picture trembling hands, shallow breathing, or emotional panic. It is but the kind of anxiety that shapes family dynamics rarely looks like that. It’s quieter. Subtler. More like a background hum than an alarm.

It shows up as:

overthinking
mood swings
sarcasm
withdrawing
hypervigilance
defensiveness
shutting down
or the inability to make even simple decisions

Anxiety, at its core, is threat perception. It’s what happens when your internal system scans the world and concludes: “I’m not safe. I’m not ready. Something is wrong.” For many adult children today, this anxiety didn’t appear suddenly. It accumulated over time. Cultural pressure didn’t help. Social media normalized it. The expectation to “live your truth,” “find your identity,” and “build your personal brand” intensified it.

And for parents, this anxiety often became something they tried to manage. Sometimes unconsciously. But, in the end, anxiety is a yoke.

Not the kind Jesus offers.
Not a yoke that fits.
Not a yoke that shares the burden.
But a yoke that constricts.

And if you’ve parented a child into adulthood, you’ve felt the weight of this yoke. Even if you didn’t have language for it; any parent knows the horrible feeling of seeing your child struggle and wanting to fix the problem for them. This doesn’t mean the family is broken. It means they are human. But over time, anxiety can begin to shape the emotional climate of the home.

Anxious adult children crave validation because it lowers immediate distress. Parents will often turn to phrases like, “I get it. That sounds awful. Anyone would feel that way.” These responses bring quick relief to our children, and in general, those responses can be comforting but prolonged empathy can convey agreement.

When anxiety goes unexamined in the life of the child and / or the parent, the parent will stop guiding and start absorbing. They will feel responsible for the emotional weather in the home. They will adjust to avoid storms. They will over-help to prevent collapse. They will rescue to prevent regret. It makes sense. It’s human. But it can also hinder the transfer of the yoke for the child.

In the moment, anxiety might be lowered but in the long run it will only increase anxiety. It is because in those moments of “helping” it is telling the child “their fears were accurate; their ability is questionable” and they don’t get to grow through the struggle.

This result confuses parents the most. How can someone who doesn’t want my help also struggle when things go wrong? How can someone resist support and also collapse without support? How can someone be so strong-willed and fragile?

An anxious child may:

reject guidance
sabotage help
hide problems
push for autonomy
cling to unhealthy relationships
collapse behind closed doors

This isn’t rebellion. It’s fear. A yoke they’re trying to carry alone, without the strength to bear it. This isn’t something a parent can get around in the development of their children. It’s a normal part of maturity.

The Yoke of Anxiety and the Yoke of Jesus

Anxious people see the world as something they must manage. Jesus invites them to see the world as something they can walk through with Him. Your child may not articulate this. They may not even believe it. But their anxiety is already telling a spiritual story:

“They are alone.”
“They must control everything.”
“They cannot fail.”
“They must protect themselves.”
“They can’t trust others.”

When Jesus says, “My yoke is easy,” He’s not promising a soft life. He’s promising shared weight. You are not asking your child to take on religion. You are inviting them to learn how weight is meant to be carried. And before they can learn that, the parent must learn to stop carrying what isn’t theirs to carry. That is a parent’s deepest act of love.

Chapter 2 Action Step: Name the Anxious Pattern Without Blame

Take ten quiet minutes and answer these three prompts:

In our family, anxiety usually shows up as: (Check all that apply)

over-explaining
withdrawing
shutting down
defensiveness
mood swings
avoiding decisions
rescuing others
over-helping
validating everything
walking on eggshells

When my adult child becomes anxious, I tend to: (Circle the one that feels most accurate.)

fix
explain
reassure
validate
back off
over-function
tiptoe

3. Which of these responses is actually me absorbing their weight?

This is your growth edge, not a place for shame, but for awareness. When you can name the pattern, you can stop fueling it. Because anxiety is a yoke. But it doesn’t have to be the one your family wears forever.

CHAPTER 1: When Parenting Becomes Load-Bearing

Introduction: The Weight You Didn’t Know You Were Carrying (Introducing the yoke.)

There is a quiet shift that happens in many families, and most parents don’t notice it until it’s already taken hold. Parenting moves from guiding to carrying. At first, that makes sense. Children need parents to carry most of the weight. They can’t regulate emotions, make wise decisions, or anticipate consequences. That’s not failure, that’s development. But somewhere along the way, many parents cross an invisible line.

Without meaning to, they stop helping their children prepare to carry weight, and start carrying it for them. They become load-bearing. Load-bearing parenting have thoughts like:

“If they’re anxious, I must fix it.”
“If they’re unhappy, I’ve failed.”
“If they struggle, something went wrong.”
“If they drift spiritually, I didn’t do enough.”

This isn’t self-pity. It’s fear, wrapped in love. Most parents didn’t choose this consciously. Cultural pressure nudged them there. So, did good intentions. So, did the fear of being blamed for trauma, for anxiety, for failure and for distance.

The message parents absorbed was subtle but powerful: If your child hurts, you’re responsible. But here’s the problem: No human being was meant to carry another adult’s yoke. Read that again and say it out loud, “No human being was meant to carry another adult’s yoke.”

When parents try, two things happen at once. First, parents become exhausted, resentful, or quietly panicked. They feel responsible for outcomes they can’t control. Second, children never learn how to bear weight themselves. They learn how to offload it.

This is why anxiety and fragility can coexist with independence. A person may resist guidance fiercely while still needing someone else to stabilize them emotionally. Autonomy on the outside. Dependence underneath.

That’s not hypocrisy. That’s confusion about where weight belongs. Adulthood requires weight. Decisions. Consequences. Delayed gratification. Emotional regulation. Responsibility for one’s body, time, money, relationships, and beliefs. Weight is unavoidable!

But sometimes in parenting there is a tug-a-war taking place between the child and the parent where the “weight of life” can be delayed too long. When this happen adulthood won’t feel inviting but threatening. Parents often sense this intuitively. They worry their child isn’t ready. They might even encourage some steps, but instead of helping them prepare to carry weight, they lessen it or remove it, hoping readiness will magically appear later.

It doesn’t. Weight trains capacity. Struggle develops strength. Responsibility clarifies identity. This doesn’t mean parents should be cold, distant, or indifferent. It means love must mature for the child to learn to carry this weight.

That transition is one of the hardest shifts a parent will ever make. Because it feels like loss. It feels like stepping back when everything in you wants to step in. It feels like trust when certainty is gone. It feels like faith, because it is.

Jesus never promised to remove the yoke of adulthood. He promised to be present within it. That distinction changes everything. If parents believe the goal is to eliminate struggle, they will panic when it appears.

If parents believe the goal is formation, they will stay steady when struggle comes.

The weight your child is carrying may not be evidence of failure. It may be evidence that adulthood has begun.

The question is not whether they will carry weight. The question is whether they will learn to carry it alone, under anxiety, under pressure, under false expectations, or alongside the One who knows how weight is meant to be borne. And whether parents will have the courage to stop carrying what was never meant to be theirs.

Chapter 1 Action Step: Identify the Weight You’re Carrying

This chapter isn’t asking you to change your parenting. It’s asking you to notice what you’ve been carrying without realizing it. Set aside ten quiet minutes. No phone. No problem-solving.

On a piece of paper, complete this sentence as honestly as you can: “If my child struggles with _____________________________________, I feel personally responsible.”

Don’t explain your answers. Don’t defend them. Just list them.

Common answers include:

anxiety
faith
finances
relationships
emotional stability
motivation
happiness
direction

Now circle anything on your list that involves another adult’s internal life. It can be their emotions, beliefs, or identity. Those are likely weights you were never meant to carry.

Finally, answer one last question in a single sentence: “What am I afraid would happen if I stopped carrying this?”

You don’t need to resolve that fear yet. You just need to name it. Because before weight can be transferred, it has to be recognized.

INTRODUCTION: The Weight You Didn’t Know You Were Carrying

Most parents don’t say, “I feel crushed.” They say things like, “I’m exhausted,” “I’m confused,” or “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.” They say it quietly. Often privately. Sometimes with shame.

Because parenting today doesn’t look brutal. It looks informed. Intentional. Well-resourced. Educated. We read the books. We listened to the experts. We adjusted. We validated. We stayed emotionally present. We tried not to repeat the mistakes of our parents.

And yet, somewhere along the way, it began to feel heavy. Not the normal tiredness of raising kids. Not the stress of busy schedules. But a deeper weight. A kind of responsibility that presses on your chest when your adult child struggles, pulls away, makes choices you don’t understand, or seems fragile in a world that doesn’t slow down for anyone.

That weight has a name. It’s a yoke. A yoke is what you put on something meant to carry weight. It’s not a punishment. It’s a tool. It distributes load, sets direction, and makes forward movement possible.

For most modern readers, the word yoke sounds abstract, religious, symbolic, even quaint. But for most of human history, it wasn’t a metaphor at all. It was a piece of equipment you saw every day.

A yoke was a wooden beam, shaped carefully and fitted deliberately, placed across the shoulders or necks of working animals. It connected them to a plow or a cart, and often to each other. Without it, heavy work couldn’t happen. With it, weight became manageable.

In agricultural societies, yokes were familiar objects. People knew how they felt. They knew what happened when a yoke was too heavy, poorly fitted, or placed on an animal that wasn’t ready.

An ill-fitting yoke rubbed raw. A yoke taken on too early injured the animal. A yoke carried alone exhausted it. But a well-made yoke, one shaped to the animal and shared with a stronger partner, allowed steady, sustainable work. Not fast. Not flashy. But faithful.

That’s why yokes were introduced gradually. Young animals weren’t yoked immediately. They were often paired with an older, stronger animal who set the pace, absorbed uneven strain, and kept the direction straight. The younger one learned by walking alongside, not by being spared the work, but by being guided through it.

This matters, because when Jesus used the word yoke, His listeners didn’t hear poetry. They heard practicality. They thought of sore shoulders. They thought of long days. They thought of work that shaped a life. They also knew the difference between a harsh yoke and a gentle one.

So, when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you,” He wasn’t offering escape. He was offering apprenticeship. It was an invitation to walk with me. Match my pace. Let me carry the strain you can’t yet handle. Learn how weight is meant to be borne.

That’s why the promise of rest came after the yoke, not instead of it. Rest wasn’t the absence of responsibility. It was the presence of the right partner. When we forget this, we begin to imagine that love means removing all weight, and faith means avoiding struggle. But for most of history, people knew better. They knew that life without weight doesn’t produce freedom, it produces fragility. And they knew that the goal wasn’t to eliminate the yoke, but to choose the right one.

After all, every adult carries something. The question is never whether there will be a yoke, but which one, and with whom. Most parents don’t realize this, but much of modern parenting quietly trained us to carry yokes that were never meant to be ours.

We learned to carry: our children’s emotional regulation, their sense of safety, their confidence, their outcomes, sometimes even their faith. And when adulthood arrived, when weight was supposed to transfer, we panicked. Not because we didn’t love our children, but because we weren’t sure what it meant to let them carry anything without abandoning them.

So, we hovered. Or rescued. Or validated every feeling. Or absorbed their anxiety as our own. Or oscillated between control and withdrawal. All of that is understandable. But none of it is sustainable.

Jesus once said something curious to people who were exhausted, burdened, and spiritually suspicious: “Come to me, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

That line is often misunderstood. Jesus wasn’t offering a weightless life. He was offering a different way of carrying weight. This book is not about parenting techniques.
It’s about re-learning how weight, responsibility, love, anxiety, adulthood, and faith actually work. Because parenting breaks down when parents try to carry a yoke that was never theirs, and children never learn how to carry one at all.

Breaking the Myth of Perfect Parenting

My wife and I have worked in pastoral ministry for over 20-years. My wife has worked in personal counseling as a Licensed Professional Counselor for 10 of those years. A common theme in parenting we have noticed is that the pressure of parenting is at an all time high. That’s why I am so excited to read the book, “The Myth of Good Christian Parenting” by Burt and McGinnis coming out in October 2025.

If you’ve been a Christian parent for more than a week, you’ve probably felt the subtle (or not-so-subtle) pressure that if you “do it right,” your kids will turn out to be your definition of perfect little saints.

The Myth of Good Christian Parenting confronts that pressure head-on. The central premise is simple but liberating: There is no magic formula for raising “perfect” Christian kids. You can pray with them, take them to church, memorize Scripture together, and still, they may choose their own path, sometimes far from God.

That’s not a sign you failed. It’s a reminder that parenting is about faithfulness, not control. God calls us to be stewards, not puppet-masters.

Why This Matters:

As a pastor in Austin for 15 years, I’ve sat across from countless parents in my office who were quietly drowning in shame. Their adult child wasn’t walking with Jesus, and they thought it was entirely their fault. This book helps dismantle that lie.

It offers a theological reset:

God is the perfect Father—and even His kids rebelled.
Your calling is obedience, not outcome.
The Holy Spirit does the transforming work, not your parenting techniques.

Caution:

It’s possible someone could read this book and it could evoke bitterness or anger at people or resources who painted a picture of “follow these steps” with “guaranteed results.” But I would caution the reader to tread lightly in this area.

Every parent I have ever met tends to have rose-tinted glasses toward their children. Parents tend to hear what parents want to hear about any resource. The allure of finding the “secret” to parenting is a strong temptation to anyone because we love our children so much and we find great comfort in thinking our approach toward parenting is going to “work.”
Parents also tend to be reactionary. I have found, in my life and others, the majority of parental motivation is “giving our children what we didn’t receive.” It’s an admirable goal. The only problem, the hearts and mind of our children might have completely different needs than us!
Parenting styles aren’t cookie-cutter. What worked for one family might not work for another family. What worked for one child, might be the worst thing for another child. It doesn’t mean parenting is doomed to fail, but it does mean we should layer our attitude toward parenting with more generosity.
Wallow in forgiveness. Instead of wallowing in bitterness, extend forgiveness. Instead of pointing the finger, remember there’s no perfect solution other than Christ! Instead of storing up wrath, remember the Lord gave us the exact parent, child and resources at the time for our good and His glory!
Be careful not to get too excited or too discouraged about parenting. That child or parent might be doing “great” right now or “struggling” right now but in 10-years or 20-years, it might look completely different. I have seen people’s lives change for the glory of Jesus in moments, and I have seen people walk away from Jesus after decades of getting everything they wanted. Our hope is that when we are in Christ, one day we will be raised in glory. Everything else is just ups and downs for a “little while.”
Be on guard against giving up as a parent. The attitude of a parent saying “I don’t want to influence my children” might feel warm and cozy, but it is a cop out. Everything and everyone in the world is trying to engage our children, why not the people who love them the most. This doesn’t mean a parent should try to control their children, but they should definitely step into their role as a parent and try to intentionally speak into their life.
The majority of children are going to get punched in the face with their failures and flaws as they enter into adulthood. The easiest thing for them to do is point the finger at parents, because it feels like, “If they would have done this, I wouldn’t struggle with that.” It can be my parents were too involved, I felt smothered. But it can also be my parents weren’t involved, I felt like they didn’t care. Life is hard. The only perfect place to point our heart and the hearts of our children is Jesus.
Take heart! If you are parenting little ones today, there is likely a challenge coming for our children that we aren’t even aware of as parents. We have no idea what it is like to be those children. We have no idea what it is like to interpret the information they are receiving. How could any parent perfectly speak into the hearts and minds of children 10-years into the future? Therefore, our only hope is that Jesus will speak into our heart and the hearts of our children! Let’s turn our hearts and minds to rest in Him!

If you found any of this helpful, I wrote a quick encouragement in a previous post “Essential Truths for Struggling Parents.” Read through it as you have time! Other than that, remember that children and parents are just people.

Essential Parenting Truths for Today’s Struggling Families

All the studies today on children show that children are feeling more pressure to succeed, they carry more anxiety, they struggle to know how to respond to challenges in life and the overwhelming answer for our children from parenting resources today seems to be on the parents doing more to help their children navigate these challenges.

Parents are already being asked to do the normal expectations of parents: provide a roof over their head, consistent income, clothes to wear, and food to eat. And now the parent is being challenged to make sure their children are in the extra-curricular activities from the age of 5 if they want to be on the “team” in high school, provide tutoring for academics, expose their children to healthy eating options, ask probing and insightful questions to help children process emotions, launch a technical division in their home to be on guard against online predators, teach their children how to process their anxiety, so that children can launch into the world as well-rounded human beings. It’s impossible!

Oh yeah, those parents are also trying to launch a successful career, build a healthy marriage, take care of their physical health, and be responsible for all the hiccups in life like flat tires, a leaking roof, and paying bills. It’s a lot!

During the pandemic my wife and I wanted to do something productive with our time, so we went through foster-training so that we could foster a child. Our biological children were in their teens, needing less of our time, so we took this as a growth opportunity for our family.

Our intent was never to adopt the child but play a small part in reunification for the family. When the social workers talked about the base level factors for reunification they said, “We are looking for 3 things in every home; roof, access to food and water, and a place to sleep.” My wife and I thought to ourselves, “We are trying way too hard as parents!”

Don’t get me wrong. I know roof, food, and bed are base level expectations for parenting but in my experience children are incredibly resilient. And the best parenting experience isn’t going to be able to create a childhood for our children that enables them to avoid every traumatic experience in life. Did you catch that?

The best parenting on the best day isn’t going to be able to avoid every difficult challenge for our children, therefore, it seems like we could put less pressure on parents and instead encourage parents with some basic principles. Here are a few that we have applied to our family. (If the average parent is trying to improve their parenting through books, podcasts, blogs, and personal reflection they are a great parent!)

Dad and mom put their hope in the Lord. It’s easy to get excited when our children start to read. We think to ourselves, “Our child might be the smartest child to ever walk the earth.” Then our children display some quality of athleticism, attraction and the excitement for our children grows and grows but one thing is sure for all parents: our children will encounter hardship in life. It might be emotional hardship, physical hardship or mental hardship. It might come early, or it might start to show signs during their early twenties. When a parent puts their hope in their children then that parent is putting their hope in shifting sand that no child is going to be able to sustain. Rejoice in your children! But, let us all put our hope in the Lord because it won’t be long until the limitations of our children will be exposed in their humanity and in that moment we will be looking for / needing something more secure than our children.
Dad and mom are committed to one another in marriage. This isn’t a magical guarantee, but if the average child gets to see a male and female experience in the home, they are gaining an incredible opportunity that will serve them the rest of their life. Can single-parents do a great job of raising children? For sure! But if you are married, or plan to get married, the best gift you can give to your child is a dad and mom committed to one another in marriage. Here’s a great resource to help strengthen your marriage!
Dad and mom are committed to furthering the family. Again, it isn’t a magical guarantee, but if the average child gets to see mom and dad working to sustain, persevere, improve, and strengthen their family unit, then they are gaining an incredible opportunity that will serve them the rest of their life. The fact that you have read this much of this article is evidence that you are committed to furthering your family! Rejoice!
Dad and mom are in a growing relationship with God through faith in Jesus. The concept of a person committing their life to Jesus implies this person has humbled themselves to admit they don’t have all the answers in life. This trait alone can do more for that child than any other belief system because the parent isn’t modeling an example of someone who has it all figured out but instead the parent is modeling an example of someone who admits they need help from Jesus. That’s the gospel!
Dad and mom have a grounded belief that God is sovereign in all things. I bet you are thinking, “I thought this was about parenting?” It is! When dad and mom are centered on some foundational areas of life, you can miss a lot of other areas of life but this one is a big one, because life is going to happen. Jobs are going to be lost. People are going to get sick. Problems are going to come up. But, when dad and mom are convinced that God is sovereign over all areas of life, even the painful parts of life, it is going to dramatically shape how dad and mom respond to those hard times and approach parenting. Here’s a great resource to help us trust the Lord in those hard seasons.
Dad and mom have a clear vision, purpose and goals for their family. Every business has stated vision and goals for why they exist as a company. Every family is a little company and the more parents can articulate why decisions are being made in the family the better it will be for their children to know the meaning behind the decisions that are being made as a family. Here’s a great resource to help with personal planning.
Dad and mom keep the main things the main things with parenting. This list is the main thing. Everything else is peripheral. Pick a school for them to attend. Encourage them in their hobbies and interests. Make sure they have a roof over their head, some clothes to wear, access to food and everything else is a flip of the coin. I can’t stress this enough. The best attempt at parenting can still create huge deficits in parenting. The parent who wants to make sure their child is encouraged in all areas of life might have a child that feels like their parents smothered them. The parent who is involved in the life of their children might have a child that felt restricted. The parent who is generous with their child might have a child that takes advantage of their generosity. The parent who is “hands-off” in discipline might have a child that needs “hands-on.” None of our children come with instructions and none of them are able to tell us what they need to help them become a fully functioning adult. It doesn’t mean all the accessories don’t matter. It just means there are too many moving parts to put too much weight into any accessory we bring into their life. Here’s a simple guide but it’s just a guide:
- 0-2: CARE (We are letting them know they are loved and cared for in life.)
- 3-5: CONSTRUCT (We want to provide a structure for children to thrive.)
- 6-11: COUNSEL (Help draw out their thoughts, emotions, and experiences.)
- 12-18: CONTEND (Fight for them to apply what you have learned as you prepare them to launch.)
Dad and mom trust that their children are His children, their story is His story. Every parent is building a story for their children from the moment they are conceived. Dad and mom are imagining graduations, parties, friends, events, weddings, romance, bike rides, vacations and some dads and moms are aware of those longings and some dads and moms aren’t aware but it is a guarantee that 100% of those longings won’t be realized. Some of that reality will happen early in life and some of that reality might happen slowly throughout the life of the child, but at the end of the day every parent has to let go of “their story” for their children and trust in God’s story for their children. It’s great to pray, plan and prepare but the parent must hold all those plans with an open hand and trust that the Lord will write a story that is better than what we had planned.
Dad and mom are thankful for every second dad and mom get with their children. Some people never get to experience parenthood. Parenthood isn’t a promise for every person. Some parents only get to experience parenthood for seconds. And some parents will get 60+ years of parenthood but the best response any parent can have is gratitude for every second.
Dad and mom must layer themselves in humility. Dad and mom are invited to faithfully build into their children but let us not think too highly of ourselves. Our children are not 50% dad and 50% mom. Our children are a collection of 400 different people in their genetic system with influences that are greater than our parenting skills. Throughout the history of Israel we see Israel received instruction from the Lord, miracles, intimacy, etc. and yet Israel turned from the Lord over and over, therefore, how much more should we not be surprised if our children will turn from our parenting at some point in life or on some level. In Judges 5 we see a practical example of some tribes of Israel who respond to God’s invitation to spiritually wake up and follow Him, and there are some tribes of Israel who stay spiritually asleep and ignore Him, therefore, how much more are we as parents to assume the same could happen with our children.

Bonus: What happens when our children turn from the Lord? When a child shows a lack of interest in the Lord the parent’s natural assumption is, “What did we do wrong?” Biblically we know it is the Lord who draws hearts. It is the Lord who opens eyes. It is the Lord who calls us to faith in Jesus but because a parent loves their child so much they will think to themselves, “If I would have / haven’t (fill in the blank) then maybe the child would have more interest in the Lord?” Maybe there are things for us to learn about our parenting choices? But we can’t dwell in this area too deeply or too frequently. Could a parent have done more? Sure! But ultimately it is the Lord who has to write that story of His grace in their life and as a parent, like our children, we are invited to put our trust in Him.

Serving North Central Austin