203: When Love, Faith Journeys & Fear Collide in an LDS Family
Feb 26, 2024
auto_awesome
A therapist and guest discuss the challenges faced by LDS parents with disaffiliated youth, exploring research findings and the complexities of the parent-child relationship. They offer insights and empathy for all parties involved, aiming to shed light on this difficult dynamic and promote healing within families.
Orthodox parents struggled with self-disconnection, impacting their ability to connect with disaffiliated children.
Parents prioritized duty to the church over supporting their children, leading to feelings of rejection.
Parents' focus on institutional values over family connections caused rifts and emotional disconnect with their children.
Deep dives
Parents' Disconnection from Self
Participants in the podcast episode noticed that orthodox parents often displayed disconnection from their own values, desires, intuition, and sense of worthiness. The parents exhibited an external locus of control and relied heavily on external authority to determine their goodness and worthiness. This self-disconnection made it challenging for parents to truly connect with their children.
Parents' Struggle with Duty Towards the Church
The participants observed that these parents displayed a profound commitment to duty, specifically duty related to the church. The children noted that the parents prioritized obedience to the church over supporting their children, leading to a deep sense of rejection when parents chose church compliance over their children's well-being.
Impact of Parents' Disconnection on Relationships
The children's experiences highlighted how the parents' disconnection from self and strong loyalty to the church impacted their relationships. The parents' struggle with self-definition and prioritization of institutional values over familial connections created a significant rift in the parent-child relationships, causing pain and a sense of abandonment for the children.
Parental Selflessness and Rejection
The perception of selflessness in parents, where their commitment to the church overshadowed their connection with their children, led to feelings of rejection and abandonment among the disaffiliated young adults. The children felt that their parents' selflessness lacked a foundational understanding of self-discovery, individuation, and the importance of supporting their children's autonomy and beliefs.
Parents' Struggle with Loving Amidst Pain
Parents often face a conundrum when they love someone or something that has caused pain to their children. This challenge extends beyond relationships within the church and can be observed in various scenarios like divorced parents. It becomes a fundamental issue of whether it's acceptable to continue loving someone despite the hurt caused, highlighting the complexity of navigating such situations.
Parental Disconnect and Emotional Intimacy
Research participants noted their parents' struggles in connecting with them emotionally, citing instances where communication felt distant and superficial. Parental focus on spiritual matters, neglecting emotional intimacy in daily interactions, led to feelings of intrusion and emotional disconnect among the adult children. The lack of emotional expression and curiosity about personal lives created a void in parent-child relationships, hindering healthy connections and relational growth.
Series Title: Exploring Family Challenges when LDS Young Adults Disaffiliate [Part I of IV]
In this episode one of a mind-expanding four-part series, Valerie and special guest and fellow therapist Liz Macdonald delve into the delicate nature of the relationship between a certain type of Latter-Day Saint parent and their young adult children who navigate different paths regarding their faith.
In this episode, Liz offers and overview of an in-depth research project she did learning more about the extreme turmoil experienced by those in conflict with their parents due to LDS disaffiliation. They also begin to unpack the findings in this research paper.
Friday's episode (available by subscription) delves into more of the specific findings of this research, including an analysis of what the disaffiliated young adults experienced in their relationships with their parents. Liz and Valerie explore not only the phenomenon uncovered in this research but potential reasons for these findings embedded in the theology. They also offer ongoing empathy for all parties in this challenging dynamic. This series is intended to offer love and empathy for all both the more traditionally believing LDS parents and their disaffiliated young adult children, shining a light on the extreme complexity of this situation and hoping to offer insights that will help families in our community heal. Please share this series with those who might benefit from this enlightening and healing discussion! Info on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below. See you there!
Info on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below. See you there!
**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**
TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.com
CONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available here!
SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming March 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.