thank you for these wonderful articles, for to long I suffered from what I call church guilt two of my children are inactive but my son is my real concern and got into a little trouble from drugs. I felt like no one in the church understood the pain and agony of what I was dealing with a for along time felt that even the Lord had forgotten this boy, but through articles like this and words from Orsen Whitney I have learnt that there is hope for these wayward children and that our Father in heaven loves them more then we will ever understand, I pray for my children and I through my activity in the church can call on the lord for them, please keep up the good work with these articles as I know that there are sooooo many parents out there struggling with this problem.
God bless and thank you. Sincerly Anna Brimhall

I was abused since I was in 3rd grade by multiple people in multiple ways. I didn’t know what was going on or why and I didn’t have anyone I trusted to talk to about what was happening. I held it all in. My parents were too worried about child support and custody cases involving me and my siblings that they didn’t look at what was going on within us kids. I got good grades and never did anything to make my parents “suspect” me. But by the time I was 21 years old, I was divorced, an alcoholic, drug user, and had started cutting myself. I couldn’t deal with anything anymore and the “acting out” I was doing was a cry for help. For far too long I was ignored and I didn’t have the tools to cope with anything in my life. Satan was happy, I was not.

I am happy to say now I have turned my life around and no longer do those things, but that doesn’t mean I am ok. I will always struggle with those addictions and bear the scars of my self injury. But if parents could learn one thing from me it would be don’t think your kid is ok just because they seem to be doing everything you think they should be. Talk to your kids. Protect them from evil that you may or may not see. Don’t think it can’t happen to you or your kid because it can and does happen. Fight for your kids while they are young. Satan is, so you should too!

When we’re grief stricken
With a wayward child
May our hearts quicken
Unto love that’s mild

We’ll not wring our hands
With no way to cope
For we understand
And we ever hope

Although satan lulls
Our loved one to sin
We’ve been given tools
For attack- to win

The path is simple
And we’re not helpless
For, we’ll not crumble
We’ve Christ to enlist

We have perspective
And we know of grace
God is protective
When to Him we race

Our faith must lengthen
Whene’er we are tried
As then we’re strengthened
And we’re sanctified

The heart knows not rest
Till each temple day
The name is addressed
By all those who pray

We’ll fast for success
Sealed to a promise
Though there is distress
Our loves not amiss

We’ve faith in Christ’s name
For He’s redeemed us
And He can reclaim
With power that’s just

When it’s the right time
And it’s the right place
Our wayward child
Will see the lord’s face

Thoughts after reading Rescuing a Wayward Child by
Larry Barkdull
From Rescuing Wayward Children, 2008/07/21 at 2:43 AM

1. There are no magic buttons, bullets, blessings, etc. If you’ve a kid doing drugs or other criminal behavior, be prepared for a long, arduous battle to rescue him/her — a battle you may not win. It will be a long battle, it will take you places (courtrooms, jails, drug rehab facilities, etc.) you will find totally repugnant, and into contact with people with whom you will want nothing to do.

1a. You can’t change your kid. The most expensive drig rehab facility in the world can’t change your kid. Your kid not change until they’re ready to, and that will generally be when they experience so much pain from what they’re doing that they become willing to experience the pain change will bring. Only when they get to that point can drug rehab, psychotherapy, etc. help.

2. Don’t let the stress of dealing with a wayward child destroy your marriage. If you start blaming, playing the “if you had only…paid more attention to his little league games, spent more time with her, not been so critical, etc. etc. etc” you will destroy your marriage.

3. Don’t let dealing with the wayward adversely affect your other kids, and check with them frequently to ensure it isn’t.

Long after the battle ended for us we learned that our wayward son’s younger sister often cried herself to sleep because she knew she would awake to find he had murdered their parents.

4. You are in charge, you define the family rules and you MUST insist on compliance. At a minimum that has to mean: No drugs in our home, No offensive posters on our walls, your druggie friends are not welcome in our home, no filthy language, music, or print/videos in our homes. We will search your room and when we find drugs we will call the police. Bring home stolen property and we will call the police. Put up offensive posters and we will remove them. Play rotten music and we will confiscate your stereo equipment and destroy any offensive CDs and DVDs we find.

If you don’t like these rules and are unwilling to live by them, then go find somewhere else to live where there are rules to your liking.

If there’s a ToughLove group in your town find them – they will help you with this.

5. When your child gets in trouble with the law, go to court with them, but don’t hire lawyers, pay fines, bail them out of jail or do anything else to mitigate the consequences. When you mitigate consequences you’re enabling them.

I learned this the hard way – just once in my son’s criminal career I intervened in his behalf with a judge and talked him out of jail and moved him back into our home. He rewarded that intervention by taking my car for joy rides every night after my wife and I were asleep until a cop stopped him because of a busted tail light.

6. A long spell in jail can be beneficial. It was for our kid. He spent six months in a jail which got him detoxed and with the help of a good counsellor he finally began to see clearly what he was doing to his life.

7. If you see significant changes in countenance, language, etc., bad friends, rotten music and evil posters on the walls, after your kid stars using, ponder and pray about the possibility of demonic possession. Yes, it still happens, just like it did in the Savior’s time, but now we call its manifestations some kind of psychosis and try to treat it with drugs and therapy. Sometimes you just need to use priesthood authority to cast them out. I got rid of 19 evil spirits in my kid. He and we saw a difference in him afterward. Sometimes you have to do it over and over again. It seems that getting high can remove the normal protections we enjoy and open a door wide for evil spirits.

8. If it really gets bad, you may have to ask the Lord to diminish or remove your love for your kid. My wife’s heart was breaking (and that’s a very painful reality, not just a poetic expression) because of her love for our kid. In self defense she had to ask God to take away her love for him, and she survived.

9. Be prepared for failure. God lost one third of his children, Lehi and Sariah lost at least two of theirs, you might lose yours. They are free agents, and some seem utterly determined to destroy themselves. If that is happening, you need to know you are doing all you could to help them see the consequenses of their behavior, but you can not prevent those consequences – your kids has to.

10. Your Heavenly Father is your model in all this. He warns of the consequences of misbehavior, but doesn’t intervene to prevent it. He never, never, never, intervenes to protect us from the consequences of our behavior, in fact He insists we suffer those consequences. He knows that many of us are too stubborn to change until the pain of what we are exceeds the pain we anticipate we’ll experience when we try to change, so He lets us experience the pain in the hope it will motivate us to do better.

I can see Him in court with a disobedient child, but I can’t see him hiring a lawyer to help one of us weasel out of something we did. I can’t see Him talking a kid out of jail or paying bond or a fine to get him out of jail.

11. Pray for angelic interventions in your kid’s life. We did and he experienced several. Some were mortals put in his way at critical times (probation officers, jail counsellors, a proprietor of a fast food joint) and others came from the post mortal world. They all made a positive difference.