Your missionary returned early, and this isn't what you expected or planned for. The question is: what should you do next? If you are like most parents, you'll probably want to try to fix the situation. You are searching for the right words to make things better. And if you are reading this article, you are probably either looking for help or know someone who is.
As parents, we often struggle with our own feelings of loss and sadness when our children go through something difficult like this. It is one of the most challenging things about loving someone who is hurting. We would love to take away their disappointment and pain, but sometimes that's just not possible. Unfortunately, in this specific scenario, we have to watch as they go through what is likely one of the most difficult experiences of their young lives.
I've sat with many families navigating this very situation — as a therapist, as a coach, and as a father who has lived it myself. I'd like to offer six tips that I trust can help you navigate this challenge. These six items aren't a checklist, but rather a collection of strategies that I've seen make a difference for parents who are doing their best to help their missionary during this difficult and disorienting transition.
If you want to better understand what your missionary is experiencing from their own perspective, read What Is an Early Returned Missionary?
Tip 1
Reframe What Success Looks Like
One thing that your missionary really needs to hear is that the length of service does not define its value. We tend to measure success in mission culture the same way we measure most things in life: by completion. Two years served for elders, or eighteen months for sisters, equals success. Anything less we tend to view as coming up short. But I want you to reflect on this question for a moment: Is this how God measures success? Is it only the outcome that matters to Him? Or the process that leads to the outcome? Can we struggle, suffer, and falter, but still succeed in the end?
In almost every story of human achievement, failure was not the opposite of success — but the path to get there.
Think about the people we admire most: in history, in scripture, and in our own lives. Nearly all of them suffered setbacks and trials before achieving their goals. Abraham Lincoln lost more elections than he won before becoming president. Thomas Edison tried thousands of approaches before finding one that worked. Alma the Younger was a rebel and a menace to the church before becoming one of its greatest leaders.
Similarly, when a missionary returns home early, their story is also not over. It has barely begun. As a parent, you are the guide to help them realize that. There is meaning in the struggle. Growth comes through challenge and trials. If they are able to reframe their trials through the lens of gratitude, their perspective will change, and faith can illuminate. As parents, we need to try to help our early returned missionaries to focus on what they offered during their mission, rather than focus on the amount of time spent there.
Tip 2
Listen Before You Lead
When someone we love is hurting, our instinct is to want to fix it, and that need can be immediate and overwhelming. We want to reassure, comfort, and say just the right thing that will make it all better. That instinct comes from a place of love, and that's important to acknowledge.
However, rushing to comfort before truly listening and understanding can actually close the door on the important conversations you're looking to have. It's important that you create a space for your missionary to express their needs, their desires, their fears, and their insecurities before they receive any solutions from you. Sometimes those solutions might be driven by our own needs, cultural expectations, or fears that we harbor, rather than what is in the best interest of our child. So pause, and really focus on listening and validating your missionary's experience first.
Ask open-ended questions. Sit in silence if you need to. Let things get a little messy and sit with them in that mess rather than trying to tidy things up too quickly. The feelings they are carrying may be a mixture of confusion, grief, embarrassment, relief, shame, and anger. Sometimes the feelings that are hardest to hear are the ones that need to be expressed the most.
Tip 3
Focus on What Works for Them — Not What Looks Right to Everyone Else
Every returned missionary is different. The answer or approach that is right for someone else's child may do nothing for your child. It's important to recognize that this isn't a sign that there is something wrong with your child; it is simply a sign that people are unique individuals. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
As you support your missionary in figuring out their next steps, try to shift outside a framework of what is right and wrong, of what they are supposed to do, of what looks normal, or of what others will think. Instead, try to focus on what is effective versus ineffective for your missionary specifically. What helps them feel purposeful? What gives them energy and motivation? What kinds of things leave them feeling worse and discouraged? These questions will lead to better outcomes, rather than them focusing on whether they're doing the thing they're expected to do in the timeline everyone expected them to do it.
Having said all that, I do want to point out that accountability matters. Having discussions with your missionary about setting some goals and holding to a schedule — as well as continuing some positive, helpful habits like scripture reading, regular exercise, temple attendance, and specific sleep and wake times — can be really useful in keeping them from falling into a rut and getting more discouraged and unmotivated. This process works best when you can help them make and set goals that they actually care about, not something they feel obligated to do. Help your missionary find what genuinely motivates them, and support that.
Tip 4
Keep Focused on the Present with an Eye on What's Ahead
One of the most useful metaphors I've found in trying to make sense of how to move through hard times is imagining you are rafting on a swift river. The current is going to take you downstream regardless of how hard you might fight against it. You can try to turn around in the raft and row upstream, and you likely will exhaust yourself doing so, but the river is still going to take you where it will. How many of us expend precious resources lamenting that last set of rapids, and how we wish we had navigated it more cleanly, all the while completely missing the next set of rapids directly ahead of us?
Hyper-focusing on what happened in the past — what should have been different, or what you should have done — does not change where you are right now. The past is fixed. What isn't fixed is how you move through what comes next. Help your missionary learn to enjoy the current and know that God is in control of the flow. The river isn't taking you where it is by chance, and God is not surprised by your choices or confused about what to do next. The river belongs to God, and the current will take you where you need to go. Help your missionary to trust the process.
Whether something is good or bad is sometimes just a label we put on things before we know the whole story.
All of this is not to suggest that the hard stuff didn't happen. What it does mean is to intentionally choose to keep your attention on the present moment with your eyes focused forward, rather than staying in a place you can't change. One of the most powerful tools that can help us in this process is gratitude. Not the kind that pretends everything is fine, but the kind that can hold complexity. In my life, some of the most profound and impactful experiences were ones that, as I was going through them, I shook my fists at the heavens and thought, "Why God? Why me?" But with time and perspective, I realized that was exactly what I needed, and I wouldn't be where I am today without those moments. So the question is: Was that experience bad, as I was so sure of at the time, or was it good, as I saw it to be with time and a clearer understanding?
So encourage your missionary to trust the process of life and that they are exactly where they need to be. And trust in this process yourself.
Tip 5
Own Your Own Feelings
One thing that is so important for you to acknowledge is that when your missionary returns early, it can be a loss for you as much as it is for them. You had a picture in your mind of how things were going to go, and having it not go according to your plan can be very jarring. You may be carrying grief of your own, as well as worry, confusion, and even disappointment. These feelings are valid, and they deserve attention — just not in your missionary's space.
The fastest way to deliver a crushing blow to an already struggling young person is to let them feel responsible for your emotional state.
If they sense that your worry or your sadness is something they need to manage on top of everything else they're already carrying, the burden compounds exponentially. They came home to heal, not to take care of you.
Be honest with yourself about what you're feeling. Find people you can lean on, whether it be a spouse, close friend, or counselor. Give yourself permission to have a hard time too. Just make sure your missionary's presence at home feels like a safe place to land rather than another situation that needs managing. I have found that coaching can often be a valuable asset for parents to help support them through this time, and to provide guidance on how to best support their missionary.
Tip 6
Know When to Ask for More Help
Sometimes despite all the love, patience, and support, things steadily get worse, not better. That's not a failure of your parenting. Some of what early returned missionaries carry is heavier than family support alone can address. Anxiety that isn't lessening, or a loss of identity that goes deeper than a rough adjustment period. Grief that isn't shifting, but seems to be settling into something more profound. Physical symptoms that are getting worse rather than better.
If you're seeing signs that your missionary is not finding their footing after a reasonable amount of time, or if what they're describing seems like more than a difficult transition, it is worth seeking additional help. Talk to a doctor about prolonged physical symptoms. Connect with a therapist or counselor for ongoing mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Reach out to a life coach who understands this specific experience.
Sometimes parents struggle to take this step, fearing that their child will hear it as a confirmation that something is wrong with them. But my experience is they are already feeling it and having those doubts themselves. Having someone who can understand what they are going through and walk alongside them in that process can be invaluable.
You don't have to figure this out alone, either. If you're unsure where to start, a free discovery call with someone who has worked with early returned missionaries can help you get your bearings and get headed back in the right direction.
The common thread in all six of these tips is the importance of making home a safe and affirming space for your missionary. You don't have to have all the right words or answers, but giving your missionary a place where they feel they are loved unconditionally, heard genuinely, and given a safe space to heal, is invaluable in helping them to navigate this trial. As parents, you have more to offer them than you might realize. You just have to show up in the right way.
Have a question we haven't answered here? Visit our You Ask, We Answer page — Jon and Brooklyn respond personally to every question submitted.