Establishing rich and rewarding relationships with adult sons, daughters, and their spouses frequently turns out to be surprisingly complicated and full of landmines. Ancient biblical wisdom, social science findings, and the personal application of coaching insights combine in Life's Third Tri to give empty-nest moms hope for finishing well.

Retired psychologist and family therapist Dr. Charlotte Melcher Smith includes poignant stories from many perplexed moms In Life's Third Tri: Wisdom for Mystified Mothers Who Love Adult Children. Common experiences with other aging mothers invite readers into the sisterhood of those seeking a Christian perspective during life's challenging final season.

Are you a perplexed mom craving answers to questions such as the following:

- How can I overcome feelings of failure, establish boundaries, avoid turnoffs, heal wounds, tear down walls, and build friendships with my adult offspring?

- How can I achieve serenity when I'm baffled by my grown kids' and grandkids' attitudes and choices?

- Is it my fault if my adult child is making choices that don't match the values I tried to teach? Have I failed as a mother?

. What's next? What's my purpose now and what new callings exist beyond motherhood?

- Where can I go for help to figure out how to lessen intergenerational tension and thrive in my later years? When I was younger and pregnant, I built a trustworthy network of doctors, spiritual advisers, coaches, and mentors, but who can help me now to navigate the challenging empty-nest decades?

Life's Third Tri encourages baffled moms to reframe their dilemmas as obstacles similar to those they successfully surmounted during the third trimester of their pregnancies. In order to make the most of the empty-nest era, Dr. Charlotte guides heavy-hearted moms to achieve the following desirable outcomes:

. Transform into the best possible versions of themselves: caring, competent, contributing, connected, confident, and courageous while simultaneously embracing humility, forgiveness, and gratitude.

. Discover a path to love, peace, and joy as they age, despite deep concerns about grown kids and grandkids and heart-wrenching losses like widowhood, divorce, and health challenges.

. Improve communication, maximize fun, overcome roadblocks, build closer relationships, diminish intergenerational conflict and estrangements, and welcome prodigals home.

. Follow a blueprint for flourishing and finishing well by contemplating remarkable parallels between the third trimester of pregnancy and women's current third trimester of life.

Receive God's commendation, "Well done," when they complete the final chapter of their life stories here on earth.