Whether you've escaped your abusive marriage or not, your children bear the marks of a toxic home environment. They may even have to see their abuser on a regular basis, through scheduled visitation. Which raises the question: How do we keep our kids from further harm and teach them to protect themselves when home, the very place they are supposed to be safest, is damaging to their bodies, minds, and souls?

Dr. Debra Wingfield explains how consistency, resilience, social competency, boundaries, responsibility, and even imagination have a role in helping children to thrive, despite the challenges of an abusive home.

Listen to learn:

• A simple question and several easy approaches to help kids stay protected emotionally and physically while they're around an abusive parent.
• How resilience skills are critical for keeping kids safe and empowering them to advocate for themselves in the long term.
• Why parenting with love and logic will actually free you from fear, stress, and a lot of drama, and greatly improve your connection with your kids.

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources: 

• Eyes Wide Open: Help! with Control Freak Co-Parents by Debra Wingfield
• From Darkness to Light: Your Inner Journey by Debra Wingfield
• Through a Child’s Voice by Debra Wingfield
• If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com
• I'll send you (free!) the first chapter of my book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, which has an assessment to help you figure out if your relationship is abusive or not. All you have to do is hop on my mailing list at https://flyingfreesisterhood.com/free-download
• You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com
• And finally, if you are a divorced Christian woman who wants to take back her life and get healthy, lose weight, have amazing relationships, get things done, build a business or career, and even find a good man (if you want one) - check out Flying Higher at https://joinflyinghigher.com

Debra Wingfield, Ed.D., LPC (retired) educated psychotherapists in small group trainings and university classrooms for over 15 years. She was in private practice for over 20 years, with a focus on treating adult children from dysfunctional families; child abuse victims; domestic violence victims, offenders, and child witness victims. She presented trainings, conferences, workshops, and classroom courses in domestic violence intervention/treatment and addictions related to domestic violence. Her up-to-date courses and training workshops are now available virtually.