Solo Parent

One of the things that we hear about often is just how lonely the solo parent life can be and how we don’t know who to trust. Often, the people we were close to when we were married no longer understand the life of a solo parent, and it can be tiresome to try to explain our point of view all the time… so a tendency can be to isolate. Many of us are so tired of explaining our situation, so worn out on sharing / revisiting the hurt that we don’t reach out for help. 

When faced with tedious day-to-day struggles and the big things that come up, figuring out the road forward without the benefit of a sounding board in your life can be extremely challenging. We know that growth requires people, mentors, and guides in any area of life, but where do we look for mentors? Where do we find trusted people that can understand our story and help us grow? ALSO, how can we become that safe place for others to go to? So today, we discuss Personal Growth as a team sport.

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Every week we talk about the transformation that can happen in our lives during the solo season, the growth that we can experience, and how we can overcome all that we’ve lost. So as we start this month focusing on Growth, we want to start with a clear understanding of what that actually means. 

What is healthy growth, how do we measure it, how do we do it, and where do we start? We talk all the time about deliberate steps that we can take to grow as an individual and to grow as a parent. So what are some fundamental steps that we can put in place to grow, not in spite of but because of, the Solo season? Today we are going to start this new month by discussing the fundamentals of HEALTHY GROWTH 101. 

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Stability is often equated with predictability and a sense of control. Many of us single parents have neither. We struggle to find a sense of stability by correcting what seem to be deficits. We can feel lost when things are out of our control and then more defeated as we continue on in the struggle. But what if you can actually experience stability in something that is not tangible or physical? What if finding stability is less about assurance and more about possibility and contribution? Today we discover how finding something to believe in - to move towards - what we want our lives to be about creates a sense of stability. Because stability is not all about comfort, we can find purpose, bringing stability amid the transforming struggle. Just like working out, the resistance is building real strength. You are stronger and more stable than you think! 

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Single parents deal with so much emotional trauma, failure of a marriage, shame and guilt, and maybe a spouse's death. Perhaps an unplanned pregnancy. Then the day-to-day pressures of trying to hold it all together on our own, trying to seem strong, can all get in the way of feeling whole, but we still have to show up for our kids, our job, our life. So how can we do that? 

How do we establish emotional stability when emotionally we feel bankrupt and broken? 

Today we discuss this with Dr. John Delony, a bestselling author, mental health expert with two PhDs and over two decades of experience in counseling, and host of The Dr. John Delony Show. 

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Most parents are focused on creating a stable environment for their kids. But as solo parents, that is a very challenging proposition. To start with, if you have children from divorce, they have already seen some volatility relationally and more than likely a significant back-and-forth between parents emotionally and physically. If your child has lost a parent to death, the trauma they have experienced can create a substantial crack in the foundation of our home. Finally, if your child is from an unplanned pregnancy, from day one, it has been a one-person show that has always been intended for two. So the question is, how do we create stability in a situation that is not stable? How do we take advantage of adversity so that it helps them and not hinders them? Today we explore a few simple tactics for creating a stable home for our kids. 

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Every week, we hear about the challenges related to financial stability with our single parents. Some single parents have never handled the finances of their homes, and now all of a sudden, they’re responsible for budgeting and providing the funds they need to make things meet. Other single parents are now saddled with incredible child support, alimony payments, and any financial stability that they once had being split in two. On the other side of that, expecting child support and alimony that never shows up creates enormous stress. Building financially again, either for the first time on your own, if you’ve never been responsible for the finances before, or rebuilding from scratch after losing virtually everything, can feel overwhelming and daunting. We know there are many self-help books on establishing wealth and creating a healthy asset portfolio, but we are just trying to make ends meet for so many of us, and we don’t have the luxury of thinking much beyond the month, week, or weekday at hand. So how do we start moving towards the sense of having that financial stability and predictability? 

Today we are grateful to have Ron Rauch with us, who is not only a financial expert and CPA but also a man who has dedicated this season of his life to helping those starting to build again. 

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PARENTAL ADVISORY: Today we are talking about sex which may not be appropriate for younger kids to hear.

Sexuality is more complicated now and so much more widely accessible, especially to our kids… it’s everywhere we look. And as a single parent, the other parent may often have different views on sexuality than us. So how do we walk our kids into a healthy understanding of what sex is? It’s not a matter of if they’re going to be exposed to it; it’s a matter of when. 

We want to be proactive, as uncomfortable as it is, but for so many of us, we don’t know how, what or when to do it. 

Often it wasn’t modeled well for us, and now that it’s everywhere around us, our kids are exposed more than we ever would’ve imagined we would be.  

Many of us raised in the church associate sex with shame, so we’re walking into this with our own bag of complexities. 

We want to make this disclaimer: We will not be talking today about what is right or wrong, what we tell our kids they should or shouldn’t do because there are enough available resources that can help you define those boundaries for your kids. 

Today we are going to talk about how we approach the topic, when we approach the topic, and probably most importantly, how to create a safe, open place for talking about sex without shaming, which, studies show, keep us from bringing sexual topics into the light. And when things are left in the shadows, the enemy can turn those thoughts into destructive forces. 

?We have a couple of experts on this episode to guide us through this.

Adam Young, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master degrees in Social Work and Divinity. Serves as a Fellow with The Allender Center, and I am the host of The Place We Find Ourselves podcast. He is married with two kids.

Bethany Robbins served at Theological College of Zimbabwe and is in advanced training under Dan Allender as a lay counselor. She and her husband are missionaries in Malawi, bringing theological education and training leaders to embrace ministry to the fatherless, sojourner, and widow.

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HAPPY SINGLE PARENTS DAY!

What to names like George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Barrack Obama, Justin Bieber, Tim Tebow, Oprah Winfrey, and Elon Musk all have in common? They were all raised by a single parent.

Carrying the weight of raising our kids on our own and hearing about some of the tragic statistics that come from Single Parent homes, compound a feeling of failure even before our kids leave the house. So today, we want to turn our focus on an inspiring story of what is possible coming from a single parent home. It's just not achievement in the world's eyes. Being raised in a Single Parent household can have a profound effect on an entire cultural landscape as well.

Today our guest is Joseph Humphries, author of the book ‘From the Projects to the boardroom”. Joe was a Senior Level Executive, specializing in crisis management and turnarounds of distressed companies. He: Completed the executive programs at MIT, Sloan School of Management in Global Supply Chain Strategy, The University of Wisconsin, Executive Leadership Training at The Center for Creative Leadership. He has served as a deacon, elder, advisory board member and was even awarded for his for his dedication and devotion to service to his community by the governor of the state of North Carolina. The origins of Joe’s story is that he was raised by a single mom in the projects. Today he reflects on his journey being the child of a single parent, out of poverty to achieve all this. Success comes from single parent homes!

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Single parents trying to create a stable home life when everything seems out of control can sometimes seep into over-protecting and overcompensating for our kids. Learning to balance our responsibility as parents and sheltering too much can be challenging. And as they grow older, the process of letting go of our day-to-day micro-oversight is even harder. Questions like “what if this happens? or what if that happens?” can begin to cripple us. Basically, fear can cause us to overcompensate with a desire to protect. 

Helping our kids get their own confidence and become who they are supposed to be requires 'taking off the training' wheels sort of speak sometimes. Whether your kids are 2 or 22, the process of letting go and trusting God can be so hard. 

This is perhaps the greatest paradox of parenting. On the one hand, parents are—and need to be—deeply attached to and invested in their children.

On the other hand, a primary task of parenting is to prepare children to take responsibility for their own lives and let them go, so they become who God created THEM to be. On this episode Robert Beeson, Kimberley Mitchell and Elizabeth Cole explore ways to avoid overprotecting and let go of what is needed to prepare our kids as they grow older. 

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How do we walk through parenting when things seem so out of our control? 

How do we walk through parenting when there seems to be no clear way through that? 

If you want to know the answers to these valuable questions, look no further as we dive deep into these topics and more with our upcoming guest. Ann Voskamp is back and we talked with her to get her perspective on this, how it ties in through her writings, and so much more. If you haven’t heard her from the last time she was here, you may be wondering who she is and how she would know answers to these questions. Keep reading as we get to know her on a deeper level, and you may be enlightened and refreshed on the relatability, vulnerability, and honesty she conveys. 

Ann Voskamp is a mother of seven kids that range from ages 7 to 26, a best-selling author, a speaker, and has a new book called WayMaker: Finding the Way to the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of. Ann has her own journey when it has come to parenting. A lot of us, just like Ann, have had our own expectations on parenting and the life we thought we’d have for our family and our kids. She shares with us about the hopes, dreams, and expectations we have as parents and not only the silver lining of it all, but also how to shift to a posture of humility. 

Today we explore parenting when things seem so out of our control and there seems to be no clear way through?

For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com

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