Solo Parent Society

Raising our kids on our own is so difficult. With limited resources and time, we can go crazy trying to meet all their needs and keep our kids happy and healthy. So often, we can fall into the trap of overcompensating; because our kids have been through difficult things, we try to make their happiness our top priority. Unfortunately, doing this creates a bottomless well that we can never fill up, leaving us depleted… and not healthy for our kids. So how do we draw appropriate boundaries with our kids that are not only a form of caring for ourselves but also serve their development? Our guest today is an Instagram sensation with over 780,000 followers, Dr. Siggie. She is a counselor who has been working with families for 30 years. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit soloparent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID Solo Parent Society is brought to you in part by Talk Abo

Many of us can feel guilty because we're not sticking to a Bible reading or prayer time in the morning like we used to. When we think about spiritual discipline in our lives, we often go to shame, like we are not a good Christian because we had difficulty having quiet time every morning. Well, this episode isn’t about shame; in fact, today, we’re not going to talk about comparing our quiet time as a measure of what a good Christian we are or if God is happy with the time we are putting in. We are going to explore perhaps a new way of approaching spiritual discipline. What if spiritual discipline goes beyond the intellectual exercise of reading and praying, as many of us have been taught? What if our spiritual discipline wasn’t about fulfilling what God or the Church’s expectation of us are, but was actually a deep soul self-care? Our guest is Anthony Skinner, a Spiritual Director, Prayer, Meditation, Enneagram practitioner, Music and Podcast Producer, award-winning Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Worship Le

Like we said last week, Self-care is a common buzz word that every single parent has heard. But what does that really mean, and where do we start with it? It seems the cultural narratives are way off base. What the world tells us about self-care is more about self-indulging ourselves because we deserve it, or self-sufficiency. The idea of treating yourself to a spa day, or something nice isn’t wrong in and of itself… but there’s more to self-care than is being advertised. Last week we explored what self-care looks like for us internally - in other words…what we can do for ourselves - things that we have control over  Today we will focus on the other side of redefining self-care - External self-care, which is what we can do or where we can go outside of ourselves, in other words external interaction that feeds our soul.  For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit soloparent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devoti

Self-care is a common buzz word that every single parent has heard. We know we need to take care of ourselves so that we have something to give to our kids. Self-care is essential, but as advertised on social media and TV all around us, self-care seems to be more about treating ourselves to special things. It can seem more like numbing or a Band-Aid so that we can ignore our struggles. But here’s the thing, cultural narratives are way off base. What the world tells us about self-care is more about self-indulging because we deserve it or self-sufficiency. The idea of treating yourself to a spa day, or getting a manicure and pedicure, or even shopping are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves… but there’s more to self-care that is being advertised. So for the next two weeks, we’ll do our best to redefine what self-care might look like, breaking it into two sections. In this episode, we explore internal self-care, and next week will dive into external self-care.  For all the detailed show notes, tips a

As single parents, we are very, very acquainted with our shortcomings. It may have been a big indiscretion or mistake that we’ve made in our past, or maybe the day-to-day awareness that we’re not doing everything perfectly. In either case, most of us carry around a low-grade sense of shame a lot of the time. It’s hard to face head-on the fact that we fall short, but a significant part of moving towards health is embracing the good and bad in our lives. In those areas where we see ourselves as failing, having grace, and showing ourselves forgiveness are critical. So how do we do that? How do we face our weakness and show ourselves true grace as we move towards wholeness?  Brad Schmitt spent 12 years writing a popular celebrity column for a major publication and was an entertainment reporter on TV. During his TV reporter days, Brad was convicted twice in three years for drunken driving. He got fired and went to jail and rehab before recovering from substance abuse in 2010. Since then, he has had a complete

Why do we have to suffer if God can fix it?  If God is all-powerful, why does He allow me and my kids to experience all this hurt? Why doesn't He step in?  It’s a natural thing to be angry with God. To be clear, God is not dependent on us forgiving him, but we know that he wants an authentic relationship with us, so he embraces our hurt, disappointment, and questions… even about Himself. So what do we do with these questions? What do we do with anger towards God? Our guest is Rick Cua; he was a well-known Christian recording artist, songwriter, ordained minister, and author. Unfortunately, four short months before recording this episode, Rick tragically found his daughter dead. In this episode, we explore how to reconcile what God allows to tragically happen in our lives. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit soloparent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Get Rick’s latest book here Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID Solo Parent Soc

What we are talking about this week is a big issue for so many of us single parents. We want to move towards health and even recognize our part in the toxic relationship we’ve come out of. Yet, despite what we do, our ex (or others) continues to exhibit behaviors and traits that continue to offend and hurt. We recognize that forgiveness benefits us more than anybody else, but how are we supposed to forgive the actions or offenses that just continue to happen? Ongoing hurts bring up new pain and echo old wounds. In this episode, we discuss forgiving repeat offenders and offer four very helpful tips. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROIDSolo Parent Society is brought to you in part by Talk About. Use Promo Code SOLOPARENT to get 1 month free at TalkAboutDiscipleship.com.

As single parents, we’ve all been hurt. In some way, shape, or form, we have all been the recipient of an offense. Sometimes, our tendency is just to move on, wash our hands of a situation and try to pick up the pieces and move forward. Some of us get stuck on the offense, and as a result, we fall deeper into resentment and start defining ourselves as victims. We can start believing the story we tell ourselves that we are just destined to be taken advantage of, which ends up hurting us more. From a faith perspective, we’ve all heard the narrative of how important it is to forgive. But why is it important? Is forgiveness really necessary when sometimes it feels like the person that caused the offense is not worth our time, effort or grace. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotionalDownload our free app - APPLE | ANDROID

One of the things that plague us, single parents, the most is thinking about the future welfare of our kids. It’s one thing for us to struggle and deal with hard things; it’s an entirely different and heart-wrenching thing to worry about our kids, what happens to them, and their future. So many of our kids have seen relationships go very wrong, even a certain amount of volatility. Many of them internalize what they saw and blame themselves. Some of our kids have experienced the untimely death of one of their parents. In any case, our kids have been subject to traumatic life events, which, as we all know, can negatively impact their future. So how do we best set up our kids to have the courage and confidence to face their own relationships, their own opportunities, their own challenges… if we as parents may not feel confident ourselves? Today we hear some stories about how confidence and courage was built into a little boy raised by a single mom in North Carolina who went on to have a culture-shifting impact o

All of us have been very acquainted with feeling broken, wounded, and defeated. With those realities, it’s hard to believe we can find courage. Many of us have gone to the church for help and as a refuge; unfortunately, some of us have found ourselves feeling marginalized from the very place we needed to feel uplifted. So, many of us felt that we don’t know if we have what it takes to be brave enough to keep going or believe there is much hope. So what do we do with that desperate desire for courage when we feel so defeated, wounded and broken? Our guest is a trauma informed therapist and author who’s latest book is called "The Lord is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love" KJ RAMSEY talks about Courage for the Broken, Wounded and Defeated For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID

One of the things we hear more than anything else at Solo Parent is how so many of us deal with codependency. In one way or another, we've lost ourselves, our identity, our purpose, and our voice because we have revolved our world around making someone else happy to make us feel whole. There are a lot of things that we could talk about related to courage, but maybe nothing more critical than establishing how to have courage as a codependent to discover wholeness again, so that we can have our own voice and identity moving forward. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links groups, info, and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID

It hurts to watch our kids face challenges and endure pain knowing some of the things we can’t fix, control, or even help them with. We feel like a bad parent if we can’t fix it or make it better. Most of us would rather take on their pain - but we can’t. So when our kids face hard things or things that hurt them, we often overcompensate, doing our best to lessen the blow, not helping them build the courage to face challenges for themselves. So how do we help them have the courage to deal with, or accept things, that hurt and are challenging when it feels counterintuitive to us wanting to protect them. Fortunately for all of us, Dr. Chipp Dodd is here to guide us through How to help our kids accept things they cannot change. For all the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID

What do we do when we find our lives in a situation we never wished for or wanted? Betrayal, illness, death, our kids experiencing pain - or maybe we are the ones who have betrayed or caused hurt to others. When the reality we face is less than optimal, sometimes downright uncomfortable and challenging, our natural tendency is to fight and try to change things, which is not necessarily bad. But sometimes those painful things can't be changed, or we can’t control them. In those cases, what is my responsibility and what is not? The serenity prayer says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change." COURAGE to change the things I can… So today, we are flipping that a bit and asking - how do I have the COURAGE to face the things I cannot change in order to find serenity. For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROI

Let’s face it, as single parents, and we are all carrying relational baggage and unhealthy habits around that we can pass on to our kids. Many of us have, unfortunately, modeled what unhealthy, toxic relationships look like with our exes. And sometimes, even after divorce from toxic situations, we continue in our unhealthy beliefs and approaches to relationships. If we have lost a spouse to death, that trauma may keep us avoiding risking relationships again, or maybe we foster relationships built just on loneliness… Whatever the case, we want the best for our kids… We don’t want them to have to go through the relational struggles that we have. Here’s the thing, if we don’t teach them healthy relationship skills, they will and are learning about relationships from somewhere else… movies, friends, social media…Our kids are always watching, curious, and wondering… so how can we teach them healthy relationship skills when we doubt our abilities to be in healthy relationships.  For the detailed show notes, ti

We hear from many Solo parents that they have come out of toxic, emotionally and physically abusive relationships. Unfortunately, it seems to be a rampant story in our community. Narcissism and overly controlling partners are a widespread issue that arises. Being that we are parents, albeit divorced, we still have to deal with the same people that were so toxic, and we will have to continue dealing with them for the rest of our kids' lives. So how do we heal from abusive relationships and navigate maintaining healthy boundaries with those overly controlling people in our lives?  For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROID Solo Parent is sponsored in part by Trinity Debt Management. Call 1 800 793-8752 to talk with a counselor today.

As single parents were juggling a lot of balls in the air at the same time… Inevitably, we drop one or two. Most of the time, the proverbial ball we drop is the one with ‘me’ written on it. We put ourselves last; we don’t value ourselves enough. We tend to feel selfish in making ourselves a priority when we have so many responsibilities. So how do we move ourselves up the totem pole, so to speak? I think we all know that unless we care well for ourselves, we can’t care well for other people. So what can we do to nurture ourselves without adding more stress and ‘to dos’ to our already full list of responsibilities? Our guest, Whitney English, is the author of a new book called “A More Beautiful Life: A Simple Five-Step Approach to Living Balanced Goals with HEART”. Her work has been featured in O magazine, The Wall Street Journal and on the Today show. For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org To receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our dail

So many of us could accurately state, “I thought I knew them…” We have all been hurt; we’ve all been betrayed in some way, shape, or form. As we move through a Solo Parent life in this modern age, it’s hard to know who to trust. Some people present really well and even act like they’re here to help and protect… but sometimes, it turns out, there were different motivations or deeper issues that don’t show in the beginning. So how do we recognize safe people after experiencing hurt, rejection and abandonment? We can become so full of fear relationally that we end up feeling like just giving up, OR we lower our standards to the extent that we continue making destructive decisions. So today, we are going to discuss Who Should We Trust? For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParent.org Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROIDSolo Parent is sponsored in part by Trinity Debt Management.

We all have heard the saying ‘we can’t give what we don’t have'. So we can feel stuck in this difficulty of knowing that we don’t have our own sense of peace… so how can we help instill that in our kids. As we often say, it’s one thing to deal with struggles ourselves; it’s an entirely different thing, a heart-wrenching thing to watch our kids struggle. Any single parent wants their child, or children, to have a sense of certainty, to have a sense of peace even in the midst of less than optimal situations. So how do we help our kids find that sense of peace and avoid the emotional instability that so many of us suffer from ourselves?Fortunately for us Dr. Chip Dodd is here to guide us. Chip has been so foundational to so much of what we do here. For 30 years, he has poured his life into serving others through counseling, speaking, and writing best-selling books like 'The Voice of the Heart.' The bedrock of what he does is helping us discover ourselves and live fully in relationship with others and, ultimately

As single parents, we tend to let our peace be drained out of us by other people, lies, society, and comparison, and we end up feeling disempowered or victims. So often, we let unsafe people have access to our identity, self-worth, self-esteem and how we feel about ourselves… in that sense, we are leaking our sense of peace everywhere. So how do we get to a healthy place of protecting the peace that we can experience in being enough, God empowered, and beloved? How can we move forward empowered with a sense of our God identity and have peace with where we’re at. For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit https://soloparent.org/show-notes-blog Receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devotional Download our free app - APPLE | ANDROIDSolo Parent is sponsored in part by Trinity Debt Management. Call 1 800 793-8752 to talk with a counselor today.

As single parents, we all have direct and extended parenting relationships and will for the rest of our kid's lives. Often those relationships are strained and even volatile. For example, things can escalate very quickly if we’re divorced and it’s an ongoing contentious situation. Then there are the ex-in-laws that have very strong opinions about how their grandkids should be raised and can tend, at times, to overreach. Finally, for those that haven’t been married, there’s the other parent that has certain rights to be in our child’s lives, but from our perspective, it is less than optimal for our kids. In all these cases, how do we bring peace to the situation? We know nothing will ever be perfect, but how can we be the ones to bring peace and the stability that it fosters? Today we have Tammy Daughtry back in the studio with us. She is a leading expert in co-parenting issues and author of the book “Co-parenting works”, she is also the creator of an outstanding program "One heart, Two homes,” and she and her