Solo Parent Society

On this podcast, we talk a lot about what we can do to grow in our lives. Whether that be physically growing stronger, emotionally growing stronger, spiritually growing stronger, or even relationally growing stronger… inevitably, all of us at one time or another, get impeded by things that come up in our life. Some things are within our control, and some things are not.  How do we address those things in our life that hinder our growth, keep us stuck, or even have us moving backward toward bad habits or destructive behaviors?  Well, it starts with identifying what those things are - So today, we’re going to walk through ways to identify things that hinder our growth so that we can be aware of them, avoid them, or in some cases, directly confront them. Click here for the detailed show notes, tips and links  Visit to 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 The Solo Parent Podcast is

For many of us single parents, the solo season can be like a season in the wilderness. Feeling like we’ve lost our way, we’ve lost our direction. And from day to day, feeling unseen and like there’s a little hope. We also know and have seen as a ministry that this can be one of the most transformational times for us spiritually. But it’s hard to ignore the feeling that so many of us have of just being stuck in so many ways, including spiritually. So how do we move from just walking day-to-day through this wilderness to unleashing the most important, transformational spiritual growth that we have encountered in our life. Because that is precisely what can happen, God changes us in struggle. Today we have a special guest, Kristi Mclelland, a professor, a biblical culturalist, an author, and now a host of an incredible podcast here on AccessMore called Pearls. She has a Master's Degree in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary and has dedicated her life to teaching people how to study the Bible. So

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. Click here for the detailed show notes, tips and lin

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.  Click here for the detailed show notes, tips and links.  To 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

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!  Click for the detailed show notes, tips and links. Click to receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily m

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.  Click for the detailed show notes, tips and links .  Click to 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

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.  Click for detailed show notes, tips and links. Click to receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to groups, info and a free book. Join our daily meditational devoti

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

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

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

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 li

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, hav

We did a survey last year with our single parents, and one of the number one things that people are interested in is the idea of dating again.  We know that everybody is different, and there’s no right or wrong answer necessarily.  So we thought it would be helpful to have a panel discussion from those of us that have actually “found love again”. One thing we can all attest to is that there is hope relationally for us again. So we got together and shared notes on our dating experiences and came up with our ‘war stories' and shared what we are calling our ‘screening methods’ - (you know what we are talking about if you have tried to date again).  We broke some dating issues down into three categories and shared an example of each. Red flags (non-negotiables) Yellow flags – (not for me - but I would pass him/her on to a friend )  Green flags (this is a keeper).  For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com To receive a free SPS Welcome Toolkit with links to gr

Mathew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.  We hear that loving our neighbors is a command that Jesus himself highlighted for us. But we live in a culture that has become very isolated. Safe distancing has been necessary for health but detrimental to connection and giving love to others. So how do we become love towards others? How do we follow the command of Jesus and love our neighbors in a culture that has become every man for himself, it seems.  Today we welcome our guest who not only speaks about this, but is a living example of giving love. Bob Goff has spent decades as an attorney. These days, he calls himself a "recovering lawyer" because after practicing law for 25 years, then becoming the Honorary Consul to Uganda, he gave up his law firm to pursue writing and speaking full time. He's a New York Times bestse

As single parents, we have all had a run-in with this thing called love. How do we really know what love is? Is it a feeling? A belief? A trait? We are going to cover a series on love based on the passage - that Jesus calls the greatest commandment.   Mathew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The reason this is so important is summed up in Ephesians 3:19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. We are all looking for love. If we don’t find that in God, we end up depressed, numbing out, acting out, searching for love in the wrong places. So, understanding God’s love is foundational to our love of ourselves and others.  For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSoc

All this month, we are talking about LOVE. We can't think of a better way to dive into this than with the author of one of the most beloved books on the topic, REDEEMING LOVE; today we are talking with the author of REDEEMING LOVE, FRANCINE RIVERS.? REDEEMING LOVE is a life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love - based on the book of HOSEA. It has remained on multiple fiction bestseller lists for over 15 years and published in more than 30 languages. It is now a major feature film that was just released at the end of January 2022. (see the trailer) The author and screenwriter Francine Rivers is a New York Times bestselling author of over 30 books. Check out Francine’s newest book - The Lady’s Mine For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com To 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

Many of us have been brought up in the church where we have been taught that God loves us right where we are; there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God. But do we really live from that position? When we ask, “how does God see us?” do we know the depths of that, or do we understand the gravity of it? As we enter this new year and explore all these different facets of vision, we thought it important to be reminded and anchored in how our creator Father sees us. Our guest is Scott Sauls, who has worked alongside Dr. Timothy Keller as a lead and preaching pastor for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He’s planted churches around the country and has authored five books. He is now the senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville and married with two daughters. For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com 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

So much of the time, we feel like we have no direction for our life. There are so many responsibilities it is hard to see a vision for our lives beyond everyday maid, cook, nurse and rule enforcer for our kids.  ?Our story or trauma, co-dependency, and hurt keep us looking outward. As a result, we tend to focus on external circumstances. We know to move forward in health, we need to have an accurate view of ourselves - but the truth is - introspection can be scary. We ask ourselves, why do I want to stay/focus on all the negative aspects of my life? Fortunately for us today, we have a guest who is a world-renowned expert in precisely this area. We learn that there are positive things we can expect to discover in the process of introspection, to become at peace with who we are and deal with the complicated aspects of our past? Our guest is Dr. Dan Allender, a pioneer of an innovative approach to trauma and abuse therapy. For over 30 years, the Allender Theory has brought healing and transformation to hund

Parenting alone is so hard. But when our kids are all different - with different temperaments, personalities, struggles, behavior traits — it is hard to know how to guide them effectively and, at the same time, how to be OUR best for them - uniquely and individually. Fortunately, we have a special guest with us today who knows a little something about the variety pack when it comes to family and kids.  If you are familiar with Christian music at all in some way or another, her incredible parenting skills have impacted you. Helen Smallbone is mother to Joel and Luke of For King and Country, and daughter Rebecca St. James. She hosts an incredible podcast on Access More called MUM LIFE Community; she has raised and homeschooled a total of 7 kids. For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com 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

Starting a new year can be a real mixed bag for single parents. On the one hand, it’s nice to kind of push the ‘reset’ button on a brand new year and to feel like you have somewhat of a clean slate. But, on the other hand, it’s hard to believe that things will be different.  New Year’s resolutions seem trite and overused. We all want to move forward and build a better life, but it isn’t easy without a clear vision or roadmap.  ?Fortunately for us today, we have a special guest to help us create a simple, clear vision and roadmap for a better year. Our guest is Michael Hyatt, founder, and chairman of Michael Hyatt & Company. He is also the author of several New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling books, including Living Forward, Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, and his newest book Win at Work & Succeed at Life. He lives in Franklin, TN, with his wife of 40+ years; he has five daughters and nine grandchildren. For the detailed show notes, tips and links, visity SoloPa