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Hurting Parents Can Cope
When you feel like you’ve lost control of your emotions because of your son or daughter’s behaviors and choices how can you cope? What do you do to keep your sanity if your child struggles with alcohol, drugs, self harm, suicide, gender identity issues, or a mental illness? How do you regain your balance and emotional capacity to keep going? Where do you turn when you want to quit? Should you make a pile of stones somewhere? Will that do the trick? How do you hit the “refresh” button for your heart and soul? In today’s post you will find 7 ways you can cope. And I’d love to hear what helps you.
A Father’s First Year After His Son’s Suicide
Today's post is one I share every year. The author is one of my guest bloggers, Nick Watts, a father whose son died by suicide six years ago. With beautiful authenticity, Nick...
The Hurricanes of Parenting
We live in Orlando. We experienced hurricane Ian this week. Thankfully, we had minimal damage. The worst has passed us now. After going through a previous hurricane I noticed a...
13 Reasons Why Not: An Open Letter to A Friend Who Died by Suicide
Suicide. This manner of death impacts millions of families worldwide annually. Each year, 34,598 people die by their own hand. An average of 94 people die this way every day. Did...
7 Lies of Suicide: A 14 year-old’s Goodbye Letter
Has your son or daughter struggled with suicidal thoughts? Have they made an attempt to end their life? Maybe you know someone who has been impacted by suicide. Many of us do....
Parenting in the Trenches
As loving, caring parents we try hard to do the best we can to raise our children well, but sometimes we find ourselves parenting in the trenches. Our children's lives have not...
10 Tips to Help Parents Build Stronger Bridges
We need healthy boundaries with our children, but we also need bridges. Boundaries are good stewardship of ourselves. They help us know what is and what is not our...
Nature: Relief for Weary Parents to Destress and Restore
Fjords National Park, New Zealand Today I welcome guest blogger Kirsten Panachyda, author and mom of a son with mental health challenges. We all carry a lot of stress as parents...
Dear Depressed Parent, God Will Carry You
Another middle of the night phone call delivered news of yet another hospital stay in the psych ward for my daughter. Cutting herself severly and suffering with an alcohol...
A Goal for Parents in Pain
Parents in pain struggle to make sense of their suffering like anyone else. “We’ve bought the lie that suffering is a mistake,” wrote Kara Tippetts,--a young mom with terminal...
Encouragement for Hurting Parents
Today’s blog post is a collection of quotes from my book, You Are Not Alone: Hope for Hurting Parents of Troubled Kids. I've been a hurting parent in great need of encouragement....
A Hurting Parent’s Freedom Song
Today is the 4th of July. Thinking about what this holiday means caused me to ask myseslf: How can parents whose children are in bondage to drug or alcohol abuse, self-injury of...
7 Tips When Mother’s Day Hurts
MOTHER'S DAY IS TODAY. If you have a child who struggles with addiction, mental illness, suicidal thoughts, gender identity, is incarcerated, or has other issues, today is...