Crystal Paine - When our child is the problem
Being a single parent is complicated enough much less when we discover that our kids are the “problem”. Founder of Solo Parent Society, Robert Beeson, shares that one of the hardest parts of his parenting journey was finding out times that his kids weren’t making the wisest decisions. But that’s just part of life. Kids are kids. They are learning, they are growing, and they will make mistakes. But no parent wants to get the phone call that lets them know their kid hasn’t made the best choices. Parenting can be overwhelming, and as single parents, we see our kids struggling to overcome the pain and hurts of life. Sometimes this pain comes out as bullying, depression, or acting out. How do we look at these struggles from the perspective of love-based parenting? Crystal Paine hosts her own show “The Crystal Paine Show”, she’s the best-selling author of “Say Goodbye to Survival Mode” and “Money Making Mom”, and she’s the founder of www.moneysavingmom.com. Crystal is releasing a brand-new book called “Love Centered Parenting: The No Fail Guide to Launching Your Kids”. She wrote the book after walking through a difficult season in her own family and feeling called to share the lessons learned with others. Crystal has four kids from 16 years old to ten months old and is also a foster parent. She wrote the book to help other parents not feel so alone, especially for those whose kids are hurting and whose pain is being manifested in challenging behavior and poor choices. Crystal said the key is recognizing what is underneath the bad behaviors. She said parents often see big feelings coming out sideways, in various ways like anger, depression, aggression, or anything in between. Crystal’s experience with this hit a crisis point the day she found herself walking into the emergency room saying, “My child is suicidal.” It was a day she never ever envisioned as a parent. Crystal said it just hit her, “That gut wrenching feeling of desperation that something’s really wrong and I can’t fix it.” Her child was so angry, mouthing off, acting out, and saying scary things. As parents, they didn’t know what to do so they started to work with a therapist. The therapist began to work with her child and after several weeks, she came to Crystal and said, “It seems like you are trying so hard to fix your child. What would it look like to walk with your child?” That question started Crystal on a journey to begin paying attention to how she interacted with her kids. So often, she said, something would come up - a phone call from school, the kids fighting, or someone acting up – and she would swoop in to fix it. She would correct and preach sermons and lecture. In her constant correcting, she realized she was spending so little time connecting with her kids and just walking with them. She began to recognize that, just like her kids’ behaviors were evidence of so much going on beneath the surface, that applied to her too. She was parenting from a place within herself that was operating from a set of lies that she was inadequate, a failure, and a disappointment. Those big feelings and lies below the surface were showing up in her continual attempts to manage and control their behavior. To read the full show notes and links to her books go to -https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/03/08/when-our-child-is-the-problem