Don't Mom Alone Podcast

With more family togetherness than ever before comes the potential for a lot more arguing and nagging our kids to obey. If you’re stuck in a parenting rut or negative cycle, then our friends from Connected Families are here to help. 

Stacey Bellward and Chad Hayenga join me to talk about breaking the patterns of defensiveness in our kids and how the power of curious questions can create productive conversations and build wisdom.

“I think as we look at scripture and we consider how Jesus approached people, you know, it was surprising to me when I first learned that Jesus asked 307 questions that are recorded in the gospels. And that's a lot of questioning. And we think about Jesus as being a great teacher. Jesus is a great teacher, but he often times uses questions to build wisdom and to hold people accountable.”

If you want to go deeper after listening to this show, Connected Families is offering a special promo code for Don’t Mom Alone listeners for their Power of Questions online course. With the code DMA20 it’s just $30. 

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Featured Sponsor:

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Direct download: StaceyChadEp292.mp3
Category:motherhood -- posted at: 12:30am CDT

Author and speaker Lisa Bevere is back to give us a powerful message as we head into summer with our kids: “push aside the guilt and celebrate growth.”

She shares some personal stories from very hard places in her life as a young mom and how God led her to work through her anger and underlying fears. 

“God said to me: ‘Children inherit one of two things, either my promises or your fears.’ And that I needed to face off with these things. I leaned into that process because of my son. Not because of me. I just came to the place where I realized that in my weakness, he is strong. I've watched God take every weak place in my life and inhabit it with his strength.”

I’m so thankful for how Lisa takes us into her story and points to God’s faithfulness to heal and restore our brokenness. She also encourages all of us to set aside the unnecessary guilt and heavy expectations we may be carrying in motherhood and to accept God’s mercy which is new every morning. 

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Direct download: LisaBevereEp291.mp3
Category:motherhood -- posted at: 12:30am CDT

From learning to walk to tying their shoes and eventually learning to drive (coming up for me soon!), so much of parenting is teaching, training and encouragement. 

When it comes to faith in God, we do all we can to teach our kids about God’s Word and engage kids in church, but research from the Fuller Youth Institute is helping to shine a light on the potential gaps that cause a high number of youth to abandon their faith in college.

My guest Dr. Kara Powell shares a number of research findings that can be game changers for our families as we seek to help our kids develop a faith that sticks with them their whole lives, or “sticky faith.” As a mom of three, she talks about how she’s parented differently in light of her research and why now is the perfect time to start making small changes that could make all the difference.

 

“One of the things that surprised me in our research is that when young people feel close to their parents, they're also more open to what's important to their parents, including their faith. And so it's not just good for our family relationships. It's also good for the long-term trajectory of our kids.”

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Direct download: KaraPowellEp290.mp3
Category:biblical training -- posted at: 12:30am CDT

Deep friendships are essential to our lives. Whether we’re extroverted or introverted, have a lot of friends or a few, we all need someone else to walk through life with. I’m excited for you to hear from Susan Seay, a mom of 7 and a mentor to many. She shares some great advice on keeping our friendships strong during life’s challenges.

“We're all in the same storm. We're just not all dealing with it in the same way. We don't even have the same viewpoint on just how big this issue is or how small it is. If I need to remember, that's not why I chose them as friends. I didn't choose them because we agree on everything. We're always going to be different and unique and varied. It's our foundation that keeps our relationship strong.”

We talk about fighting back against insecurity and comparison which can break down friendships. And we get into how to have a healthy disagreement with a friend and stay close. Susan also shares tips for staying connected with friends and extending grace for misunderstandings and miscommunications that happen in our hyper-connected world. 

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Direct download: SusanSeayEp289.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:30am CDT

My guest today Jehava Brown takes us into how she started a blog as a side project while staying home with her kids and transitioned that site into a full-time job. 

We talk about work/life balance, setting health boundaries and trusting God to be in charge of the things we can’t control.  

“I know that God is the one who provides every job and every dime. And so when I can rest in that, I don't feel the pressure to hustle 24 hours a day. I was working sometimes even 60 hours a week, which was just crazy. And most of it was at night, so it wasn't getting good sleep. I realized I'm not willing to live that way. So I really had to trust God to a different level”

Jehava is a mom of three boys and she blogs at www.onlygirl4boyz.com. She also shares how she’s connecting with her teenage son differently and some changes she’s made since the quarantine to keep up with housework.

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Direct download: JehavaBrownEp288.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:30am CDT

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