RetrophischEight years ago today, the first episode of The Empowered Parent Podcast (aka, the Tapestry Empowered to Connect Podcast) was published.
It’s been a great run with Ryan and Kayla, over 160 episodes to date, over 600,000 downloads, no telling how many streams from various platforms, listeners from all over the world. Can’t wait to see where we go in the next 8 years!
It’s incredibly humbling to be stopped by a stranger at a conference, and they can tell you the exact day in May 2017 when their life changed as a parent, because they heard your voice introducing a podcast episode about how traditional parenting doesn’t work for kids who have suffered trauma.
Excuse me, I’m a little verklempt.
https://empoweredparent.podbean.com/e/why-traditional-parenting-doesnt-work-for-our-kids-s3e14/
Walking through my house just now: “Lo, I am become my father, Turner-Off of Light Switches.”
Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” came up during random play in Apple Music, and because I am a dad with boys, this song became “Juice Box Hero” for us a long time ago, and that’s still what I hear when I listen to this song.
Game day for High Point Hockey in Knoxville as they take on Tennessee. Rooting for our hockey player in his third outing of the season.
www.highpointhockey.com/articles/…
There’s a new episode of The Empowered Parent Podcast out, and we’re talking about open adoptions.
empoweredparent.podbean.com/mobile/e/…
And then we became the helicopter parents and messed it all up.
I help administer a private group on Facebook for foster and adoptive dads, and posted this today for encouragement, because I needed it myself:
So lately I’ve been struggling with the strong wills of my boys, and of my own. The constant tug-of-war. My wife and I were talking about it over lunch today, because she shares in the frustration (she’s strong-willed as well), and I reminded her, as much as myself, that they act this way because they feel securely attached to us.
“Well, it would be nice if they weren’t complete JERKS about it!” she sighed. She didn’t use the word “jerks,” but I’m trying to keep this family-friendly.
I mention this because I know I’m not alone in being a dad frustrated with the behaviors of his kids from hard places. Especially when they’ve been in our home for so long (birth for two of them, 9 months old for the third, and they’re 16, 11, and 8 now), and it just doesn’t feel like things are getting better.
Then God decides to plant a reminder on you in an unexpected way. In an email newsletter unrelated to parenting, there was this verse of encouragement from Hebrews, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” God always has our back, and we just need to go to Him with our frustrations, seek His peace.
And because I’m an ’80s metalhead, this verse and the feeling behind it will always be enshrined for me in the opening song from Rage of Angels’ self-titled, 1989, debut album:
First time in the ocean on Flickr.
First time the boys have been in an ocean (even if it was only their feet this time). This was something of a scouting trip, taken at the end of a relaxing day around the resort.
