"Redemptive Parenting"-How Healing Our Own Stories Offers Hope for Our Kids

4418 Rea Road,Charlotte NC 28226

24 September, 2022

Description

"I have read all the blogs, watched all the Ted Talks, and done all the things, but they still won't listen to me! Why isn't any of this working?!" "I swore I would never treat my kids like my mom treated me! And yet I find myself saying and doing the exact same things." "I learned the value of hard work and responsibility growing up, so I just want to make sure my kids do too. But there's one of them I just... I don't know, can't reach... or connect with. I don’t know what to do." Raising kids today can be utterly undoing, nerve-wracking, and stressful. And under stress, we as parents often find ourselves at wits' end, perhaps even saying and doing things that we often later regret. Many of us want better for our kids than we experienced. A stronger sense of connection, less rigidity and more fun, or a greater sense of safety. Others may be determined to replicate our families of origin--to provide all the good things that we had. We do all the things that "worked" for our parents, and made us who we are today. And yet it doesn't always seem to be welcomed. Either way, it often feels like we are "flying blind," or fumbling about in the dark, way more than we would have expected at this point in the lives of our own families. Whether we were parented horribly, wonderfully, or (like most folks) somewhere muddled in between, the ways we were raised formed our identities, our styles of relating, and how we respond to disappointment in relationships. We are marked by these formative experiences, and perhaps even marred by some of them. There is hope, though. What if the challenges of parenting are meant not merely to open our old wounds, but to heal them? What happens if we let getting to the ends of ourselves (or the ends of our ropes) take us back to the beginnings of our own stories, good and bad? Could that process, daunting as it may seem, provide the key to showing up differently for our kids, being more fully present, and loving each of them how they need to be loved? In this honest, lively, and informative two-hour seminar (brought to you by Nurture Counseling, PLLC) child and family counselor Wendy Osborn, LPCA and her husband Chris will share their stories of parenting struggle, heartache, failure, healing, and growth. Short clips from the critically acclaimed NBC series "This Is Us" will provide the catalyst for insightful, practical conversations about where our toughest parenting challenges come from, and what we can do to begin to follow the threads of our own stories and experience greater healing, without completely unraveling in the process. PLEASE NOTE: This seminar isn't about raising perfect kids, or being perfect parents. It's about understanding how our own stories may be "showing up" as we parent our kids, for both good and ill. And how paying attention to when that is happening can help us navigate through challenges with our own kids with greater grace, understanding, kindness, and hope. Because neither their stories--nor ours-- are finished just yet.