Why It’s Better to Parent in Community | Ep. 75

Ever feel alone or isolated as a parent? Between navigating your kids’ misbehavior in public, enduring other judgmental parents, and the demands of daily life, staying isolated can often feel easier than attempting social connection and events. Yet parenting without a solid community can bring feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Just like our kids, we as parents need to feel safety and connection in community too. That comes when we parent in community.

What holds us back from parenting in community? And what’s the way forward to more safe, connected, and meaningful parenting relationships?

Join us and our guest Heather MacFadyen, founder of Don’t Mom Alone, to hear how she worked through some rough seasons of isolation, and how she learned to build a life-giving parenting community around her. Heather joins Stacy Bellward (podcast host) and Jim Jackson (co-founder of Connected Families) to discuss her inner healing journey, and several life-changing truths that offered her hope and a new perspective.

Your child’s choices and behavior don’t define you. When you explore what is going on inside of you as a parent in the safety of God’s grace, you can find hope and a new perspective too. You can dispel the shame and fear that keeps you isolated from parenting in community.

In this podcast, you’ll discover:

“Isolating ideas” that keep you from interacting with other parents and forming meaningful connection with them
The profound importance of starting with the Foundation of “What’s going on in me?”
How shame can keep us isolated from connecting with other parents
The Connected Families Framework that helps you embrace with grace the humanity of both you and your child

We are here for you in your parenting journey. Do you have a parenting testimony to share or have a parenting concern? If so please reach out to us! We hope you have learned life-giving tips today to help you parent with peace and connection.

About Heather MacFadyen:

Married and a mom to four sons, Heather struggled with the challenges of raising four young boys. She isolated herself from community, fearing embarrassment, rejection, and failure. Slowly she began to reach out to friends again and started to parent in community. Through prayer with friends, God healed wrong identities Heather was holding onto. She started a podcast called “God-Centered Mom” (now Don’t Mom Alone), a show that has been downloaded over 7 million times.