The Walk Family Podcast
The Walk Family Podcast is a show focused on biblical parenting (what the Bible says about parenting) and reaches all stages of life. Whether you are a new or experienced parent, we all make mistakes and wrestle through what being a godly mom or dad looks like in daily life. This podcast provides hope and encouragement through the Bible's teaching about being the parent God desires you to be.
The Walk Family Podcast
Overcoming Despair While Raising Kids
What happens when the children we love and nurture veer off the path we envisioned for them? Join us this episode as Tony and I confront the emotional challenges of parenting, alongside our insightful guests. We share personal stories about the heartache of watching children face difficulties or reject core family values. Through heartfelt conversations, we explore tailored approaches to discipline and guidance, recognizing that each child—whether an eight-year-old or a toddler—requires unique strategies. The importance of community and shared experiences shines through, offering solace and perspective for those tough parenting moments.
Parenthood can be an overwhelming journey, especially as we tackle the chaos and demands of raising young children. We unpack the emotional toll it takes on both parents, acknowledging how clutter and constant demands can lead to feelings of despair. The discussion highlights the different stages of parenting, from the early days with a newborn to the energetic toddler years, and how parents can support each other through these times. By emphasizing spousal support and the need for open communication, we offer strategies for couples to manage their emotions and find balance amid the chaos.
Turning to faith during moments of deep despair is a recurring theme throughout our conversation. Whether dealing with a child's loss or their departure from shared beliefs, the solace found in prayer and scripture is invaluable. We reflect on Jesus's experience of despair in the Garden of Gethsemane, highlighting the power of prayer as demonstrated by his example. As we introduce our winter 2025 series, "Seasons of Despair," listeners are invited to stay connected through our website and newsletter for ongoing support and insights. Let's journey together, finding hope and strength in faith and community as we navigate the ups and downs of parenthood.
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Hey everybody, it's Tony and welcome back to the Walk Family Podcast. I am bringing you a series titled Seasons of Despair, which focuses on different experiences of life, such as marriage, raising kids and loss of loved ones, and how people navigate those hardships. Laura and I bring to the table conversations from our own home, as well as introduce some guests sharing their stories. Everybody goes through trials and tribulations in life. Sometimes it feels we can't ever escape the pain that that brings. James 1, 2, and 3 says Consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, this is easier said than done. Despair, by definition, is the loss or absence of hope. As a believer in Jesus, there is always that eternal hope we have, but sometimes we don't always feel like it exists. It's an incredibly challenging thing when we feel despair in this life, when we think there is no hope and all we experience is hurt and pain. My hope and my prayer is that this series will show that you are not alone in your moments of despair.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like that would be a natural human response, though, for him to just be fine. I mean, parents love their children and when you love your child, you mourn when your child is hurt or alone or especially if they die. Those are huge things in the life of a parent, so I would think that eli probably was.
Speaker 1:it was very sad about his choices and about his son's choices, and yeah, I agree, and so like my point and kind of like the question that revolves around it is how do you navigate something like that? How do you, when your child that you care about, that you've invested in, turns away from the Lord or you know, god forbid like you lose a child, how do you get yourself out of that?
Speaker 2:Obviously, yes, there's mourning, there's grieving but there's a level of hopelessness there that makes you feel really, really bad. Hello, hello. Thanks for joining us on today's episode. We're talking about despair and parenting, and we're glad that you could join us.
Speaker 1:And raising kids. Yes, I was talking to like you and me and we're raising kids, yeah, yeah, so anyway, we have three kids. They're bundles of joy. Just out of curiosity, what's like the hardest moment in raising kids that you can remember?
Speaker 2:that's a killer way to open.
Speaker 1:We're jumping right in diving deep, okay how about the fact that we went for a walk, we went hiking on a trail today?
Speaker 2:We did. It was really nice to be out today and cold, yeah, it was cold, but we connected with some friends and we hadn't done that in a while and I think in previous episodes Tony and I have talked about the importance of community and we've just really been missing out on that, and so it was nice to have some buddies and to get outside and our kids were entertained by their kids and that was really nice too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having three kids walk about a mile and a half in a trail when it's 30 degrees out. I think the kids did pretty good and the oldest one fell down and unfortunately had a little bit of drama. She thought her leg was broken.
Speaker 2:She always has a little bit of drama. So it's okay. But without further ado, we're going to dive into today's topic and there's a couple of verses that I want to talk to you about and then we're just going to, Tony and I are just going to kind of have a conversation about it and we're hoping that our conversation builds you up and encourages you while we're hashing through these verses, and I just hope that you take something away from it that can point you to the Lord and give you strength for moments when you feel discouraged in parenting. So the first one is Proverbs 22, 6. It says train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. My thought on this one is what happens when you're training your child and they are choosing not to obey the things that you've taught them? What do you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's tough, especially depending on how old they are, choosing not to obey the things that you've taught them. What do you do? Yeah, that's tough, especially depending on how old they are. I think when the kids are younger, like you have a little bit more control over like how not necessarily how they react or how they behave, but how to help them navigate it Whereas once they're older, like an adult, and choosing to essentially not follow the Lord.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. For conversation's sake, let's say this is like an 18 and younger these are kids that live in your house, or maybe even 16 and younger. These are kids that live in your house and you are in charge of disciplining them and teaching them, training them, and they're not obeying. What sort of things would you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, like I was saying it's, I think it really does come down to the age right. When our youngest, who is a toddler, disobeys and throws a tantrum, that's going to be very different than how you handle, you know, a 13 year old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, let's just talk through our different ages. So we have an eight year old, and when she doesn't disobey, her consequences look a lot different than a two year old. She usually shall have to go to her room or she'll miss out on an event that we're going to do, because she's very much a people person, so she can't go to a friend's house or go for a walk with everybody. She has to stay home with one of the parents. Either Tony or I have to stay home with her and she misses out.
Speaker 2:And then our middle daughter is very much a gift oriented little girl, which is funny because I don't think it was always like that. I think it used to be more physical touch, which is not something you withhold from a child, but now I feel like it's shifting to gifts, where she's maybe not responding to discipline or not responding to what we've taught her to do, and if we say, okay, I'm going to take your toy until tomorrow, that's really serious in her world. And then our youngest is just a spitfire. I don't know how many of you guys have three kids, but number three is the third.
Speaker 2:Yeah, number three is a game changer for us. Everything we thought we knew about parenting is kind of getting flipped upside down.
Speaker 1:Well, that happened with every single one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just been.
Speaker 1:We had, yeah, we had our first and then we sort of got a handle on it. It's like, yeah, we got this and then we had a second and it was a train wreck, and then we figured it out, and then we have a third, and two and a half years in of having three. I still don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:We have a third and two and a half years in of having three. I still don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, I can't figure her out yet. She is very independent and strong-willed and I think that as she grows it's going to be really tricky to just kind of steer her. I think she's going to be one that we have to let make her own mistakes, and some of them will be in our control and some of them will be out of our control because of the nature of the beast.
Speaker 1:But to answer the question, like, depending on your kid and depending on the age of the kid, it's going to vary on how you discipline them. Absolutely Like discipline. We had talked in earlier episodes about discipline being kind of a negative term in society, but it's really not. You're steering the term. Discipline focuses on steering them in the right direction, specifically steering them towards the Lord, and discipline out of negative emotions is where the harm really comes from. Disciplining out of anger, discipline out of fear or out of frustration that's where I think the harm comes from and the lack of discipline. If you're completely apathetic towards your kids and just let them do whatever they want whenever they want, you're going to have serious issues.
Speaker 2:Yes, it will backfire. Maybe that will be the easier way out when they're younger, but as they age, they won't respect you and you won't be an authoritarian figure in their life. In the Bible, hebrews 12 talks a lot about discipline and how God disciplines us. But because he loves us and because we're his children and that's what we're supposed to do as parents is discipline our children because we're training them and teaching them, and it's not to harm them, it's to teach them right from wrong and it's a way that we show that we care about them, because we're molding them into these people that are suddenly going to be adults in the real world.
Speaker 1:I talked to a bunch of different people that have kids. I mean, you obviously were friends with several of them, um, but it it does amaze me at how well put together some families are that have a lot of kids, like like seven kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very structured, very structured. Always behaved it's like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:It's like magic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like how in the world do you navigate? You know an age, you know there's like a 20 year age range between their oldest and youngest and they're and you just have like every single one of them like highly respected kids, not saying that they're perfect, but you can definitely tell that there's some intentionality there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was exactly the word I was going to use that the parents are definitely being intentional in attention and affection, but also in discipline.
Speaker 1:But to kind of like pivot towards the core of the episode and the series is focusing on despair. So when you think about being in a spot, being in despair, it's a sense of hopelessness. How do you, how, how do we, navigate hopelessness when raising kids, especially if your kids are just running around crazy little monsters or they're a little bit older and have no respect for you and they just are completely rebellious and they're not following the Lord, and then, even as they enter into adulthood, they just completely step away from the church and don't care. They're just living life for themselves. That can show, or at least that can create, a sense of hopelessness or despair for your kids.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I think one of the things I just wanted to do is talk about, like how you can, how we can navigate that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Those are very different conversations. So I think if we just narrow it down first to talk about what do you do when you're in a season of hopelessness, when your kids are little because that's a lot different than my kids are 20 and not walking with the Lord, those I feel like handling those will be two different things. When they're little, I think one of the things that you can do is just take a break, that you need to be surrounded by community or your spouse and you need to take turns and give yourself a moment of rest away from your kids. That way you can be refreshed with the Lord, maybe dive into your word, maybe into God's word. Do some journaling, spend some time praying. If you like baths, take a bath, go for a walk outside, get some fresh air, just be away from your kids, just enough to be refreshed before you dive back in.
Speaker 1:What do you think causes despair when raising young kids? What causes people to get to such a low, hopeless point when you have young kids?
Speaker 2:I think there's a level of being overwhelmed when. When you're busy, then it's easy to be overwhelmed. In our home I definitely lean on the minimalist side and so when our home feels overwhelmed by clutter and by stuff, christmas is always a really hard time in our house for me, because I always feel so overwhelmed by stuff and I don't want to sound ungrateful it just gets overwhelming and so's. I don't want to sound ungrateful, I'm just. It just gets overwhelming and so that things can be overwhelming and then little people just needing you all the time, and the voices never stop. Mom, mom, mom. You know it's hard if you're not getting out of the house and if you're not taking care of yourself to just rest and recover. It's hard to be turned on all the time to the needs of others when you have needs that are going unmet.
Speaker 1:I think that stems a lot from the mom's perspective, right? The kids are just constantly like mom, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, and I'm sitting right there and they just completely ignore who I am.
Speaker 2:Although I'm not sure you hear them. Anyways, it's a two way street.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say that I don't ignore them, but but I also, like I understand that moms carry a huge burden in the sense that they are typically a caregiver and they are just being poured out tremendously. Typically a caregiver, and they are just being poured out tremendously, whereas dads, like, typically they're the adventurous, the fun type, you know the, the comic relief, but dads can fall into depression and despair as well, but it's just a very, it looks very different do.
Speaker 2:What do you feel like has been a season when you have experienced that I I think with our second, with our second one. After she was born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just a nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, her first year of life she cried and cried so much and I remember we would take her to the doctor and nothing would be wrong. She just would cry. And I think they thought I was crazy and we probably should have gotten a second opinion or tried a chiropractor or something. But it was a rough. Her first year of life was really rough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that newborn stage for anybody is just really difficult. There's not many people that I know of that say, yeah, the newborn stage is wonderful, it's the best stage. I'm like I don't believe you, even if you were to say that.
Speaker 2:Honestly, though, this last baby was our last, and I think I treasured those moments a lot more than I did the first two times. The first time, I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2:And, honestly, I wasn't ready to be a mom yet, and so everything was scary and new and dealing with my own emotions about having a baby. And then, with number two, she just cried, and so I cried. But number three was just a very different experience, because she was going to be our last, and so the moments didn't feel so awful. Even though I was tired and you're drained from getting up all night and being needed all day, there was still a sweetness to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was very much like push on the accelerator and let's get to H2.
Speaker 2:Like just get through it, Although two's been a tear or two, so here we are.
Speaker 1:Yes, two has been rough. Yeah, our third is definitely the most aggressive and intense. I think that's the best way to describe it.
Speaker 2:She has a big personality, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yes, very much so, and very driven and determined, and it's her way, or the highway, and she won't let up.
Speaker 2:So what do you feel like is a way that you, as a dad, can combat despair? Or well, that's one question. And then number two what is a way that you feel like you can assist when I'm struggling with despair?
Speaker 1:I think assisting you is a lot easier in my mind than trying to wrestle through depression or despair because of kids. Like when you're struggling, I can be, you know, mr Fix-It, and just say hey, you know, you should do this, you should do this, you know, go for a walk, take a bath, get out of the house, you know, go get a shake or go shopping, I don't care Something. Where it's like oh yeah, I can do all of this problem solving that will help you. I think do all of this problem solving that will help you. I think that's much easier. And even if it comes down to like most of it comes down to time and energy, like if I were to just take the kids for a drive for 30 minutes, that's enough to kind of give you time and space to just recalibrate and re-energize.
Speaker 1:When I'm struggling with it, it's very different, because I get in this mopey, hopeless state where I don't really want any help. I just have this really bad emotion that just kind of makes me, you know, like a slug and I can't get out of it and I don't really have a desire to get out of it and or at least I don't want to work for it, and so I don't really know how to navigate that per se, other than the fact that I've experienced it and it's ugly, and so sometimes I mean dads specifically typically don't like to ask for help, they like to be the one that has the solutions they like to fix things.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking like appliances. I'm talking about broken relationships or if there's some sort of discord in the home dad's typically go. Their go-to is okay. Yeah, I want to find a solution, but something happens when it's yourself, when you're struggling with something internally, it's very difficult to navigate. So sometimes I think you have to have a spouse that is willing to pull it out of you, and sometimes that doesn't happen overnight. Be a process.
Speaker 2:I know that's you do yeah, most often when I see that Tony has hit his limit, then usually it's like okay, you need to take a nap.
Speaker 2:You need to go for a run, have something to eat. I feel like we're talking about Elijah when he's feeling depressed after Mount Carmel and this super low time and he has a nap, nap and he eats and then he has a new mission. It's the same thing. Okay, you need to rest because you can't pull it together right now, and you need to eat some good food and feed your soul and just spend some time with the Lord, because that's the only thing that's going to make you feel better right now is God.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you think about. You think about that story in scripture where Elijah is in a sense depressed, you could even say despair, but I don't think Elijah had any kids, but there was a prophet well before him but way before his time, eli, who did have kids, who did have kids. And if you guys remember the story, eli is punished by God for the lack of raising his two sons to know the Lord, because his two sons, who are also, um, or they, priests or prophets, Do you remember?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Off the top of my head is one or the other. They might've been priests, like Levitical priests, I don't know for sure. Off the top of my head it was one or the other. They might have been priests, like Levitical priests, I don't know for sure. They pretty much went in the opposite direction. But they have like this, in a sense, this level of authority and you're supposed to lead people to God as a priest and they didn't.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden, god punishes Eli by basically, I mean straight up, kills them, takes their lives away, and so like thinking about despair in the sense of loss. You know, there are, there are parents out there who are doing everything that they can to help their kid or to get their kid to be successful or to know the Lord, and they just completely turn away. But there's also parents who might be following the Lord themselves but aren't necessarily being intentional with teaching who the Lord is with their kids. And I'm not saying that punishment, I'm not saying that God's going to punish you for doing that. I am saying I wonder what emotions Eli felt after God took his sons away. Was there a level of sadness? Was there a level of despair and depression? Or was Eli, perfectly fine, it's like, yep, this is what God did, and I trust God no matter what, and so he just moved on.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like that would be a natural human response, though, for him to just be fine. I mean, parents love their children and when you love your child, you mourn when your child is hurt or alone or especially if they die. Those are huge things in the life of a parent. So I would think that Eli probably was very sad about his choices and about his son's choices.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and so my point and kind of the question that revolves around it, is how do you navigate something like?
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker 1:How do you, when your child that you care about, that you've invested in, turns away from the Lord or you know, God forbid, like you, lose a child? How do you get yourself out of that? Obviously, yes, there's mourning, there's grieving, but there's a level of hopelessness there that makes you feel really, really bad, makes you feel really, really bad.
Speaker 2:In both situations. I think the blaring answer is to turn to the Lord. You need to just be in His Word. You need to be praying and crying out to Him, because at that point, if your children aren't walking with the Lord, then only God can change their heart. At that point you can pray over them and you can have gospel conversations with them. But they have to make their own decision to walk with them. You can't with the Lord. You can't make them choose God. That has to be their choice. But you can live an example and have conversations, but you have to take it to God to change their heart. And if you lose a child, then there's nothing you can do at that point. That's that God has to heal your heart and only he can fill that void.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Jesus for a second. Do you think Jesus ever felt despair?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think Jesus felt all the emotions that humans feel. That's how it was in Matthew 16, I think, where it talks about that we can relate to him because he felt all things. So I think, is that it Matthew 16? I'm going to have to look it up later, sorry gang. Nevertheless, there's a verse that talks about Jesus experiencing all the things that we feel. That's how we know we can go to him because he's felt all those things and he understands us in a way that sometimes we don't even understand ourselves.
Speaker 1:We have a hard time dealing with our own emotions, but Jesus knows yeah, I was thinking about the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus is praying to God, because despair right Means like hopelessness.
Speaker 1:You think about who Jesus is and it's like well he is truly the only reason we have hope, but despair is the absence of that. And so thinking about, well, if Jesus knew what his sacrifice on the cross was going to do like there's still a level of hope, and if he foreknew that did he still experience hopelessness? And the only thing I can think about that he would the only way, I guess I, I should say the only time in scripture that I think he would experience that would be in the garden when he's praying to god and he's sweating blood. Well, he knew his time to die was approaching and it was approaching quickly. But what was? If he was truly in despair? What was he in despair about?
Speaker 2:I think that he knew what he needed to do and what was about to happen, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You know this is not on the same level, but you know you need to give a spanking for X and X situation. But it doesn't make it any easier. You still feel sad and you still wish your child had chosen not to do that so that they wouldn't have the consequence. And Jesus's wasn't a consequence, his was a sacrifice. So it's different there, but I think there's still a level of sadness.
Speaker 1:Because when you think about hopelessness like what was, what was Jesus talking about in the garden? He was praying to God and he was asking if there was any other way. Not my will, but your will be done is what he says, and I think if there was any moment of despair that Jesus felt, it would be in that moment, because I think he realized that his father's will is going to happen, even though he knew what that meant. There is no other way for him to get out of crucifixion.
Speaker 1:There is no other way for him to spend more time on earth with, you know, the disciples, or you know preaching his gospel, like it had to happen this way. And so I just wonder, like, did he feel despair in that moment because he knew God was not God, the Father was not going to change his mind Like Jesus is going to be crucified? I think I think full and well Jesus knew that. But it's just interesting to think about Jesus with all of the names, right, you know, prince of Peace, everlasting Father. Like he could feel all of these dark emotions, especially a dark emotion like despair.
Speaker 2:But he felt all these things that didn't sin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, feeling despair isn't necessarily sinful.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it's a sinful emotion. It's a real human emotion. I think it's what you choose to do with it that matters. What would you say are a couple of things that you would suggest parents who are experiencing despair do to help get through that season.
Speaker 1:I think prayer I mean you have to pray Yet in the word yes, but I think prayer is even more important. And I say that because I look at prayer and reading scripture as complementary. Not one is better than the other, but I think there are different moments in life where you need one more than the other.
Speaker 1:And I think in that moment, when you're feeling despair, I think prayer, talking, crying out, lamenting towards God is more important than necessarily reading scripture. Yes, I think there is a level of you need the promises of God that are found in scripture to lift you up, but I think communing with God through prayer might be more important. The only reason I'd say that is from Jesus's example in the garden. If he was truly feeling despair, what did he do? He was crying out to God and not in just like a you know, a very typical pleasantry way, like he was well, he was pouring his very being out to God to say hey, is there any other way? Out to God to say hey, is there any other way? And ultimately, like we know what happens. But I think that I think that is the key to help getting out. It's like God can handle all of that, but we as parents have to do that as well to get out of this rut, this funk that we're in. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Walk Family podcast.
Speaker 1:Today, if you haven't realized already, laura and I are switching the format of our show. The primary difference is that we have changed our releases to fit more of a serial format, which means we will be sending out episodes throughout each week for a season. Then, once the next season begins, another series will come out. Each series will contain around 10 to 12 episodes, give or take. For the winter season of 2025,. Seasons of Despair is our series.
Speaker 1:We still release an episode on Tuesdays, but you may see another episode pop up later in the same week as well. Also, be sure to hit the little bell to subscribe. It gives you each episode instantly once it's published. You can always connect with us at our website, thewalkfmcom, and, if you are really interested, a link in the show notes below allows you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Our letter contains updates on the Smith family to stay connected with us, while also providing tips, tricks and challenges we are experiencing. If you sign up, you also get a free sneak peek to the first chapter of Prayer and Promises, which is a book that I'm writing and will hopefully be publishing this year. Thanks again and be blessed.
