This Christian relationship help will offer suggestions for parenting in both healthy and unhealthy families. Parenting is not an easy task for healthy parents, and it is even more difficult for families that struggle with addictions, codependency, mental and physical illness, divorce, stepparenting, and troubled relationships. Many unhealthy dynamics can affect parenting in dysfunctional homes: enmeshment, rigid roles and rules, triangulation, abuse, ineffective discipline, anger, weak boundaries, emotional reactivity, and abandonment. Dysfunction affects our parenting even though we desire to be good parents.

Our past and present experiences affect our parenting. We try not to make the mistakes our parents made with us and, as a result, we sometimes go to the other extreme. We may be too strict if our parents were too lenient or too lenient if our parents were too strict. We may be too enmeshed if our parents were uninvolved, resulting in our children being dependent or suffocated. We may give too much to make up for the problems in the home, or we may have difficulty saying no if we have poor boundaries. This results in our children becoming entitled. We may be focused on our own problems and become emotionally and physically unavailable for our children. And we can be emotionally reactive due to our own fears, shame, anger, anxiety, and despair, which lead us to do things that aren’t healthy.

A difficult marriage affects our children. Even though we know what we need to do to protect them, we may have difficulty doing it, for the same reasons we can’t leave when the relationship is hurting us. We may believe that our children are better off in an intact dysfunctional home than a divorced family situation. Sometimes they are; sometimes they aren’t. No matter what, there are things you can do to help them in the midst of the dysfunction. And needless to say, single parenting and stepparenting bring additional challenges.

Parenting in today’s Western culture isn’t easy. In a post-modern world with moral relativism and secularism as the standard, it is harder to instill moral absolutes and biblical values in our children’s hearts.

No matter what challenges you are dealing with, you can only do the best you can with what you have. When you recognize problems in your family, in your parenting, and in yourself, let them motivate you to find tools that will enable you to be a better parent.

This Christian relationship help offers you tips, truths and tools to empower you in whatever parenting circumstances you find yourself in today. There are articles and resources on discipline, dealing with adult children and rebellious teens, raising children with good self-esteem, helping your children during an affair and in a difficult marriage, stepparenting, and more.

Articles on Parenting…

14 Ways to Raise Resilient Children

Co-Parenting with Divorce

Minimize the Effects of Divorce on Children

Seven Myths About the Effects of Divorce on Adult Children

Understanding Dysfunctional Families