Episode 72~Jesus Centered Parenting with Allie Weeks Murray

We are Allie and Pat! Currently Allie here. Patrick is my high school sweetheart, husband, and business partner. We are just two goofy lovebirds who had kids and realized pretty quickly how hard it was! When we became parents, we knew things that our parents did or didn’t do that we wanted (or didn’t want) to implement with our own kids.

The thing is, we never really dug deeper than surface level! So much of the way we were parenting wasn’t even a conscious choice, but more of a “natural” reaction because of how we were raised.

We knew something had to change. We knew parenthood had to be more enjoyable than the yelling, spanking, stressed out chaos that we were experiencing on a regular basis. Honestly, we knew our kids deserved better.

So we started doing the dirty work. We started shifting. And it was HARD! We were faced with tonssssss of opposition from family members who took it personally or truly believed in the way they did things themselves.

But here’s the kicker: they weren’t raising our kids. We were. We were the only ones responsible for our kids. And our relationship with our kids comes far before our relationship with people who decided to take things personally or judge us for our decision.

While it was absolutely hard at first, our entire household atmosphere is better because of it. Our life as parents is better because of it. Our kid’s childhood (and hopefully adulthood) is better because of it. We aren't spending our days screaming and spanking. Our kids can communicate their feelings instead of just melting down and not understanding why they feel the way that they do. We have been able to connect with them on levels that feel way too mature for their age! But it’s because they are learning how to communicate in a healthy way.

Instead of shoving them away from us when they have big emotions, we help them through it.

We no longer try to demand respect through fear. Have you ever tried to have someone teach a math concept through a biology lesson? Seems crazy right? That’s how we feel about teaching “respect” through fear.

It’s crazy now for us to look back on how we used to handle things and what used to be normal for our family and think that it was ever like that! We truly feel like it wouldn’t be fair of us to keep this information to ourselves when our lives have been so drastically changed for the better.

Website: www.allieandpat.com

Instagram: @allieweeksmurray