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Crushed:When Parenting is Hard: A Journey to Strength and Hope
Are you defeated by the never ending fight to help your child move forward?
What do you do when your teen or young adult is having a hard time navigating life, and your whole family is impacted? Could the stress even be from outside influences that your child is surrounded with?
Parenting under stress is hard.
When our daughter was in high school, six boys from her high school completed suicide. During that time, our teenage son took a chance with a bottle of vodka and we almost lost him to a scary night of binge drinking. The emotional recovery from those years took its toll on all of us.Then, there was a seventh suicide in our community, and our daughter finally got frustrated enough to do something. Her life changed, our lives changed. We had no idea that our family would be called into a mission to make an impact.
We began a passable wristband project that went viral with now have over 50,000 wristbands across the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and Europe four years later. That project grew into our organization called You Can NOT Be Replaced® and we have spoken to over 30,000 students and their parents in the last three years. Often, after a talk, we are approached by a parent who has been living under constant stress with their teen and looking for answers. We lived it, worked through it and we understand the pain.
This book is based on those conversations
Helping your child move forward BEGINS WITH YOU!
Let's face it, parenting older kids can be an exciting time of growth, but, it can also be defeating. Our kids are living in a culture that puts them under extreme pressure to be perfect,while at the same time, encourages an ‘anything goes’ behavior before they are emotionally mature enough to handle those situations.
Often, our kids are overwhelmed by the pressure.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15 to 25 years olds, and opiate addiction is skyrocketing. No matter what tough times your family is going through, how strong you are emotionally, makes the difference in how you move forward. When you lighten the load of the burden and stress you are carrying you relate better with your kids.
Strengthening your family starts with you finding your footing again.
What I have learned through our organization's work, 20 years of youth and family programs, and being the mother of 8 children is; as parents, it’s important that we look at a crisis as an opportunity. By doing so, we can build bridges to strengthen our relationship with our kids. If we don't see the possibility for growth, we could react badly, do damage and cause them to put up walls. To build trust, we sometimes need to pause and heal our own wounds from the journey, so we can step in as their wisdom person.
How to do this is found in Crushed: When Parenting is Hard:
•How to handle unfulfilled expectations
•Understanding the importance of what motivates us to parent
•Acknowledging grief and growing the patience to heal and forgive
•Finding joy and strength to move forward and rebuild your relationship with your teen
•Understand the developing brain, substance and the importance of clear communication
Often life can feel overwhelming when a family situation is heavy. But signs of stress are markers for times of growth and If you take the time to find the opportunity in the crisis, you can find healing, growth, and strength for yourself and your family.
Don’t wait to begin the journey to strength.
What do you do when your teen or young adult is having a hard time navigating life, and your whole family is impacted? Could the stress even be from outside influences that your child is surrounded with?
Parenting under stress is hard.
When our daughter was in high school, six boys from her high school completed suicide. During that time, our teenage son took a chance with a bottle of vodka and we almost lost him to a scary night of binge drinking. The emotional recovery from those years took its toll on all of us.Then, there was a seventh suicide in our community, and our daughter finally got frustrated enough to do something. Her life changed, our lives changed. We had no idea that our family would be called into a mission to make an impact.
We began a passable wristband project that went viral with now have over 50,000 wristbands across the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and Europe four years later. That project grew into our organization called You Can NOT Be Replaced® and we have spoken to over 30,000 students and their parents in the last three years. Often, after a talk, we are approached by a parent who has been living under constant stress with their teen and looking for answers. We lived it, worked through it and we understand the pain.
This book is based on those conversations
Helping your child move forward BEGINS WITH YOU!
Let's face it, parenting older kids can be an exciting time of growth, but, it can also be defeating. Our kids are living in a culture that puts them under extreme pressure to be perfect,while at the same time, encourages an ‘anything goes’ behavior before they are emotionally mature enough to handle those situations.
Often, our kids are overwhelmed by the pressure.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15 to 25 years olds, and opiate addiction is skyrocketing. No matter what tough times your family is going through, how strong you are emotionally, makes the difference in how you move forward. When you lighten the load of the burden and stress you are carrying you relate better with your kids.
Strengthening your family starts with you finding your footing again.
What I have learned through our organization's work, 20 years of youth and family programs, and being the mother of 8 children is; as parents, it’s important that we look at a crisis as an opportunity. By doing so, we can build bridges to strengthen our relationship with our kids. If we don't see the possibility for growth, we could react badly, do damage and cause them to put up walls. To build trust, we sometimes need to pause and heal our own wounds from the journey, so we can step in as their wisdom person.
How to do this is found in Crushed: When Parenting is Hard:
•How to handle unfulfilled expectations
•Understanding the importance of what motivates us to parent
•Acknowledging grief and growing the patience to heal and forgive
•Finding joy and strength to move forward and rebuild your relationship with your teen
•Understand the developing brain, substance and the importance of clear communication
Often life can feel overwhelming when a family situation is heavy. But signs of stress are markers for times of growth and If you take the time to find the opportunity in the crisis, you can find healing, growth, and strength for yourself and your family.
Don’t wait to begin the journey to strength.
219 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 31, 2016
5 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
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January 15, 2026
While I found a few typos on the Kindle edition and would have liked more specific examples included to balance the more general advice (there were some included for sure, but I wanted more), this book held some gems that I wish I'd known when my kids were younger. Brava to Melissa and her daughter for their ministry!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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