#75: Guilt-free parenting during COVID-19 (with Jamie Sumner)
“Parents, stop judging your parenting. Judges are meant to be impartial and not one of us is impartial at present. Take a deep breath. You and your kids will get through this.”
Jamie Sumner is a writer and novelist whose latest non-fiction book, Eat, Sleep, Save the World: Words of Encouragement for the Special Needs Parent released the first week of widespread COVID-19 lockdown. Jamie joined me on the Puddcast to talk about letting go of parenting guilt, being present in the moment day-by-day, rethinking our priorities and leaning into God for resilience. If you’re a parent or someone looking after children, there’s hope for in here.
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Order Eat, Sleep, Save the World: Words of Encouragement for the Special Needs Parent by Jamie Sumner.
Order Jamie’s middle-school novel, Roll with It.
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In episode 141 of The Puddcast, I discuss the process of growing into wise and gracious elders, with the remarkable David Tensen. A chaplain, poet, business researcher and more, David’s latest book Decenter Everything examines what happened to our elders and how we can become people with “fat souls,” able to provide non-judgemental companionship to others by decentering ourselves (and our ideologies, etc.). We reflect on moving into our autumn season, and even contemplate death and how Western aversion to anything to do with death keeps us from living presently.