Episode Details

This week we're discussing What's Holding You Back and How It's Affecting Your Kids.

Growth doesn't always announce itself as something you're missing. Sometimes you're functioning, even thriving in some areas, and still carrying patterns that are quietly working against you. Denial, shame spiraling, overcompensating, running to busyness or numbing out. You don't have to be falling apart to need this. You just have to be human. And the way you're handling the hard things right now is already shaping the way your kids will learn to handle theirs.

Robert Beeson, Founder and CEO of Solo Parent, and Elizabeth Cole, single parent and co-host, sit down with Amber Fuller, a counselor with a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy and a single parent herself, to name the patterns that quietly keep solo parents from growing. Amber brings both clinical insight and lived experience, speaking not just as a therapist but as someone who has navigated the same hard terrain. Together they get honest about the traps, and the part nobody talks about enough: how those patterns find their way into our kids.

Key Insights from This Episode

• Naming the trap is the most courageous first step. Whether it shows up as denial, shame spiraling, or overcompensating, you cannot grow through something you are not willing to honestly look at.

• Staying in the river is a learnable skill. Sitting with hard emotions rather than escaping to busyness or apathy is not something you either have or don't; it is something you practice, and it gets easier.

• Your growth is already teaching your kids something. More is caught than taught, and when you do the work of facing your own struggles honestly, that becomes one of the most powerful things you can model.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Chip Dodd - Living Fully in the River - Podcast

Stay Connected + Get Support:

• Download our Solo Parent App 
• Join a Solo Parent Online Group
• Learn more about Solo Parent
• Follow us on Instagram