This is a transcript of a podcast I recently recorded for the radio show, The Journey. It’s part of a series I do and it’s kind of a two-minute pep talk for frazzled parents.

Do you have a team behind you? I’m not talking about a sports team or a work team, but your parent-support team. Parenting is a team effort, in which mum and dad play the defining roles but skillful supporting players are definitely required in your task of raising your kids, so that you definitely are not doing it alone but have people around you who are willing to share their specialised knowledge and with whom you can share yours.

On team Rodrigues I would count people like our siblings and parents of course, who come as part of the package of family life. But we’ve also hand-picked our own crack parenting team of professionals that we especially feel happy to have on our team.

These include our dentist and doctors, teachers, priests, and the children’s godparents. Also on our team are other parents who either have children close in age to ours or are around five to 10 years ahead of us and are happy to give us encouragement, advice, or just a heads-up from their recent experience.

You probably do already have people who support you in your parenting role, but at times we need to look more widely for support, if a counsellor or a dietician is needed, for example, or a spiritual advisor or a particular kind of role model for your children.

Stronger teams communicate well and regularly. Some of the best people to have on your team are the parents of your children’s friends. It’s well worth investing in those relationships, even though we are all strapped for time.

Trying to play a team sport in a team of just one or two is more than stressful, it’s impossible. But with a good team behind you, you can face any opposition to peaceful parenting with much more confidence. We’re all in this family-raising business together, let’s actually try to get better at doing it together!

Search on my website for ‘Peaceful parenting’ if you’d like to see what other ways to be a more peaceful parent I’ve covered this year.

It’s for a fairly broad Christian audience and I would love you to leave any suggestions for future topics in the comments section, or send me an email via my About page.

Thanks so much!