David Thomas on Parenting Without Panic in an Age of Anxiety

Good Faith

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How Can We Raise Capable Kids Without Rescuing Them?

David Thomas, co-executive director of Daystar Counseling and co-author of Capable, joins Curtis Chang for a timely conversation on Christian parenting, kids' mental health, and raising resilient children in an age of anxiety. They explore why today's parenting culture can accidentally make kids less capable—and how faith, courage, and emotional resilience can help families face struggle without fear. If you're raising kids in this world shaped by stress, screens, and social pressure, this episode offers grounded, practical wisdom.

02:32 - It's Been a Decade of Youth Mental Health Crisis and Parental Stress

06:10 - Distinctively Christian Parenting vs. Secular Approaches

11:06 - Parenting as Spiritual Formation

16:31 - Has Language Inflation Made Parental Modeling More Important?

19:26 - How Do Some Parental Practices Undermine Capability?

25:39 - Managing Parental Discomfort and Allowing Growth

30:59 - Parenting as a Context for Parental Growth

32:02 - Death to Self and Parenting Young Adults

34:34 - Empathy and Questions: A Parental Script

36:43 - How Do Empathy and Agency Image God in Parenting?

38:17- Encouragement for Exhausted and Stuck Parents

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Mentioned In This Episode:

David Thomas & Sissy Goff's Capable: How to Teach Your Kids the Strengths, Skills, and Strategies to Build Resilience
David's co-author Sissy Goff
Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation
Jonathan Haidt's substack After Babel
Katherine and Jay Wolf's Hope Heals

Scriptures Referenced:

Transcript

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0:35.8	that's good faith.org slash survey.
0:39.3	Let us know who's on the other side of these microphones.
0:46.6	When I found out I was going to be a parent for the very first time, I flipped straight from joy into panic.
0:51.6	I don't know how other people operate in the world when they're experiencing a lot of fear, but I'm an information junkie, and so I just started consuming.
0:58.2	I'm embarrassed to say I even went back and pulled out some of my old grad school textbooks,
1:01.9	and I was reading and rereading all these ideas about child development. Somewhere in the midst
1:07.3	of all that fear and reading, I had this moment of thinking, I wonder if Adam experienced any of the same fear.
1:14.2	I had remembered Genesis 4 being the first account of parenting.
1:17.5	I'd forgotten that it was also the first account of grandparenting.
1:20.9	And as I'm reading through, looking for the evidence of the things I was hoping to find, I found something I needed more than anything.
1:28.7	And that is the ending of that passage says, at that time, man began to call on the name of the
1:34.0	Lord. It was that reminder in that moment of this journey is inviting you right now and will
1:40.4	consistently invite you into calling out to God.
1:59.0	Music and will consistently invite you into calling out to God. Welcome to the Good Faith podcast.
2:00.0	We're friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world.
2:04.8	I'm your host, Curtis Chang.
	...

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