One of the toughest things you can face as a mom or dad is when your child has gone

completely off the rails and is stuck in a really difficult, maybe even dangerous pattern.

There was a moment when one of my girls was struggling with an eating disorder.

And we watched her wither, about 25 pounds weight loss over the course of several months and

we finally got intervention but it was so hard it was draining it was exhausting it was

scary I'm John Fuller in the studio with Dr. It was scary. scary.

I'm John Fuller in the studio with Dr. Danny Werta,

who heads up the focus on the family parenting team.

Danny, there are probably a lot of reactions you get from parents who have kids who aren't doing well. Are there any commonalities

in parents who you're meeting with who say this or that or I'm feeling?

Yeah, most of the time they'll say I don't know what to do a sense of powerlessness or disorientation

I've heard them say I just didn't see this coming and and now I don't know what to do and so it's that place of

it's that place of powerlessness, helplessness,

and what an invitation to be able to step into that place with parents.

And how can we, as non-therapists, as non-trained counselors, how can we come alongside that person?

Yeah, first listen. Just be present and

available. That's a first first step and some people don't have very many trusted

friends that they can just unload with. Well let's go ahead and hear now from Allison Botkey who has walked

through difficult days as a parent and here's part of her story as she shares

with Jim Daly. Now you have a really dramatic story we've kind of saved this toward the end of today.

We're going to come back next time. We're going to talk about solutions that you've

learned over your experiences. But Christopher, your son son when he was dealing with

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