I think every one of us has been guilty of wondering what do my friends think of me as a parent.

I mean there are meltdowns, there are all sorts of occasions that make you wonder, And self-awareness can be a healthy thing, but

being obsessed with their reputation is really damaging to how we parent our children.

I'm John Fuller along with Dr. Danny Huerta. He's our vice president of parenting here at Focus on the family and we're going to return here to kick it off with a conversation Jim Daly and I had with Crystal Payne.

Previously Crystal shared about a difficult time in her parenting and she went to see a therapist who said focus on connecting with your child instead of trying to fix them.

Yeah, I had a similar experience.

I remember taking each of my sons I took him on something that focus does here.

Adventures in fatherhood.

And so you're out in the wilderness, you're in a small group of about five or six dads with either their daughter or son.

And we're sitting around the campfire one night, and the guide is asking Troy, my youngest some questions.

And I found myself jumping in.

I mean, I was, if he didn't answer them quickly enough,

you know, I was saying, well, Troy enjoys this, that,

or that.

And finally, he turned to me and just said,

why don't you let Troy answer the questions?

And it was like a brick wall that hit me,

and it got my attention.

And it's one of the things that I was trying to over-parent in.

I was trying to bolster his responses, right?

Give him a little juice, help him with what to think about and say. So I totally get that.

And but that had to be such a serious time for you and your husband and your child.

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