Eps 505: Parenting with Empathy vs Codependency with Susie Pettit

Joyful Courage for Parenting Teens

My guest today is Susie Pettit. Grab some popcorn for this one! Susie helps people with boundaries, codependency, emotional intelligence, and people-pleasing using a lifetime of experience, and today she’s here to talk about her awesome parenting tool.

You know one of my favorite mantras is “Fiercely committed, lovingly detached.” We’re good at the fiercely committed part of parenting, but the detachment part is hard! It’s hard to be with our kids when tough things are happening to them, and the urge to rescue doesn’t go away, but we have to let them make mistakes & learn. I ask Susie when we cross the line from empathy to codependency, and we agree on how important it is to trust the process & believe that everything’s going to be alright.

Takeaways from the show

• “Fiercely committed, lovingly detached”
• Responding with empathy instead of codependency
• Mom guilt is a waste of brain power
• Detached means we respond differently, not that we don’t respond at all
• Doing things for our kids sends the message that we don’t think they can do it
• Empathy versus codependency
• “Popcorn parenting”
• Trusting the process
• Follow the “what if” all the way

For more show notes, including transcripts, visit our website here.

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