“I’m just tired of all the change.”
If you’ve ever heard your child say something like this—or maybe you’ve just seen it in their eyes—you know how much it can rattle you. As solo parents, our lives often feel like a revolving door of transitions. New schools. New homes. New routines. Sometimes it feels like our kids are just holding on while the ground keeps shifting beneath their feet.
In this week’s episode, we sat down with licensed marriage and family therapist Kyle Cruz, who works extensively with adolescents and their families. Together, we explored a question that lives in the background for many solo parents: how much change can our kids really take before it starts to leave a mark?
The pain point here is real. Change is unavoidable, but instability feels personal when it shows up in the lives of our children. So how do we walk them through change without letting fear take the lead?
Insight #1: Change Isn’t the Enemy. Disconnection Is.
Kyle starts by debunking the myth that kids need a disruption-free life in order to be okay.
“Life is about change from day one,” he says. “Growth comes through change.” But the catch is this: while change is inevitable, our presence in the midst of it is what creates stability. Not the lack of change itself.
What hurts kids most isn’t the transition—it’s the silence that often surrounds it. “Kids are okay with change. They just want to know why,” Kyle shared. When we don’t invite our kids into the narrative of our changing lives, they start to internalize confusion or draw their own (often distorted) conclusions. Stability, then, isn’t the absence of movement. It’s the presence of connection as the movement unfolds.
Insight #2: Identity Can Outlast Instability
Many solo parents carry the fear that major life transitions—divorce, death, relocation—will define their children. But Kyle brings a powerful reminder: our kids are not the sum of their circumstances.
“Being the child of divorced parents isn’t an identity,” he explains. “It’s part of their story, not who they are.” That distinction matters deeply. Especially when we’re tempted to overcompensate or shield them from the world out of our own pain.
Kyle offers practical ways to affirm identity: name the character you see in them. “You’re so kind.” “You’re brave.” “You’re thoughtful.” These aren’t just compliments—they’re anchors. And when we provide opportunities for our kids to engage in esteemable actions (helping someone, using their talents, serving others), we give them the tools to build their own sense of worth from the inside out.
Insight #3: Regulate Yourself, Then Walk with Them
This one hit close to home: “Don’t send your kids to me—go to therapy yourself.”
It’s a hard truth. Often, the fear we project onto our kids during change is just that—ours. Kyle reminds us that unresolved pain in the parent becomes uncertainty in the child. “If you’re okay, they’ll probably be okay,” he says. But being okay doesn’t mean being perfect. It means doing the work to stay steady enough that your sadness, your grief, even your anxiety isn’t destabilizing.
There’s a big difference between being honest and being ungrounded. “You can be sad and stable. Angry and stable. Honest and still safe.” That’s what our kids need to see. And when we mess up—and we will—the good news is we can always go back, revisit, and repair. Kids are incredibly gracious when we own our missteps and circle back in love.
Listener Question
“The last time I saw my child’s father was in court when I was five months pregnant. They’ve never met. It hurts to see my child noticing other fathers, and I know the questions are coming. How or when do I start that conversation?”
Kyle’s advice: Start clumsy. Just start. There’s no perfect script. But curiosity is your best friend here.
Instead of rushing into a long explanation or defending the absence, try stepping in with wonder:
“I wonder what you think about that…”
“I wonder what it’s like seeing other families that look different from ours…”
Let it be a conversation, not a lecture. And let your child lead with their thoughts and feelings, not yours. It’s okay to be messy. They don’t need perfect. They need you—open, available, and willing to walk with them.
Parenting through change is hard. But you don’t have to do it perfectly to do it well.
What your kids need most is you—present, connected, and doing the work of your own healing. And the truth is, they might just be more resilient than you think.
