Blended & SHOOK

Raising teens ain’t easy. In this episode we discuss our personal experience with our teen daughter and what it has been like for Brandon being catapulted into this responsibility. I think we can all agree the teen years are quite a challenge, so we’re going to talk specifics of some of the adversities we personally face and let you all know how things are going so far.

The fact remains, we are not professionals in any capacity; just a happily married couple hoping to foster a support system for families in similar walks of life by opening up a dialogue regarding love, spirituality, parenting, marriage, sexuality, struggles, and anything else we encounter along the way recruiting the help and advice of other couples, specialists, counselors, mentors, and even our very own 4 kids. THIS could get interesting!

Today on Blended & SHOOK we dissect one of the time-honored tools for maintaining healthy relationships: communication. We’re opening up about our childhoods, lessons learned, and the progress we’re making to speak and listen to one another in loving ways, even when we don’t feel so loving.

The fact remains, we are not professionals in any capacity; just a happily married couple hoping to foster a support system for families in similar walks of life by opening up a dialogue regarding love, spirituality, parenting, marriage, sexuality, struggles, and anything else we encounter along the way recruiting the help and advice of other couples, specialists, counselors, mentors, and even our very own 4 kids. THIS could get interesting!

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Welcome to Blended & SHOOK, the podcast centered around blended families of all kinds.

A couple who met online and whose relationship progressed quite quickly, (thank you, Covid catalyst), the Churches are coming up on their first year of marriage. The family consists of the couple in their mid-30s, a daughter from Brandon’s previous marriage, and 3 bi-racial children from Kayla’s previous marriage.

In this premier episode newlyweds Brandon and Kayla Church scratch the surface of their own family dynamic and their vision for this very podcast.

In future episodes listeners can look forward to discussions covering all things marriage and family, including the merging of families of all kinds, whether it be a step-parent relationship, adoption, meshing with extended family members, or whatever, we want to talk more about it.

The fact remains, we are not professionals in any capacity; just a happily married couple hoping to foster a support system for families in similar walks of life by opening up a dialogue regarding love, spirituality, parenting, marriage, sexuality, struggles, and anything else we encounter along the way recruiting the help and advice of other couples, specialists, counselors, mentors, and even our very own 4 kids. THIS could get interesting!

Join our email list in order to be first to know about future episodes!

On this episode we unpack some @matthiasjbarker tiktok videos about the importance of being direct with your partner & children, why we need to be picking fights, & how you may actually be coming across to others when trying to sugar-coat your requests.

Brandon opens up about the exact moment he realized he was a condescending prick and how that realization has changed the way he speaks to others.

When the couple shifts gears to talk about the transition from survival mode to thrive mode Kayla is confronted about her frugal ways, such as methodically measuring out tin foil and saving every unused centimeter for later use.