Being there for your kids - Is Being the Strong One Working for You?

Episode Date: July 4, 2026

Being strong emotionally in relationships is mostly a blessing to both you and your partner, until it isn't. If you are the one always doing the right thing, always putting your partner ahead of yourself, always giving in, then that's not strength. That's sacrifice, but not the healthy kind. The curse of being strong becomes a blessing when you set healthy boundaries, balance self-care with other-care, divide up responsibilities and delegate. Find out more about turning this relational curse into a blessing in my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Buy your copy on amazonbooks.com. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ Blessings, Dr. Jon

I'm Dr. John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. I want to talk with you today about being strong all the time. Is that a curse or a blessing? We live in a world where strength is considered an asset. We are able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, as Superman used to say. We are there for you, as one might say to an intimate partner. We get projects finished on time or even early, never missing a beat. So is being strong a blessing?

Probably, especially for those around the strong. one. But the kicker is when you feel like you have to be strong all the time. Blessing, not so much. It takes superhuman energy, direction, and focus to always be there for others. No downtime allowed. The frustration becomes, when do I get to be there for me? When I was 12 years old, my then 17-year-old brother Carl had an accident that resulted in his body paralysis from the neck down. He became a quadriplegic. It was a gymnastics accident. I remember going to the school with my dad and finding him contorted on the floor in the hall where they had been practicing their routines. Sometime later, during his adjustment, and after Carl returned home from months of hospitalization

and rehabilitation, my folks pulled me aside and told me that they were going to have to tend to my brother much more, but they also wanted me to have, quote, a normal adolescence, implying that I would not be a part of that process. than feeling relieved, I felt disconnected, set apart. Well, that didn't go well and probably set in motion my path into clinical psychology. I became my brother's living physical therapist and confidant. Years later, after soldiering on meticulously, my mom sat with me and teared up. That was not like her at all. We talked about her care for Carl and the time and effort she put into that to get it all done. She admitted to being exhausted and worn down, but not

having the time to relax. Her conclusion, why do I always have to be the strong one? I held her and let her cry. Talk about role reversal. Now I know that her sheer exhaustion in the moment wasn't about being strong. It was about boundaries, about balancing other care with self-care, and about giving yourself the right to self-care, and knowing that your replenishment of self actually is the foundation for being strong for others. The curse of being strong, quote, all the time becomes a blessing with healthy boundaries, taking many breaks, scheduling occasional time off,

and delegating appropriately. In my new book, The Healing Journey, overcoming adversity on the paths of the good life, I share with you this and other examples of setting healthy boundaries, balancing self-care and other care, and being emotionally strong in healthy relationships. Find your copy on AmazonBooks.com.

If my comments stir questions of your own, contact me through my website at www. Thereformykidst.com or email me at John Robinson 0.0.000 at bell south.net. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist and author of Teachable Moments Building Blocks of Christian Parenting and my new book, The Healing Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Blessings, Dr. John. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, is a very important. available online at amazonbooks.com and in local and national bookstores more on dr robinson at t m c pinc dot com