Love Loudly: Lessons in Family Crisis, Communication, and Hope

Love Loudly is an award-winning finalist in the Parenting & Family category of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News.

“My kid won’t listen to me,” parents complain to L.A. County Deputy Sheriff, Mark Cripe. But Cripe knows better. For over fourteen years, Cripe has helped troubled youth and their parents learn new ways to communicate and repair long-damaged relationships.

Kids do listen to their parents, Mark says, but too often, what kids hear is the parents’ frustration and anger, not what those emotions are fueled by: fear. And certainly not what is at the base of most parents’ motivation: love.

It’s not easy being a kid these days. Today’s teenagers navigate a tricky path on the road to adulthood. They face the constant temptations of alcohol, drugs, sex and even affluenza. And with the ability to instantly post an action on social media, one small mistake can get millions of views.

It’s not easy being a parent these days either. We see those landmines and want to warn our kids, help them learn from our experience. But the louder we talk—or yell—and the more frustrated we get, the less they seem to listen.

But maybe there’s a different way.

Mark shares his experiences growing up in a dysfunctional family. With an insider’s view, he takes us to the heart of the child, the one who hears only too keenly the negative comments we intentionally or unwittingly make. As Mark begins his own work with at-risk kids, he realizes certain essential truths that many parents and teachers miss when they are in conflict situations with kids.

Step by step, Mark explains and defines a new way of perceiving our kids’ actions and motivations, and the devastating cost that comes from parents lashing out with anger and frustration, instead of understanding. For parents, teachers, administrators, coaches, neighbors, or anyone who wants to connect with kids, this book provides the blueprint for taking the steps back and forward to ensure kids know that they matter.

If you’re struggling to communicate with your kids, the answer isn’t to talk loudly, it’s to love loudly.

PRAISE FOR LOVE LOUDLY

Sergeant Cripe’s voice is an articulate blend of experience and expertise, culminating in teachable moments for youth advocates and multidisciplinary professionals. Readers will be moved by emotion, leading them to constructive action for children. Love Loudly provides insight into a world where so many adults need to venture so all children are heard and respected. All children deserve to receive Love Loudly and Sergeant Cripe provides us with the critical insight needed to reach children, especially when they appear “unreachable.”
Kathleen Van Antwerp, EdD
Professor of Education and Child and Adolescent Development
Founder, One Circle, Inc. and Knowledge-Based Parenting

This is not a book written by some behavioral PhD or child psychologist looking for more speaking engagements. This is a hard walk through the trenches in the battles we all face as parents. The stories are raw and real, sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes joyful. But if we’re honest, kids and parents are sometimes heartbreaking one moment and joyful the next. Cripe takes us through it all with grace and a humility that is missing from every other treatment on the subject. This is not a parenting book but a memoir from a man who has raised three excellent kids of his own plus hundreds of others through the VIDA program. My only regret is not reading this before raising my own four kids.
Mike Barrett
Author of The Danger Habit (Random House 2007)
CEO of Unosquare

Mark first escaped his dysfunctional and abusive home through backpacking with the local scouting troop, and he left home for good as a seventeen-year-old, enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corp.

After serving in the Marines, Mark went to college to be a marriage counselor but soon developed a desire to work with youth within the faith-based community. This evolved into a focus in education with an emphasis on wilderness experiential education. Mark was a wilderness backcountry guide for several California-based companies working with “at-risk” youth, CEOs, and families. Mark also did a stint as a professional rock climber for Disneyland. Together with his wife (his best friend), Mark backpacked across thirteen countries and was homeless for eight months upon return to the States.

Eventually, Mark found employment with the largest sheriff’s department in the world, in Los Angeles County. It did not take long before his assignments steered him toward delinquency intervention. Mark received the prestigious “Leadership and Communication” award from Toastmaster International, and he has been recognized by the California State Senate, the Governor of California, and the United States Congress for his work in juvenile intervention. His focus has gone from street gangs to child abuse to delinquency intervention. Now in his 24th year as a deputy sheriff, Mark has worked the last fourteen years in juvenile delinquency intervention, where he developed a state-certified Juvenile Intervention Instructors Course that has trained numerous community-based leaders and other law enforcement agencies.

Mark continues to work with families in crisis, focusing on the challenges of parenting and spreading the belief that if we can change the way adults communicate, we will change the way kids behave!