Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis

What can a ballerina, an inventor, a pediatric psychologist, a First Lady, and three generations of moms teach us about parenting?  As Season 8 comes to a close, Carol revisits some of the many conversations offering memorable answers. Misty Copeland, Dr. Marian Croak, Maryland’s First Lady Dawn Moore, and the moms of On the Ground were among the many guests who shared their stories and practical...

What helps a child walk into an unfamiliar room and believe they belong there? For Jen Hayes Lee, it has always been a pair of golden hoop earrings. In this GCP Book Talk, Jen joins Carol to discuss her debut children’s book, The Golden Hoops, inspired by the first pair she received from her mother. Jen is head of marketing at The Bump, founder of Bestow Collection, host of the No Guide for This p...

Dr. Marian Croak is one of the most influential inventors of our time. With more than 200 patents, she helped develop Voice over Internet Protocol, the technology that makes Zoom, FaceTime, and WhatsApp possible. She has transformed the way people around the world communicate. Dr. Croak joins Carol for a deeply personal conversation about parenting, including how her parents turned a frightening c...

Madam C.J. Walker built a groundbreaking business and created opportunities for thousands of Black women. She also raised a daughter, A’Lelia Walker, whom she loved fiercely and tried hard to protect. Sometimes that protection felt like pressure. In this GCP Book Talk, Carol talks with award-winning journalist A’Lelia Bundles about her book,  Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance...

What happens when you throw a shower for parents?  At the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha's Vineyard, parents at various stages of the journey spent an afternoon being informed, inspired, and celebrated. In this special episode, Carol goes behind the scenes at the Shower, describing how the afternoon was built around four issues that matter deeply to GCP families, and sharing some of the...

How do you raise children who are confident in who they are, especially when they are growing up in a world very different from the one you grew up in? Recorded live at the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha’s Vineyard, Carol sits down with CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip and Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor and author Courtney B. Vance for an intergenerational conversation about the va...

Periods. Sex. Fertility. Perimenopause. Menopause. There’s a lot we wish someone had told us about sooner. How do we do better with the next generation?  Carol welcomes back Dr. Sharon Malone, acclaimed OB-GYN and author of Grown Woman Talk, for a frank and funny conversation about women’s hormonal health from puberty through menopause. Dr. Sharon shares what we need to tell our daughters and what...

Every parent has had the moment. Your child seems permanently attached to their phone, and you wonder how to balance protecting them, trusting them, and preparing them for a world that is becoming more digital by the day. In this episode of GCP On the Ground, Carol Sutton Lewis is joined by panelists Jen Hayes Lee and Keisha Sutton-James for an honest conversation about raising children in the age...

Grace Bastidas has spent her career finding the parenting stories that mainstream media tends to miss: first as the founder of a multicultural parenting brand for Latinx caregivers, then as the first woman of color to lead Parents in its hundred-year history, and now as the writer behind The Mommune , a substack about the realities of motherhood. In this GCP Book Talk, Grace returns to the podcast...

So many of us are parenting through a fog of uncertainty right now—war, economic strain, and headlines that can make the future feel more frightening than hopeful. This week, Carol sits down with Stanford professor and futurist Dr. Maisha T. Winn to ask a question many parents want to know: How do we raise children who can imagine a future worth building? Maisha's answer reaches back to her own ch...

Our kids are growing up as AI natives, and most of us are still playing catch-up. Carol talks with two leading voices from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning about what it really means to raise informed, grounded kids in an AI world. Victor Lee, faculty lead for AI and education at the Accelerator, starts simply: AI is a tool, not magic, and parents don't need to panic, they just need to get in...

Talking to our kids about money is never just about dollars and cents. It brings up our values, our fears, our own childhood experiences, and sometimes even our regrets. In this On the Ground episode, Carol is joined by co-hosts Keisha Sutton-James and Jen Hays Lee for an honest conversation about raising money-smart kids. They talk about building generational wealth while carrying the fear of bac...

You've decided to get a divorce. Now what? When do you tell the kids? How much do you share? What do you say about the other parent? And what if you're already worried you'll get it all wrong? Divorce is one of the most common experiences families go through, and also one of the hardest to talk about with our kids. In this episode Carol sits down with pediatric psychologist and parent coach Dr. An...

How do you raise a child who wants to read? Award-winning educator Alvin Irby has a simple answer, and he found it in a barbershop.  In this episode, Carol talks with the founder of Barbershop Books , the national nonprofit that places books in barbershops and inspires Black boys to read for fun. Alvin's approach: ask Black boys what they like to read, then give them those books. He explains why t...

What can sisterhood teach us about raising children? In the first episode of Ground Control Parenting Book Talk, Carol explores this question with award-winning journalist Deborah Roberts, author of Sisters, Loved and Treasured: Stories of Unbreakable Bonds . One of six sisters, Deborah draws on both her own family and the many women she interviewed to share the honest, sometimes complicated truth...

Boomer, Gen X, Millennial. Three moms, three generations, one question that divides mom group chats: how do you discipline in the age of gentle parenting? In this episode of  GCP: On The Ground, Carol sits down with Keisha and Jen to wrestle with the parenting issue so many of us are living through right now. They move from the research linking spanking to worse outcomes, onto the harder question...

What does it mean to raise children when your family's life is a matter of public record? Maryland's First Lady Dawn Moore knows that tension intimately,  and she's navigating it with clarity, humor, and grace. First Lady Dawn Moore was one of the architects of the historic 2022 campaign that elected her husband, Wes Moore, as Maryland's 63rd governor and the first African American governor in the...

How much screen time is too much? Are some types better than others? And how should our approach change as kids grow from toddlers to teens? This week, Carol sits down with Jasmine Hood Miller, Director of Family Resources and Content Strategy at Common Sense Media and a mom of three boys, to reset the entire screen time conversation. Jasmine's research-backed message: the timer is the wrong measu...

We’re trying something new this season —  and we couldn't have picked a more important topic to start with. Welcome to the debut episode of GCP: On The Ground , a new recurring segment where Carol gathers three generations of moms to dig into the issues we're all talking about (or should be) at the kitchen table. These days your kids' phones may know more about them than you do.  So for this first...

Misty Copeland returns to Ground Control Parenting, and a lot has changed since her last visit. She's taken her final bow with American Ballet Theatre. She's come through a hip replacement. And she's parenting her young son Jackson (who “stole the show” when he joined her on stage at her final performance) while figuring out her next chapter now that ballet is no longer the center of the frame. In...

Season 8 of Ground Control Parenting starts May 13th—and this is our biggest, boldest season yet. This season, we’re bringing you conversations from every angle. You’ll hear from experts, thought leaders, and parents who are tackling big questions: how to help our kids navigate their digital lives, how to support children through divorce, what it means to parent with a futurist mindset in a rapidl...

As Season 7 of Ground Control Parenting comes to a close, join Carol as she hits rewind to reflect on the powerful insights shared by parenting experts and thought leaders across a range of fields. This season, the conversations went beyond what we can do to help and support our children and focused on the how. Carol spoke with leading experts about what it really means to parent with purpose and...

Grace Bastidas knows what families need—because she’s spent her career listening to them. As the founding editor of Parents Latina and the (recently stepped-down) editor-in-chief of Parents—the first woman of color to hold that role in the brand’s 100-year history—Grace has spent years talking to experts, amplifying parent voices, and shaping how we think about raising kids today. Grace joins Caro...

In this powerful episode from the Ground Control Parenting archives, Carol sits down with renowned civil rights leader and legal scholar Sherrilyn Ifill for a deeply meaningful conversation about what it means to parent during times of uncertainty and division. Sherrilyn shares how we can help our children navigate a world filled with misinformation, stay rooted in truth, and build resilience by s...

Why is giving birth still so dangerous for Black women in America? Dr. Uché Blackstock—physician, mother, and bestselling author—returns to the podcast to talk with Carol about the Black maternal health crisis. The U.S. maternal mortality rate is significantly higher than in other high-income countries, and within the U.S., the rate is by far the highest for Black women.  Black mothers are still t...