Future Smart Parent

About This Episode I have a friend whose teenage daughter has a support dog. I've watched that dog quietly and consistently support a young person navigating a world that wasn't always built for her. And I'll be honest, I've probably rolled my eyes at the idea before. But then I saw it. And I thought, who's the one who should be rolling their eyes now? That's really where this conversation begins,...

About This Episode I'll be honest - I found today's guest because of a conference theme. And I know that sounds like a strange place to start, but when the theme is "Let's Meet Under the Tree," you just have to stop, don't you? That's what happened when I came across the Embrace Symposium, happening at St Benedict's College in Johannesburg this month. And it led me straight to Tebogo Maneli - hist...

In today’s episode, we dive into the exciting world of AI in education with global futurist Graeme Codrington and the team at Future Smart Teacher. Graeme shares valuable insights on how AI tools, particularly ChatGPT, can serve as powerful assistants in teaching, helping educators enhance their workflow, engage students in new ways, and save valuable time—all while preparing for a tech-driven fut...

Episode Summary: In this episode, Jude chats with music therapist Graeme Sacks about what music therapy is, how it encourages growth, self-expression and healing through music and how this might impact parents and their kids today! Graeme challenges the notion that music should be something we add competition to, especially because of how that pressure can often lead children away from music and s...

Episode Summary: In this episode of the Future Smart Parent Podcast, Jude chats to Vanessa Raphaely, co-author of "We Were Perfect Parents Until We Had Children" and founder of The Village, a community of diverse, imperfect parents in South Africa. Vanessa and Jude talk about the principles of The Village - community support, kindness, respect and constructiveness and chat about the ways...

In this episode Jude chats with Dr. Michael Mol about the invisible labour that oftens lands on the shoulders of moms. The fact that women are typically taking on more of the labour of childcare, organising the home and housekeeping, often in addition to their ‘actual’ jobs is a sad reality.  The burnout that so many moms experience should not be the norm. And so in this conversation Michael and J...

Helen Nicholson is the Founder and CEO of The Networking Company. She specialises in speaking and teaching people to develop powerful personal brands and networks all over the world. Her work in Mindful Resilience has helped thousands of individuals overcome burnout. She has also written a best selling book “Mindfulness: How to Stay Sane in an Insane World”. In this episode, Helen and Jude discuss...

In this episode of the Future Smart Parent podcast, Jude chats with Tarryn who is the creator of a life-changing ADHD system designed for overwhelmed and frustrated parents who want smoother days, less chaos and to see their ADHD kids thrive. Tarryn is an Occupational Therapist and a mom to a daughter with ADHD so is able to help through both her professional and personal experiences. This was a v...

In this episode, Jude speaks with parenting coach, Lelia Schott, about engaging with our teenagers - a time often accompanieed with many emotions (from both teens and parents), boundaries being pushed, connection sometimes being tested, but also a time where our teens need these deep connections with both their peers, and their families - the family being the safe harbour that it provides through...

In this episode Jude speaks with Natalie Meerholz, the headmistress of Holy Rosary Primary School, who started this campaign where many students pledged to go ‘phone-free’ for 40 days.  The campaign was about calling for the delay of smartphone ownership in children "in a bid to restore a play-based childhood and to protect the mental health and well-being of its learners." We know that...

In this week’s episode, Jude chats with Buhle Dlamini, author of Unleashing Your Greatness . They chat about how to raise greatness and nurturing potential in our kids. Buhle Dlamini discusses his concept of unleashing your true potential, your greatness and specifically how this can impact our parenting. We all possess untapped potential, and this is your guide to help your kids harness their pot...

Episode Summary: Mandy is passionate about supporting parents, teachers and schools on their journey to develop safe, connected and problem solving environments for children to thrive. Academics aren’t enough! We need to equip ourselves with tools to teach children missing skills through Social Emotional Learning. In this episode, Mandy and Jude discuss what social emotional learning actually mean...

Episode Summary:  In this episode, Jude talks with Naomi Holdt, author, mom and child psychologist, all about her new book Bounce: How to Raise Resilient Kids and Teens. This book is so important and we encourage you to read it - if nothing else it will remind you, as a parent, that you are not alone. Bounce will help you tackle this messy and beautiful journey of life and parenting in a very huma...

This week Jude chats with Graeme Codrington, global futurist and co-founder of the Future Smart Parent Club. Graeme specialises in the future of work and in this episode, we specifically talk about a job of the future. We discuss prompt engineering and how it might be a career path for our kids in the future. Prompt engineering does mean we should teach our kids how to use AI, how to think differe...

Today, I’m thrilled to talk with Cheryl Williams, an exceptional STEAM Based Learning Educator.  With a teaching journey that began in 2000, Cheryl has gained invaluable experiences in various grades and leadership roles - however, her true passion lies in the Edtech world, where she has been wholeheartedly dedicated for the past decade. Cheryl's days are immersed in the world of technology,...

Today I got to speak with Rebekah Clark from Happy Marlo. Happy Marlo is an organization dedicated to helping children build skills for dealing with their emotions and being empowered to find their calm space. While these tools and resources are designed specifically for 3 to 11 year olds, the holistic approaches to emotional well-being can, and should, also apply to the parents, guardians and car...

Today we’re talking about tech habits - specifically tech habits for families because I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly difficult to break some of my own bad tech habits.  Yes, I'm also acutely aware of the saying that goes 'More is caught than taught' and so I'm acutely aware that I need to try a little harder!   For example, I know I sleep so much better when I...

Zanele has built her profile as one of Africa’s brightest organisational change & learning influencers. She’s known to her clients as 'The UnLearning Lady', and is a global leading voice on using key unlearning principles to help companies build cultures that support change & transformation. She’s worked with companies such as Visa, Coca-Cola, The South African Reserve Bank, Delo...

Sextortion might sound like the name of a really bad movie, but in fact it’s a lot more serious than that and it’s affecting all of our kids online.  Essentially “sextortion” is a crime, classified as cyber extortion under the South African cyber laws, and occurs when predators blackmail our children into sending them sexual or nude pictures and videos. This is obviously child pornography, which i...

Today I spoke with Melanie Williams, who is a psychometrist and careers expert. She used to teach high school English and Life Orientation and now works with high school students on looking beyond high school and preparing for life in the real world. In this episode, we discuss:  The benefits of school leavers taking a gap year Is a gap year for everyone? Who should take a gap year?  Melanie is th...

In this episode, I chatted with Christy Herselman from The Chat. We spoke about the changing gender landscape, and what this means for both our children, and for us parents as we all try to navigate and understand this phenomenon that's unfolding so quickly.  We spoke about the massive rise in transgender and nonbinary teens, and touched on how the world got here. I think what I loved the mos...

Episode Summary: Today I spoke with Dr Beulah van der Westhuizen, who is a specialist in neuro-development, education and the founder of EduExcellence.  In this episode, we discussed the education system, and where traditional schooling stems from and how it functions. The institutionalisation of schooling first appeared during the Industrial Revolution, when children needed to be somewhere while...

In today’s episode I spoke with Naomi Holdt, who is an educational psychologist, speaker, author and a mom. We spoke about many different things regarding EQ, including what it really means to develop emotional intelligence in our kids, the importance of EQ over IQ and how to truly value our children’s emotions. Emotions are so important in our lives! They inform so much about who we are and how w...

In today’s episode, I talked with my colleagues, and fathers themselves, Buhle Dlamini, global speaker and expert on why Diversity and Inclusion are essential in business, and Graeme Codrington, an expert on the Future of Work and author of the book “Future Proof Your Child” For this episode, we turned the focus away from business and onto our children. We discussed the importance of diversity and...

In this episode, I speak with Donna McCallum, aka the Fairy Godmother, who teaches us about money and magic, and how as parents, perhaps we have some mindsets to shift that we haven't realised yet! Donna is running a workshop on March 17th with Meike Lovemore, called MoneyWise Kids, which will walk parents through good money habits that they can teach their children, including practical tools...