Become A Calm Mama

Today’s episode is a collaboration with my friend, Jennifer Delliquadri, and her podcast Raising Happy Teens . We’re diving into the concept of social engineering in parenting and the urge we often feel to shield our kids from discomfort and keep them on the “right” path. My guest, Jennifer Delliquadri, is a life coach for teenagers and their parents. With over 14 years of experience working as a...

Cold and flu season is here, and it’s just a reality that kids get sick a lot (which can be really stressful for parents). Today, I’ll help you manage when kids are sick at home.  While taking care of sick kids is a part of parenting, it is also a big disruption to your life. And if they’re not sleeping well, it can be pretty exhausting, too. In this episode, I’m sharing ways to manage your m...

I admit, I’m a little obsessed with the Enneagram. And, of course, I’m also obsessed with tools that can help you in parenting. Today, we’re combining the two (along with some expert advice) on parenting  with  the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality test that explains how we react to and relate with the world. In this episode, my guest TJ will share a little bit about the Enn...

Today on Become A Calm Mama, we’re diving deep into the topic of bullying. Bullying can be a difficult and painful experience for kids and parents alike. None of us want our kids to be the bully, and we also don’t want them to be bullied.  Today, I’ll describe what bullying actually is (and what it is not) and help you learn to spot the risk factors and signs that your kid is being bullied or...

Understanding ADHD in kids and how to best support them can be pretty overwhelming (I know from experience), so today I’m so excited to have an expert here with me to help you through it!  Lainie Donnell is an educational therapist, a college counselor, and the cofounder of Lila Learning. For the past 16 years, Lainie has been in private practice as an educational therapist and college counse...

Today (for the first time ever!) I’ve invited a couple of mamas onto the podcast to tell their stories of taking the Emotionally Healthy Kids parenting class.  I am so excited for you to hear straight from other moms who have been exactly where you might be right now. They’ll tell you all about why they signed up, their experience in the class and the impact it had on their parenting and beyo...

Whether you call it a tantrum, meltdown or big feeling cycle, I think we can agree that these moments are overwhelming and stressful (for you and your kid). On today’s episode, we’re talking about what to do during a meltdown and the steps to co-regulation, which allows you to calm yourself and your kid at the same time. If you're like most parents, you've had moments when your kid hits their sibl...

This is the podcast where you learn how to become a calm parent and raise emotionally healthy kids, but what do emotional health and emotional regulation actually mean? Today I’m sharing a framework from the book, “What Happened To You?” and outlining the 3 Rs of emotional regulation.  You can start using these simple concepts right away to help calm yourself and coach your kid when they’re h...

What’s going on in the adolescent brain? SO much! Between ages 12 and 24 (give or take a year or two), the brain goes through a major remodel.  Last week , I talked about how puberty is triggered by changes in hormone levels. Today, we’re diving into another process happening within the adolescent brain called pruning. I’ll help you understand the brain science behind what’s happening, why pr...

Today we’re talking about puberty. If you have a tween or teen (or even a slightly younger kid), this episode is going to be so helpful. Our kids go through a lot of changes during puberty, so I’m helping you to understand what is actually going on in their bodies and with their hormones and how you can support your child through it all.  What Is Puberty? Puberty is the name that we give to t...

Today, we’re talking about having better conversations with your teens and tweens. How can you continue to feel connected to your kid during this time when it’s so easy to drift apart? I know that you don’t want your relationship to be adversarial and to feel really disconnected, but this often happens in the middle school and high school years.  You end up talking about school, chores, grade...

What does “success” really look like in parenting? What is the end goal? What are we doing all this for? In this episode, I’m debriefing a huge step in my parenting journey and sharing two keys that have shaped my experience as a parent and my relationship with my kids.  Yesterday I dropped off my oldest son for his first year of college – and transitioned him one step further on his journey...

As we gear up for a new school year, I’m sharing some of my own tried-and-true routines and rhythms for simplifying your daily life. We’re talking mornings, afternoons, dinnertime and more, with tips geared toward families with elementary and middle school age kids.  You’ll hear tips that worked for our family, why I made those decisions and how they helped me to establish a peaceful and easy...

Today, I want to introduce you to (or bring you deeper into) the transformative world of inner child work. By soothing and addressing the pain and unmet needs from our own childhoods, we can discover profound healing and self-compassion.  I’ll walk you through some simple exercises you can try to be kinder to yourself and explore how the concept of your child's inner child can help you bring...

The new school year is starting soon, and I want you to be ready! In this episode, I’m sharing my back to school checklist - not for school supplies and new clothes, but to set you up for more peace this school year.  I hope this will help you to feel like the leader in your life and give you more room in your life for fun, ease and joy. Your Back To School Checklist This is my 3-step process...

We hear a lot of names for parenting philosophies (e.g. gentle parenting, positive parenting, compassionate parenting), that all share the same foundation of compassion and connection. Today, I’m sharing the concept of therapeutic parenting - what it is and how it relates to the parenting style I now teach to moms like you. I first heard the term “therapeutic parenting” when I was really strugglin...

I see a lot of moms burnout by the end of the summer, and while this episode isn’t specifically about burnout, it is about our capacity as parents and what to do when you’re too tired to deal with what’s going on with your kids. As humans, we have limited capacity. Think of it like a 2-liter bottle. When the bottle is full, there isn’t capacity to add anything else to it. If it’s only half full, t...

It’s summer - kids are off school, they’re spending more time together and you’re probably seeing a lot more sibling squabbles and fights.  And it’s frustrating, right? You spend all this time thinking of fun activities and outings, you do the planning and prepping. Then, when you get them to the location, they’re fighting, arguing and bickering.  I know that this is a problem for most p...

We’re a few weeks into summer, and you might be starting to feel like you’re in the doldrums. If you’ve been feeling frustrated, disappointed or sad that your summer isn’t going quite the way you hoped it would, this is the episode for you. I’m talking about how to do a summer reset and get things back on track. Why Your Summer Sucks We have a lot of ideas about what summer will be like, and then...

Traveling with kids can feel more like a business trip than a vacation sometimes. You get excited for a break and a change of scenery, but you’re not necessarily off duty when it comes to parenting. In this episode, I’m sharing why vacation feels like so much work sometimes and my top 5 tips for vacationing with kids. Why Is It So Hard? Your Expectations Often, when we plan a trip, we think of it...

There is a trend in families right now to be more compassionate with their kids. I love it. But compassion is not the same as permission. There’s a big difference, and the two approaches create different results.  In this episode I’ll explain the difference between compassion and permission in parenting, why you might find yourself slipping into permissive parenting and how to get out of that...

This episode is coming out on the day of my oldest son’s high school graduation. I’ve been thinking, writing and feeling a LOT of feelings lately.  And some of what came out was a poem that I’d like to share with you, titled A Very Long Goodbye. You can hear it in the episode or read it on the blog . My son is about to arrive at the threshold. We’ve been walking this path together for a reall...

“Fix it, change it, stop it, solve it” is a phrase I use often in my coaching. When you say it out loud, it captures that feeling we have as parents when our kids behave in a way that leaves us feeling overwhelmed, angry or worried.  It’s an emotional and physical response to what our kids are doing, and our brain jumps in and tries to fix, change, stop or solve the situation. Your Kid’s Big...

We don’t often talk about fun ways of improving behavior, but today’s episode will give you some strategies to do just that. I’m talking all about how to be a more playful parent so that you actually enjoy your kids more. We also all want to feel connected and create joyful memories with our kids.  The moments we remember most are the ones that were emotionally charged. The memories aren’t ab...

On this episode of Become A Calm Mama, we’re going beyond the problems with modern motherhood from last week’s episode and into the details of parenting on your own terms.  There is a lot of pressure to fit into society’s expectations, but the way we’re told to measure performance in motherhood can actually be harmful to our kids and to us as moms.  The goal isn’t to “perform” as a mom o...