Connected Parenting

Today I have a really unique episode planned with my daughter Zoe. Just in time for the return to school, schedules and keeping everyone on track we are doing a deep dive into the CALM technique. We're going to roleplay and act out some ridiculous things that can happen in our homes and show what the before and after using the CALM technique looks like. If you haven't already listened to my early...

Kids and teenagers exist in time, which means they're almost never outside of time. When you're in time you care about what's happening in front of you and the part of the brain that actually thinks about where you are relative to time is just either not there or not yet developed. This means when our kids are eating their cereal, playing on their iPad or with their Lego in the morning thinking th...

Irrelevant behaviors is something that can be common all the way through childhood and even to into the teenage years. Irrelevant behaviors are the hooting, screaming, shrieking, singing silly songs, doing crazy dances sort of behaviors that really there's no purpose for. They are more like a discharge of energy as if the battery's overcharged and needs a way to get that extra energy out. Often th...

For some kids their anxiety and nerves pick up two or three weeks before school even starts. They really start to get anxious about going back to school. They wonder who is my teacher going to be? Who's going to be my class? Am I going to be able to do the work? Am I going to be able to do what a grade six or a grade five does. For high school kids, it's a huge transition, going from middle school...

Parenting is probably the hardest job we will ever do. Between trying to work, run a household, deal with finances, handle homework, get everyone to bed and be the frontal lobes for the entire house, it can be utterly exhausting. Having said that, even when we are run off our feet, frustrated and worn out we still have to be aware and accountable of how we are speaking to our kids. Not only is thi...

When it comes to money children are very literal. So if we say something like; "We can't do that because we don't have enough money" they think, oh my goodness we don't have enough money. This line of thinking starts them on a money path of scarcity. A belief that there is never enough to go around. It is a belief that carries on into adulthood and quickly becomes a story that we have to try and c...

When it comes to living in a household with members of your family there are always what I like to call the "Must Do's and Can Do's" of life. These include all the things that a family does both together and or separately. The can do's include chosen activities and commitments. Is it something I really want to do? Whereas the must do's are the things that we all take part in as a set rule of each...

Sometimes we worry so much about our children, about how they're doing personally and socially that we come at them from this place of fear for the level of pain they may be in. What we don't realize is that our fear based approach is often activating the very things that concern us and end up taking them into that space where they were previously doing okay. So how do we as parents regulate our a...

I feel like summer is the best time to be a connected parent because it's the time where you are less busy. Usually, there's more vacations, or at least some of the major things that kids are doing during the year have slowed down or stopped and there’s time to connect and regroup. Overall it's a time to really slow down, enjoy life and each other. For this reason I like to make summer all about m...

So this is actually probably the biggest childhood transition that there is. It's a really interesting transition because once kids get to high school, it's something that's very present in their mind. Moving onto the next stage is talked about a lot with parents and teachers. Talks around what marks are needed to get into college and what requirements need to be fulfilled. There's this big thing...

Picture this; you're playing a board game, everything's going fine when all of a sudden your child pulls the wrong card or their sibling does well in the game and the tides turn. Your once happy, family fun night has now become loud, angry, and out of control. You hear; "This game is cheap, I hate this game!" and then sometimes things go even further; the board gets flipped and they stomp away rea...

There is often a lot of talk about moms and what moms struggle with but there's not as much information out there to support dads. For this reason today on the podcast I am talking to my husband Barrett about his 15 years experience with "Connected Parenting". He shares some of the concerns and questions that dads are coming to us with and how we help them figure out solutions to their struggles....

Today I want to talk about what to do when our child's best friend moves, or goes to another school. Or worse yet, when there is a friendship breakup. This is a really hard situation to process because as parents we want to step in and keep our children from feeling heartbreak. But one of the things to remember is all of these things that happen, specifically when it comes to changes and transitio...

What's really happening when kids don't want to get into bed at bedtime? Are they just being difficult; intent on ruining our night, time and time again? The truth is that for many kids, especially gladiator kids, bedtime is usually a time where they lie in bed and think about all the things they did that day that weren't so great. All the things they said that might have hurt your feelings or whe...

Today I want to talk about connecting with your kids even if you are busy parents. This is a topic that comes up a lot; you have a very busy job, a huge project you're working on, or maybe you travel a lot for work, whatever it is parents often feel a lot of guilt and worry around whether or not they are connecting enough to their kids. I would suggest that the amount of time spent does not matter...

I hear this so often from parents that I work with regarding their kids; often gladiator and ADHD kids who fixate on something that they just have to have. They will beg and badger until the adult is completely worn down, exhausted and gives in. Over time, the rewarding of that pattern is actually laying down neural pathways in the brain that cause that brain to know “Oh, I have to escalate, I hav...

Today I am joined again by Natalie and we are talking about the continuum between love and fear. Human beings really only have two emotions, love and fear. Although we don't always know in our bodies when it's fear because at some point, they blend together and it can get really confusing. Many parents think they are parenting from a place of love but when they dig through the layers, they're actu...

As a child and family therapist, I'm becoming increasingly concerned with children's irritability. They're almost living in addictive behavior with a; "Get out of my way I need this" mentality where they are sacrificing, playing outside, being creative, or working on homework so they can get back to their games or onto their favourite social platform. They are getting hysterically upset when the g...

If you are the parent of a child that is struggling it can be devastating and traumatic. Join me as to hear my tips for managing hard days.

Today, Blake Schofield welcomes me to her show "The Bridge to Fulfillment" where I share powerful insights and real-life examples of challenges that every parent is struggling with.

On today’s episode I am joined by my daughter Zoe who does pediatric creative, fun, playful work with children teaching them how to control their emotions so they don’t control them.

Today I am on "What The Parent" podcast with PJ and Cara - Listen in to hear me share how to approach prickly teens with love, intention, and most importantly ruthless compassion. 

We love our kids like crazy, but sometimes we don't like them. In fact, a lot of the time we don't like them, if they're a gladiator and being really difficult, challenging and aggressive and we're not supposed to talk about that.

Join me for this week's episode to hear the facts about anger and what we as parents can do to help ourselves while also teaching our children what it looks like to manage anger when it rears its ugly head.

There are four different types of lying that we, parents need to be aware of. Join me on this week’s episode to learn why teens lie and what we can do should it come up in our household.