Healthy Parenting Handbook with Katie Kimball

When you yell at your kids, it always works to improve their behavior and your relationship, right? Ha. But what’s a parent at the end of their rope to do? My guest today, Jennifer Kolari, has worked with some of the toughest, most challenging kids out there, and she has the answer: love them. Connect with them . Use the CALM technique so that your kids can truly learn better behavior in a safe en...

I love hearing about homeschoolers who have the space, time, and freedom to really find their passions , and that’s far from the only benefit of homeschooling. My guest today would have told you homeschooling was a crazy option when she first got married, and now she’s a passionate proponent. What changed? You’ll find out in the interview , and I have to say that the Swanson family genesis of home...

My guest today, Dr Morgan Cutlip, is a sought-after relationship expert, but she doesn’t talk down to moms - she’s right in it with us . If you’ve ever had a disagreement with your spouse about who’s doing more than the other in the home, how full your brain is, or whether one of you is angry or just using your “go time” or “business” voice – you need this info. We’ll dig deep into mental load wit...

We will ALL encounter tough situations and hard times in our lives . We will ALL cope with them in some way. But sometimes coping looks like throwing a chair or eat a whole box of cookies. Licensed Mental Health Counselor Janine Halloran joins us today to talk about the kind of coping that is safe and healthy and HOW we can teach those skills to our kids (while also modeling them ourselves). In th...

I call myself a science geek, but my reading and research don’t hold a candle to Pearl and Serene of Trim Healthy Mama , authors of the new book Trim Healthy Wisdom. What I love most about them is that they KEEP learning and aren’t afraid to add to and update their life’s work . When peri-menopause hit and their bodies asked for something different, they did in-depth research and figured it out -...

When Dr. Michael Goran started researching children’s nutrition almost 40 years ago, he wasn’t looking at obesity, type 2 diabetes, or fatty liver disease. That wasn’t because his head was in the sand - those things didn’t exist in kids but now all 3 are becoming prevalent. What is going on??? Time and time again, the research pointed to a surprising cause - excess sugar. In this professorial inte...

Imagine with me… your kids can take over a whole dinner meal and cook it themselves while you get something else done! It’s a dream that has become reality times three for me here at the Kids Cook Real Food™ household. I realized I’ve shared the process we used to gradually release cooking responsibility and teach our kids to cook a whole dinner by themselves many times on other podcasts when I’m...

Did you know the pre-frontal cortex where executive functioning lives doesn’t fully develop until our early 30s??? I still struggle with some executive functioning skills like time management and following a plan, but if I learned anything from this interview, it’s that we ALL can continue to grow, change, and improve . You are not married to your weaknesses! If we can help our kids BEST develop t...

I’ve always said that parenting is “an 18-year-long game,” fully expecting that parenting would markedly diminish after my kids turned 18. Now that I’m parenting a 19-year-old…i t turns out parenting DOES change and it ought to diminish, but it’s still a thing! Kim Muench coaches parents of “emerging adults,” a new term needed to describe 18-30-year-olds who aren’t quite ready to be real adults ,...

I’ve known about proper breathing technique and oral posture for over five years now and I’m STILL doing it wrong if I don’t focus on it! Seriously. Breathing. If you’ve ever thought about your breathing - and most of us don’t because it’s so automatic - you might notice that you feel differently when you breathe differently . Breath drives a LOT of functions, from our mental health (think fast br...

How about some stats to make you sad? Kids are on screens an average of 7 hours a day…and we spend 85% of our parenting energy on what our kids are doing wrong . Aw, man! It stinks to start with the negative . In fact, that will train our brains to see more negative things , which is why I did it. Do you feel more down after reading that? More worried? More hopeless about our kids' generation...

Depression and anxiety are plaguing our children, and stress is often a root cause...what can we do about it? Whether we actually live stressful lives or simply stress ourselves out (or social media plays a role in over-stimulating our amygdala and fight or flight response), there's no doubt in my mind that Americans are experiencing stress, and are not all that great at dealing with it . And...

Imagine if your child was kicked out of daycare for behavior issues , in spite of the fact that you’re making intentional choices as parents. Devastating! But what if the problem wasn’t caused by your child OR your parenting choices? Brandon and Whitney Cawood’s story will break your heart and then give you hope because they found what was hurting their son and were able to remove it from his life...

Want to hear from a naturopath from down under? Jess Donovan, with her lovely Aussie accent, shares all sorts of goodness with us today on the Healthy Parenting Handbook, like: favorite immunity-boosting foods to recommend to busy families the best way to get probiotics integrated into your family common nutrient deficiencies in kids (and what you can do to seek the best balance) food allergy mana...

Have you seen the dad who cleans on Instagram? I don’t know if Tyler Moore, aka Tidy Dad, enjoys that people probably know him that way, but I think it’s accurate! I’ve followed Tyler since the summer of 2022 - but who in the world remembers WHEN they started following someone on Instagram? You’ll hear why that summer was important in Tyler’s career during the interview, and also some little-known...

Ever been asked a question in person, and you replay the conversation over and over, a dozen times , rephrasing your answer? I did that recently, not just rephrasing but adding and rethinking and adding some more . The question was, “ How do you raise such nice boys?? ” I decided it would make a pretty decent podcast episode, exploring my meanderings through intentional parenting and how we’ve bui...

The world keeps getting more and more fast-paced, and our brains and bodies aren’t really keeping up . As moms, can we possibly create a home that is a peaceful space ? My guest today is Jennifer Pepito, author of Habits for a Sacred Home , and we talk about just that, including: Why moms are naturally fearful (and what we can do about it) What exactly IS a “sacred home” and how do we begin creati...

Ever felt like your kids or teens want to do the opposite of what you recommend ? Dr. Mandy Patterson and I are both moms of teens, and we talk today about the perils of parenting and how we work around the resistance . She has some great tips for finding a way “in” to what your kids care about when it comes to health and behavior. Since this is a parenting podcast, I’m guessing most of you have a...

I see a lot on social media about the “mental load” that women especially carry . Meal planning, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, getting kids where they belong on time, making sure they have proper snacks and meals if they won’t be home for dinner, homework, emails from everywhere… It’s a LOT. And a lot of the mental load we home managers carry has to do with FOOD . We gotta keep that family...

Way back when my husband and I were new-ish parents, he read a headline that talked about parents being “bone tired” at the end of the day. For years, we referred to that phrase: “ We’re BONE TIRED. Parents are all BONE TIRED .” (Put a little lilt and emphasis on “bone” and you can hear us in your head now.) As it turns out, Dr. Evan Hirsch would recommend that we stop with those negative thoughts...

Let’s talk money! If you’re feeling stuck living paycheck to paycheck, you’re in the majority here in America - but it doesn’t have to be that way ! Brie Sodano is a nationally recognized Personal Finance Expert, and she does things differently – today we flip some paradigms on their heads and get a peek into Brie’s wisdom and systems for money , including: The ineffectiveness of budgets and the i...

Will sleep become the new kale? Or the new cancer? Adults are shorting themselves on sleep in droves in our "always-on" culture, and I'm unfortunately leading the pack. That's why I begged sleep science coach Christine Hansen to join me for a half hour to get some important tips!! I started implementing a new way to wake up my kids immediately , and I know being a better parent...

Warning - sad statistic. :( The 2nd leading cause of death for kids ages 10-24 in America is...suicide. I'm not okay with this! Let's talk this Depression Awareness Month about prevention - there are research-based strategies that parents can use to reduce their kids' chances of being depressed. While depression isn't the only risk factor for suicide, it is certainly correlated...

Cas of Clutterbug describes her “young mom” self as a hot mess – house a disaster and feeling horrible that she couldn’t get organized . She finally realized a few important pieces of her own personality and is now a Recovering Super Slob turned Organizing Expert who teaches others how to tap into their own unique organizing styles, which she says are part of a person from birth. Cas is a wizard a...

Did you know that the way your child eats can affect their speech and vice versa? Melanie Potock is a Speech-Language Pathologist who became a pediatric feeding expert through her experience as a mom of a former picky eater. She uses her SLP expertise to help parents introduce new foods to kids, form healthy eating habits, and really lay the foundation for a lifetime of good nutrition . I’m honore...