Raised Resilient: Help Your Highly Sensitive Child

We all want our kids to feel safe coming to us when they’re struggling. We want them to talk to us about their problems, tell us how they’re feeling, and generally keep us up to date on their lives. But how do we create the sort of parent-child relationship where our kids feel safe sharing even the hard stuff with us?    In this week’s episode, I answer a listener who’s wondering exactly this, par...

What should you do when your child comes home from school and tells you that her “best” friend ignored her today? Or that his long-time buddy said unkind things to him? Or that nobody wanted to play with them during recess? These are tough moments for parents; we often want to step in and fix the situation – but there’s a more helpful way to respond.   In this week’s episode, I answer a listener s...

Parenting is legit the hardest job we’ll ever do … and it’s almost impossible to show up to parenting the way we want to if we’re not prioritizing ourselves & our own wellness. But how do we do this in the midst of the busyness of raising kids?   In this week’s episode, I talk with naturopathic medicine doctor and women’s hormone expert Dr. Brooke Kalanick about how to figure out your priorities,...

We just got a new puppy, and it’s been amazing … but there have also been challenges – especially when it comes to introducing our toddler to her new furry friend. This transition in our family inspired me to record this episode to help YOU should you decide you’re ready to adopt a new pet!   In this week’s episode, I share 4 tips for introducing your baby or child to a new pet. I talk about how w...

I talk all the time about how our mindset affects our parenting; the lens through which we view ourselves and our child in tough moments makes the difference between a reactive power struggle and a connective learning opportunity.    In this week’s episode, I share the #1 negative thought pattern that I’ve seen in my work with parents. This negative thought pattern keeps parents stuck in blame and...

Parenting is stressful. But what if we could widen our window of tolerance for parenting’s most stressful moments? What if we could tolerate more … while reacting LESS? What if we could implement strategies ahead of time to help us show up the way we want to as parents?   In this week’s episode, I talk with Elizabeth Andreyevski, a stress coach who helps overwhelmed parents reduce their mental str...

Hitting, kicking, and other aggressive behaviors can be super challenging for parents – but when your child is too big to pick up, handling these behaviors gets even trickier.     In this week’s episode, I answer a listener who’s struggling to know how to help her 7-year-old son when he’s angry and hitting; he’s too big for her to easily pick him up, and his behavior is frustrating for the whole f...

We talk a lot about connecting with our little kids – our babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and young kids. But as our kids grow, changing developmental needs & behaviors can sometimes make it feel more challenging to connect with them.    In this week’s episode, I dive into how your relationship with your child changes (and how it stays the same!) as your child grows. I share tips for connecting wi...

How should parents respond to common bedtime struggles like children refusing to stay in their rooms, continually begging for one more story, or sharing that they’re suddenly afraid of the dark? Why is bedtime such a struggle for some families? And what can we do to help?   In this week’s episode, I answer all of these questions and then some. This deep dive into toddler and big kid bedtime strugg...

“How do I get my baby to sleep?” If you’ve ever Googled that question at 3am, you’re not alone. Sleep (or lack thereof!) is one of the most stressful parts of becoming a parent. It doesn’t help that the conversation around sleep is incredibly polarized; it can feel like you’re stuck with either “cry it out” or co-sleeping forever.   But actually, there’s so much middle ground when it comes to baby...

The days are long when you’re caring for a baby; the first year can feel like a blur of rocking, bouncing, and singing (and very little sleep!). But the work you’re doing during that first year is SO important … and YOU are so important to your baby!   In this week’s episode, I answer a listener who’s wondering: How do you co-regulate with a baby? How do you implement gentle / respectful / conscio...

Welcoming a new baby is a HUGE transition for everyone involved – especially for older siblings! As parents, we all want to support our older child in bonding with their new baby sibling – but a new baby is a LOT of work, and we often feel unprepared for exactly how hard this process can be.   In this week’s episode, I share six tips to support you as you help your older child adjust to having a n...

Do you ever feel like you and your partner are on two totally different pages when it comes to parenting? Maybe you’ve fully embraced gentle / conscious / respectful parenting, but your partner feels strongly about using punishments. Maybe you’re arguing constantly about how to handle tough parenting moments.    If you can relate, you’re not alone! In this week’s episode, I talk with fellow licens...

If you’re like most parents, you entered parenting knowing only the punishments-and-rewards approach your own parents used. But along the way, many of us have learned about gentle / respectful / conscious parenting. We’re intrigued, but we also wonder: Is gentle parenting actually effective? And when we raise our kids without punishments, are we preparing them for the real world?   In this week’s...

Jean Piaget said that “play is the work of childhood,” and he was definitely right about that. Play is literally your child’s most important job. We often place more importance on academics, but the truth is that kids learn SO much more through play than through structured learning, especially when they’re really little.   In this week’s episode, I dive into why play is so important and give examp...

Is your child a picky eater? Are mealtimes the most stressful part of the day? Do you worry about whether your child’s nutrition is adequate or whether they’re getting enough veggies? If this is you, you’re not alone! Feeding kids can feel really stressful sometimes … and that’s even more true if you’ve got your own issues with food.   In this week’s episode, I interview Bekah Groop – fellow peace...

Raised Resilient with Dr. Hilary officially turns ONE this week! This means that it’s been a full year since I started this podcast. I wasn’t sure where this journey would take me (and I had no idea what I was doing), but I trudged ahead anyway, with a makeshift recording studio in my closet, a mic, and some serious passion for parenting & supporting parents.   In this week’s episode, I reflect on...

I get so many questions about challenging behaviors – not wanting to share, hitting and kicking, “clingy” behaviors, refusing to listen – that occur in the days, months, and years after a child becomes a big sibling. And while most parents acknowledge that getting a sibling is a big deal, we often don’t realize that our child’s challenging behaviors are connected to this major life shift.   In thi...

Meeting your child’s social needs can feel confusing. Parents often feel pressured to create a full schedule of play dates starting in babyhood … and then we feel frustrated when our older kids – especially our teens – only want to spend time with their friends. So what do our kids *actually* need in terms of social development and peer interactions, especially as they grow and change?   In this w...

Your child is a star student – literally a teacher’s dream. But then she comes home from school, and it’s a totally different story; it’s meltdowns and tantrums and refusing to cooperate from carpool until bedtime. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone, and you’re probably wondering why on earth your child only has meltdowns at home.   In this week’s episode, I answer a listener’s question abo...

If you’ve got more than one child, you already know how infuriating it can be when one kid starts picking on the other, seemingly out of nowhere. It might seem purposeful and mean, and it can be super tricky to meet both kids’ needs in these tough parenting moments.   In this week’s episode, I answer a listener’s question about how to stop sibling teasing. I dive into the many reasons and complica...

“All I do all day is go from room to room cleaning up the messes my kids make!” Sound familiar? If it does, you’re not alone! The constant tidying we do as parents is exhausting. It makes so much sense that you’d want your child to start cleaning up their own toys & messes as soon as humanly possible.    In this week’s episode, I talk about how to actually get your child to clean up after themselv...

Most of us arrive at gentle / respectful / conscious parenting for a reason: We want to do things differently than they were done when we were kids. And the parts of our own childhoods that we leave behind as we become parents ourselves – the punishments, developmentally inappropriate expectations, criticisms, etc. – have often left us with unmet needs & unhealed wounds.   In this week’s episo...

"Parenting is the hardest job we’ll ever do." It's literally the first line of my podcast intro, and that’s because it’s the truth. But we often make parenting even harder than it needs to be; we take on responsibilities that were never ours to begin with … and then we feel like failures when we’re unsuccessful.   In this week’s episode, I share three common but unnecessary “jobs” we take on as pa...

Ah, New Year’s Resolutions. According to the research, most of us make them … and most of us also give up on them before the end of January. I think this is because we often think of our resolutions in all-or-nothing terms (read: I resolve to NEVER yell at my kids again) … which sets us up to fail.  In this week’s episode, I give you another option: Ditch the all-or-nothing thinking connected to N...