Talking About Kids

Send us Fan Mail In this mini Labor Day episode, I discuss labor and new evidence of the power of being a caring adult in the life of child. Links to the research I cite can be found at www. TalkingAboutKids.com .  Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (September 12, 2022).

Send us Fan Mail As parents, teachers, and direct service providers, we are bombarded with products and services that claim to help kids. Many of them are quite expensive. We want the best for the children and adolescents in our lives, but resources are scarce. My guest to help all of us understand how we can discern whether an app, a curriculum, a program, etc., might actually work is Eric Hedber...

Send us Fan Mail Dominique Roe-Sepowitz joins us for this episode. Dominique is the Founder and Director of Arizona State University’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research and the Clinical Director of Phoenix Starfish Place, a Federally funded supportive housing program for sex trafficked women and their children. Dominique has devoted her professional life to the  heartbreaking topics...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for this episode is Chandra Ghosh Ippen. Chandra is the Associate Director and Dissemination Director of the Child Trauma Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco. She also is the author of a series of storybooks for young children that are written to support emotion regulation and healing after stressful or traumatic experiences. Titles from the se...

Send us Fan Mail My guest this episode is Melinda Gulick.  Melinda is the CEO of First Things First, which is an organization created by Arizona voters to help young children be ready for success in kindergarten and beyond. Melinda took over the helm of First Things First in March of 2022. As an award-winning public administrator with a breadth and depth of experience, Melinda is uniquely poised t...

Send us Fan Mail My guest this episode is Steve King. Steve is the Superintendent of the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District in Arizona. For over 28 years, Steve has been experimenting, exploring new ideas, and reforming schools to support those students with the most significant needs, because he believes that supporting them affords the best opportunities for all students to succeed. I happen t...

Send us Fan Mail This episode was recorded in front of a live audience on July 19th, 2022, at the Child Abuse Prevention Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.  My guest is the keynote speaker, Corey B. Best.  Corey is the founder of Mining for Gold, a project that curates community members’ experiences with systems of oppression and utilizes that information to rebuild child- and family-serving systems....

Send us Fan Mail My very special guest for this first episode of Season 2 is the venerable Dorothy Espelage. Dorothy is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education; she is the author of numerous books on bullying, including Bullying Prevention and Intervention: Realistic Strategies for Schools ; and she is the re...

Send us Fan Mail In this final mini summer episode, I discuss some new research about the effectiveness of fostering in kids a "synergistic mindset approach" to stress. Links to the research I cite can be found at www. TalkingAboutKids.com .  Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (July 18, 2002) with a very special guest.

Send us Fan Mail In this third mini summer episode, I use the occasion of Independence Day (and my friend's birthday) to talk about kids and the dangers of fireworks. A link to the research I cite can be found at TalkingAboutKids.com .  Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very special guests to help you prepare for the new school year.

Send us Fan Mail In this second mini summer episode, I use the occasion of Pride week to address how LGBTQIA+ kids are treated in school and what can be done to support them and all students. Links to the research I cite can be found at www. TalkingAboutKids.com .  Once again, full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very special guests to help you prepare for the new...

Send us Fan Mail In this first mini summer episode, I expose truth of the so-called "achievement gap" between Black and White students and briefly introduce a strategy for supporting all kids as scholars and resilient human beings. Links to some of the research I cite can be found at www. TalkingAboutKids.com . Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return in late July with very sp...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for this episode is Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon. She is Iñupiaq and a research scientist in the Youth Development program at Child Trends. Heather’s work focuses on Indigenous youth, families, and Elders and the topics of colonization, historical trauma, and culture as a protective factor. Together, we explore the what, why, and how of anti-racist approaches to supporting...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with Gina Godbehere, one of the founders of Speak Up Stand Up Save a Life, and Annie Middlemist, the organization’s Executive Director, about their conference’s approach to promoting mental health and reducing suicides, bullying, and substance abuse. I encourage you to listen and evaluate whether the Speak Up Stand Up Save a Life might benefit you or your w...

Send us Fan Mail It is difficult to overstate how terrifying it can be to try to leave an abusive relationship. In this episode, Michael Hughes, Chief Operating Officer, and Kathy Di Nolfi, Chief Program Officer, at A New Leaf – one of the Nation’s premier service providers – explain what domestic violence (or “DV”) services are available in communities and what happens at every step in the proces...

Send us Fan Mail My guest this episode is Tracie Afifi, Professor in the Departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and an Associate Editor of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect . Tracie’s research advances our understanding of adverse childhood experiences and protective factors by examining, on a macro level, what makes an experience positive or nega...

Send us Fan Mail My guest this episode is David Simmons. David is an actor, musician, director, playwright, composer, and educator, but I know him best as the founder of the UBU Project. The UBU Project is an arts education outreach organization specializing in social-emotional (SEL) arts integration. I first encountered David and the UBU Project when I was reviewing material for the Speak Up Stan...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with Tyanna Buie. Tyanna is a visual artist whose work is exhibited nationally, including shows at the Haggerty Museum of Art, The Red Bull House of Art, and The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She also is the Section Chair of Printmaking at the College for Creative Studies. Tyanna and I discuss how growing up in the foster care system shaped her approa...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for this episode is Tommy Snider, the writer, director, and star of the YouTube children’s series Fizzling’s Funhouse . Tommy has been a working actor for nearly 20 years, and, if you do not know him by name, I guarantee you have seen him in Grey’s Anatomy , Rules of Engagement , Bad Samaritans , I’m Dying Up Here , Baskets the Clown , Top Elf , or Doom Patrol . I think T...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for this episode is Aaron Kupchik, Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware and the author of numerous articles and books, including the award-winning Judging Juveniles: Prosecuting Adolescents in Adult and Juvenile Courts and Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear. For the last two decades, Aaron has calmly and assertively promoted the researc...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with Iya Affo. Iya is a Culturalist, a Historical Trauma Specialist, and the founder of Heal Historical Trauma. When many of us were still gaining an understanding of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), Iya was pushing past early childhood and calling attention to the consequences of intergenerational trauma. She and I discuss this and how understanding d...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with psychologist Andrew Lenartz about his research on how connecting with nature yields a variety of benefits to children and adolescents. Andy was nice enough to suggest some resources for parents, educators, and direct service providers who are looking to create outdoor experiences for the kids in their lives. Links to those and to Andy's book can b...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I discuss the benefits and misconceptions of partnering with faith-based organizations with Maria Cristina Fuentes, Director of the Arizona Governor's Office of Youth, Faith and Family. We also answer a listener's question about how the Office of Youth, Faith and Family supports schools.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with Patty Talahongva - documentary filmmaker, activist, and senior correspondent for Indian Country Today - about what does and does not work for Native kids. Native students have some of the worst education outcomes of any segment of the U.S. population, and Patty and I use her experience and the history of Indian boarding schools to give context to this...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk with Wendy Wolfersteig - Director of Evaluation and Partner Contracts at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) at Arizona State University - about what we know about kids from statewide surveys like the Arizona Youth Survey (AYS). Although the AYS is specific to Arizona, I believe that its findings are consistent with national trends. A lin...