Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

“Social and Emotional Learning” is all the rage in school these days, along with claims that it can help children to manage their emotions, make responsible decisions, as well as improve academic outcomes. But what if those programs don’t go nearly far enough? What if we could support our child in developing a sense of compassion that acts as a moral compass to not only display compassion toward o...

"How much can there really be to learn about storytelling?" I thought when I started on this mini-series.   It turns out that there's actually quite a lot to learn, and that family storytelling can be a particularly useful tool for parents. We're all trying to figure out how to transmit our values to our children, and storytelling can be quite an effective way of doing this. Further, storytel...

We should protect our children from risks, right?  Isn’t that our job as parents? This episode comes mid-way in an extended series on the importance of play for children.  The first episode in the series was an interview with Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute for Play on the value of play, both for children and for adults.  Then we followed with a look at the research on the benefits of o...

Growth mindset is everywhere these days.  Dr. Carol Dweck’s research showing that a growth mindset can help children to overcome academic struggles is being incorporated to curriculum planning across the U.S. and in many other countries, and school districts in California are even using it to evaluate schools’ performance.  I get ads popping up in my Facebook feed every day for a journal that help...

We’ve done a couple of episodes on reading by now; episode 3 (which seems so long ago!) asked whether you might have missed the boat on teaching your toddler to read .  Of course, we know that you’ve only missed the boat on that if you think that sitting your child in front of a video so they can recite the words they see without really understanding them counts as “reading.” Much more recently in...

So you listened to episode 58 and you’re convinced of the benefits of outdoor play . But you’re a grown-up. You don’t play outdoors. And you don’t know anything about nature .  How can you possibly get started in helping your child to play outdoors more? There are a number of books out there on getting outside with children – some arguably more well-known than this one, but I have to say that Dr....

This is the second in our extended series of episodes on children’s play.  We kicked off last week with a look at the benefits of play in general for children, and now we’re going to take a more specific look at the benefits of outdoor play.  Really, if someone could bottle up and sell outdoor play they’d make a killing, because it’s hard to imagine something children can do that benefits them mor...

Does play really matter? Do children get anything out of it? Or is it just messing around; time that could be better spent preparing our children for success in life? Today we talk with Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, about the benefits of play for both children and – I was surprised to find – adults. This is the first in a series of episodes on play – lots more to co...

I hear a huge crash. It’s my favorite glass vase.  I hear “I didn’t mean to hurt it, Mommy!  It just fell!” as I run full-pelt from the other end of the house. It was a family heirloom passed down by my grandmother.  I’ve asked her not to touch it a hundred times.  I am beyond furious.  “Please don’t be mad, Mommy.  It was an accident.” I clench my teeth.  “I’m not mad.” __________________________...

Is your child ‘spirited’?  Even if they aren’t spirited all the time, do they have spirited moments?  You know exactly what to do in those moments, right? No? Well then we have a treat for you today.  Dr. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, author of Raising Your Spirited Child, walks us through the ins and outs of her book on the same topic.  Best yet, we do the interview as a consult with a parent, Kathryn, w...

“I hear parents on the playground all the time saying “You’re OK!” after their child falls over. Often it does make the child stop crying…but doesn’t it invalidate the child’s feelings?” It turns out that this question is related to a skill that psychologists call emotional regulation, and learning how to regulate emotions is one of the most important tasks of childhood. This to-the-point episode...

“HOW DO I GET MY CHILD TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT?!” is the thinly-veiled message under the surface of many of the emails that I get about sleep.  And I don’t blame you.  I don’t claim to be a magician in this regard, although I did get incredibly, amazingly lucky – my daughter put in her first eight-hour night at six weeks old, and has regularly slept through the night for longer than I can remem...

In Professor Angela Duckworth’s TED talk , she says of her research:  “One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success.  And it wasn’t social intelligence.  It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t IQ.  It was grit.” The effusive blurbs on the book cover go even beyond Professor Duckworth’s own dramatic pronouncements: Daniel Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happine...

“I don’t want to play with you.” “You’re not my friend.” “We’re playing families.  If you want to play, you have to be the dog.” Seems like everyone can remember a time when something like this happened to them as a child, and how much it hurt.  Children still say these things to each other – and we see how much it hurts them, too.  When researchers ask them, every child can remember a time when t...

“Be a man.”  “Boys don’t cry.”  “Don’t be a sissy.” Boys hear these things all the time – from parents, from teachers, from friends and peers.  What does it do to their emotional lives when they crave close relationships but society tells them to keep emotional distance from others? Join my guest Alan Turkus and me as we quiz Dr. Judy Chu, who lectures on this topic at Stanford and was featured in...

Folks, this one is personal for me.  As someone with an ~ahem~ family history of disordered thinking about body image, it is very, very high on my priority list to get this right with my daughter.  Dr. Renee Engeln, author of the book Beauty Sick, helps us sort through issues like: Should I tell my daughter she’s pretty? What should I say when she asks me if she’s pretty? Is teaching our daughters...

Waaaay back in Episode 3 , we wondered whether we had missed the boat on teaching our babies to read (didn’t you teach your baby how to read?). We eventually decided that we hadn’t, but given that many parents have a goal of instilling a love of reading into their children, what’s the best way to go about doing that? And what if your child is the kind who wriggles out of your lap at the mere sight...

Do you have to start teaching a second language from birth?  Does it help to get a nanny who speaks a second language?  Is there any way your child will retain the language you speak even though you’re currently in a country where another language is dominant?  Does learning a second language lead to any developmental advantages beyond just the benefits of learning the language?   Several lis...

When should I start potty training?  What books should I read?  Can I do it in a day (or a week)?  Do I need stickers (for rewards)?  Does it have to be stressful?   I get these kinds of questions pretty often, and I’d resisted doing an episode on potty training because there are so many books on it already, and everyone has their opinion, and I really didn’t want to wade into it.  But ya’ll...

Isn’t it kind of a “well, duh?” that parenting affects child development?  But do we know how?  We know it’s not good to have really big fights in front of the kids, but do spousal quarrels screw them up too?  Are there really links between a family’s emotional expressiveness and the child’s later academic performance?  How does the marital relationship affect parenting, and how does parenting aff...

I can’t play any instruments (unless the recorder counts?).  I certainly can’t sing.  But my daughter really enjoys music, and there are a whole host of studies showing how playing music benefits children’s brain development.  So what’s a non-music-playing, non-singing parent to do?   Dr. Wendell Hanna’s new book, the Children’s Music Studio: A Reggio-Inspired Approach (Affiliate link), gives...

The topic of today’s episode comes courtesy of my good friend Sarah, who fortunately hasn’t yet had any reason to use this knowledge, but asked me to do an episode on how to help children cope with illness, death, and grief, so she can be ready in case she ever needs it.   Dr. Atle Dyregrov joins us from Bergen, Norway. He graduated as a psychologist in 1980 and worked for five years in the P...

I actually hadn’t realized what a can of worms I was opening when I started the research for today’s episode, which is on the topic of manners and politeness. It began innocently enough – as an English person, for whom manners are pretty important, I started to wonder why my almost three-year-old doesn’t have better manners yet. It turns out that it was a much more difficult subject to research th...

Hot on the heels of our last episode on whether only children really are as bad as their reputation , this week’s episode is for the 80% of families (in the U.S., at least) who have more than one child.   How do siblings impact each other’s development?  What should we make of the research on how birth order impacts each child?  Why the heck do siblings fight so much, and what can we do about...

Today’s episode comes to us as a result of a listener named Sylvia who wrote to me saying she and her partner don’t want another child but are worried about the potential impact on their daughter of growing up without siblings.  But why would there be a potential impact?   Turns out there’s a slew of information in the popular press about how only children grow up with no way to learn social...