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

Understanding Emotions: Insights from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett In our last conversation with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett [Where emotions come from (and why it matters) Part 1] a couple of weeks ago we looked at her theory of where emotions originate. This has important implications for things like:   How our 'body budgets' affect our feelings How we make meaning from our feelings so our internal...

Understanding Emotions: Insights from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett Have you ever wondered where our emotions come from?   Do you think that if you look at a person’s face, you can have a pretty good idea of how they’re feeling?   But at the same time, do your child’s feelings seem mysterious to you, like you can’t figure them out?   Listener Akiko introduced me to Dr. Lisa Feldman Barre...

Learn ways how to overcome parenting triggers I know it can be really (really) difficult to bridge the gap between being the kind of parent we want to be, and the kind of parent we're able to be in the moments when our kids do things we find difficult.   We might know that we want our kids to receive a message of unconditional love and acceptance, but when they do something like hitting their...

Understanding & Overcoming Mom Rage There are several books available on mom rage by now.  They tend to follow a predictable formula: a journalist interviews a bunch of parents and makes sweeping pronouncements about how anger-inducing it is to be a Mom, interspersed with anecdotes about terrible things they’ve said and done to their children.   They usually end with a call for free child...

Today's episode comes from listener who submitted an emotional voicemail on the Ask Jen a Question button on the Your Parenting Mojo homepage, which boils down to:   Am I damaging my child? The messages you can leave are limited to two minutes in length, so we get just a taste of what the parent is struggling with: a difficult relationship with their neurodivergent son, because he triggers th...

What to Do When Parenting Tools Don’t Work? I know that when you start using new parenting tools, things don't always go according to plan. Your kids don't say what you think they will, or maybe you perceive that their behavior is just kind of crappy, or maybe your partner isn't on board with your ideas. In this episode I address what to do about all of these challenges, as well as how to use the...

Understanding Menstrual Cycle Awareness This episode was...unplanned. :-) A couple of months ago I interviewed Dr. Louise Newson on the topic of menopause . Dr. Newson is a medical doctor and focused very heavily on Hormone Replacement Therapy as a treatment that everyone who menstruates should at least consider, and I knew I wanted to do an episode with someone who doesn't hold that belief as wel...

How to advocate for the schools our children deserve How comfortable do you feel speaking up about something your child’s school needs?   Have you noticed that some parents seem to feel more comfortable speaking up than others?   Have you ever noticed that sometimes rules and policies in school don’t seem to be applied evenly to all students, while squeaky wheels who raise issues that co...

Why Movement Matters More Than Exercise for Kids A few months ago my daughter had a routine checkup at the doctor, who asked how much screen time she gets in a day (which is more than typical recommendations but way less time than children spend sitting in school).   The doctor told her (but really she told me): “You should get more exercise.”   Carys isn’t a team sports kind of person. ...

What your child is learning in school isn’t enough The things your child is learning in school are not the things that are most likely to lead to their success in the future.   Who could have predicted the shifts we’ve seen since Chat GPT-3 was released to the public in November 2022?   While AI still has its bugs, it won’t be long before these bugs are squashed.   We’re going to be...

Thanks to those of you who completed the recent survey on how I can serve you better, some changes are coming to the YPM world!  While most respondents said they loved the length of the episodes because they appreciate how much detail we can get into in that time, a number of people said they had trouble finding the time to listen to longer episodes, as well as share them with others.   Our l...

How Video Games Shape Learning and Children’s Development Last week, parent Nicole and I talked with @TheGamerEducator Ash Brandin about the challenges we can have when our kids love video games .   I had also hoped to ask Ash a lot of questions about what children learn from video games but we completely ran out of time, so I spent a fun day reading 10 books on the topic at the University of...

Why Video Games Aren't as Harmful as You Think for Kids Video games can be tough.   Our kids enjoy them so much…but can’t tear their eyes away from them when time’s up without a meltdown.   Some games, like Fortnite and Roblox, can be really violent, and aren’t our kids learning bad messages when they play?   Plus even if they aren’t playing something violent, they aren’t really lea...

How do I know if I'm perimenopausal? A few months ago a member in the Parenting Membership shared a whole bunch of symptoms she'd had, from fatigue to rage to dry eyes. She'd been on a four year journey to figure out what was going on before finding out that she was in perimenopause, and wanted to save other members from the same experience she'd had.   That sparked a huge discussion in the c...

Discover insights on why no one will play with your child and explore effective strategies for building social skills in children Does your child have big emotional blow-ups in social situations?   Are they a wallflower who doesn't know how to make friends?   Do they struggle to understand when it's appropriate to interrupt, tell the truth, and follow the rules vs. let things go.  ...

Exploring Marriage, Autism, Race, and Parenting Together Want to know how my autism self-diagnosis has affected my relationship with my husband? (I will apologize to autistic listeners here as an ableist perspective is still something we're working on, and he also uses some outdated terminology probably from an old book he's started twice - but not yet finished - on supporting partners with Asperg...

Ditch Punishments and Rewards for Respectful Parenting Do you hate punishing (with Time Outs, withdrawing privileges, or even yelling at) your child?   Do you feel guilty after you punish them, wishing there was a way to just get them to listen ?   And do bribes ("If you brush your teeth now, you can have 5 minutes of screen time...") feel just as awful?   But what other choice do y...

Sustainable Family Change: Parenting Framework for Lasting Results Here's a little thought exercise: think back to what you were doing this time last year, right around Mother's Day (in the U.S...I know it has already passed in other places!).   What kinds of things were your children doing that were really endearing?   What kinds of things were they doing that drove you up the wall? &nb...

Are there parts of yourself that you don't share with other people?   Things that you think: "If people knew that about me, they wouldn't love me / they'd think I'm a terrible person / they wouldn't even want to be around me"?   When you mess up, does it seem like it's not that you did a silly/bad thing, but that you are a stupid/bad person?   If your answer to any of these question...

Do you have a core group of parent friends who are always there for you? Friends who might not be 100% aligned with your parenting philosophy, but they're close enough that you know that when they do offer suggestions you would at least consider doing them?   And on the days when you just want to just vent and not hear any advice at all, you know that it'll be totally fine for you to vent. Th...

Do you ever fight with your partner?   Do you ever fight with your partner about parenting?   (Pretty much all of the couples I work with do both of those things.)   And these arguments tend to follow a pretty well-defined formula: Child misbehaves. Parent A gets overwhelmed, criticizes the child and snaps at Partner B for not doing more to help. Parent B and says that clearly Paren...

  Do you ever wish that you know the appropriate logical consequence to give your child (aged 1-10) for each different kind of misbehavior you see? When your toddler empties the water out of the dog's bowl for the 10th time today... When your preschooler climbs on the table three minutes after you told them to get off it... When your kindergartener refuses to come to the table for dinner (and...

  Sometimes when listeners write to me, fun things happen! 🤪   Listener Diana replied to a recent email because she had listened to quite a lot of my episodes (although more of the earlier ones than the recent ones) and she was generally on board with my approach.   But she was having a hard time! Despite doing a lot of things for her children, and trying to remain calm and 'unruff...

It can be really hard to see what's happening in our struggles with our children. They refuse to go to bed at bedtime; we're at home alone all day with a baby who doesn't like being put down, and our older child who is now being aggressive, and there's no time for us to even take a shower, and maybe it seems like everyone around us is judging our parenting choices.   In this very different ep...

I have to admit, I’m a bit scared to say it… The P-word… “Patriarchy.”(Phew!  I did it!)I know some listeners find it hard to hear. I’ve spoken with more than one woman who has told me: “I sent your podcast to my husband but then he heard the word “Patriarchy” and it was all over. There’s some sadness there for me, for sure. Every time I talk about patriarchy I talk about how much it hurts me and...