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

Sara has always tried really hard to not just be a good parent, but a really good parent. The best parent. (When I coached her and her partner recently to create some content for the Parenting Membership that you'll hear more about in a few weeks, her partner said to her: You hold everyone else to a high standard. You hold yourself to a higher standard. )   Sara put a lot of pressure on herse...

Last year I hosted a panel event in Vancouver where four people who have been active in helping us to navigate toward an anti-racist, post-patriarchal, post-capitalist future came together to share their ideas in front of a live audience.   It was a beautiful event (eventually we'll process the video of it to share with you!), and I really hit it off with Moms Against Racism Canada founder Ke...

Listener Roberta submitted a question recently on YourParentingMojo.com/question :   What does the research say are the decisions that really matter in parenting?   That question immediately got my brain churning about what could be included, and how we would decide what to include, and how much of what's included could actually be research-based.   The episode begins with a look at...

My mom died when I was 10, and for a while people in our small village would look at my sister and me as if we were 'special' in some weird way. By the time I was a young adult that was just one of a stew of difficult experiences I'd had, and I also realized: my stuff is not special.   By that age, most people are carrying around some kind of trauma.   But so what? Does it matter? If our...

When Carys was about three, I forced a dropper of antibiotics into her mouth to just get her to take it, so she would start to feel better. We were both tired and hangry and I didn't see another path forward, when she was refusing something that I knew would help her. What other choice did I have?   My husband did see another path when he arrived home later that evening, and before she went t...

When I saw that our 200th episode was coming up, I knew I wanted to do something special to celebrate. Listeners called in with questions for me for our 100th episode , which was released in September 2019. The numbering is a bit fuzzy, I have to admit - we're actually well over 200 episodes because there have been an assortment of Sharing Your Parenting Mojo conversations with parents and other f...

Listener Rachel also reached out with some questions, and due to my book tour schedule it took us a little longer to get a call on the calendar, but eventually - on a day in Seattle when I also had a coaching call and two two-hour workshops based on the book - we made it happen.   Rachel's questions go deeeep. She wanted to know:   If there are ideas I logically know are the right ones t...

A couple of years ago I was watching a session of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education 's online conference by unschooling advocate Idzie Desmerais . At some point she dropped a quote into her presentation that I jotted down but didn't think much of at the time:   What if your ideas about politics were just your ideas about childhood, extrapolated?   I returned to my notes some month...

This is the first in a series of 'back to basics' episodes here on the show, where we'll look at the everyday challenges you're facing as a parent. (Have an idea for an episode? Share it on this thread in our free Facebook group, send us a max 2 minute video of you saying your question, or click here to record an audio message for me...)   I'd wanted to do an episode on the use of reward &amp...

  Do you worry about the state of the Earth? Climate change perhaps above all else, but also resource extraction, air pollution, and the injustice that goes along with the ways the impacts of these things are distributed?   You're not the only one.   I know not everyone goes this far, but one of the reasons I waited so long to have a baby, almost didn't have a baby, and will only ha...

  Hunter Clarke-Fields is back with us again! She's the author of Raising Good Humans , and now the new book Raising Good Humans Every Day (affiliate links).   Why does the world need two books with such similar titles? Are they even different?!   Yes, they are! Raising Good Humans Every Day is small! And short! And the chapters are short! Each one contains just one practice, descri...

Do you ever feel triggered by your partner's behavior?   (No? Just me? 😬)   Many parents who join the Taming Your Triggers workshop sign up for help navigating their children's behavior...and then once they're inside they confess that their partner's behavior is even more triggering than their child's.   As you might imagine, many of the participants in the Taming Your Triggers wor...

In this short episode, I'm going to teach you a real, legit, bona fide magic trick.   And unlike most magic tricks which rely on sleight of hand to convince you of something that has happened when it really hasn't, this one actually works. It helps you to see that things are not as bad as they seem, and that you can cope, even when things feel incredibly difficult and that you're failing as a...

Polyvagal Theory is everywhere these days.   Psychologists talk about it; parenting coaches talk about it; if you’re in   the mental health field you’re probably referring to polyvagal theory in some way. So one would assume that there’s lots of evidence for it, right?  Well, maybe. Maybe not.   In this episode I dig into the foundational principles of Polyvagal Theory and find that...

Parenting Beyond Power is officially available today! Come join a mini-celebration with me in this podcast episode, and TODAY on Zoom at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/8pm Central Europe, and in-person this weekend if you're in the Bay Area!   Do you celebrate your achievements? I don't know about you, but I find it pretty difficult.   I didn't celebrate getting into Berkeley or Yale, or gradu...

One of the questions I'm asked most often about Parenting Beyond Power (preorder bonuses are available for just a few more days!) is: So when a group of listeners volunteered to get together to discuss what they got out of the book, that was the first thing I wanted to ask them.   The core premise of the book is that the social forces of White supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism have really...

Do you try to give your children messages about gender that are aligned with your values? Do you tell your daughter that she can do anything she wants to do, and look for shows that have equal representation of male- and female-presenting characters?   If so, you're off to a good start.   And...there's so much more to do.   One of the core ideas in my book, Parenting Beyond Power ,...

In this episode we hear from listener Lindsay who wonders whether it's safe to delay math learning, since (they've heard) there's a 'critical window' for learning language.   Would delaying math learning mean that our child can't catch up later? Will they develop a negative view of their own learning? What if they can't get into college? We address all of these questions and more.   Lear...

When you listen to this episode you may get a bit of a sense of deja vu - way back in 2020, listener Kelly reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to do an episode on parental burnout , which she was struggling to navigate at the time. We ended up interviewing Dr. Moira Mikolajczak, one of the world's experts on parental burnout.   After the conversation Dr. Mikolajczak expressed to...

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are in the middle of summer now, with the whirlwind of cobbled together childcare and kids at home saying: "I'm booored!".   What's happening for them when they're saying this?   And, more importantly, what should we DO about it?   We don't want to have to entertain them, but what other option is there besides threatening chores?   This ep...

Listener Kelsey posted in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook community a while ago asking how she should respond when her child asks: "Why does Daddy have to go to work?" She got some great answers from community members...and yet there was also a lot more to explore. I asked her to record her question so I could answer it in an episode, so here it is!   Of course, the issue of Daddy going to w...

We talk a lot about meeting needs on the show. And mostly we focus on meeting your child's needs, because when those are met then your needs for peace and ease and collaboration with your child get met as well.   But of course those are not your only needs. You also have needs independent of your relationship with your children, and you deserve to have these met. Mara Glatzel's new book focus...

A lot of parents (and teachers) are concerned right now about children's resilience. Will they 'bounce back' from the difficulties of the pandemic? But is 'bouncing back' really the way we should be thinking about this? We have all been changed by the pandemic; shouldn't we acknowledge this and see how we can be the best versions of ourselves, incorporating what we've been through over the last fe...

Do you sometimes wish your co-parent would join you on the respectful parenting journey you’re on?   Would things be easier if you were on the same page?   Does it seem like you try to convince them using all the research you’ve done respectful parenting…only to have them throw up the “I don’t think we have to make a big deal out of this” card?   Sarah and Declan had this dynamic in...

Recently, a number of parents in the Parenting Membership have posted in our community about challenges they've faced that they've navigated with grace that would have seemed insurmountable a couple of years ago.   Many of these are parents of children who are already through the toddler stage, and the parents are starting to see the tools they've been using come alive in their interactions w...