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

In this ad hoc episode, I outline a response to the U.S. Capitol siege.  I provide some suggestions for ways to talk with your child about the events, but also ask that you take two more steps: (1) examine your own role in these events, even if you condemn them yourself (as I do); (2) take action based on your own position and role in the world to work toward equality. You can find my resources on...

When parents first hear about interest-led learning (also known as self-directed education), they may wonder: why on earth would we do that?  And how would my child learn without anyone teaching them?   Many parents start down this path with only an inkling of where it may end up taking them and I think this is true of our guest, Akilah Richards.  Akilah grew up in a typical Jamaican family w...

In this Sharing Your Parenting Mojo episode we hear from listener Anne, who has been in my Parenting Membership for a year now.  In our conversation we discussed the anxiety she used to feel about every aspect of parenting, including the things she wanted to teach her son to do (Spanish! Coding!) and how she interacted with both him and with her husband.   She actually joined the Parenting Me...

Let's talk problem solving!  Many of us have tried it, but it's so common to get stuck...and to think that the method doesn't work, and then return in exasperation to the methods we'd been using all along.  These often involve coercion, or forcing the child to do something they don't want to do - but what's the alternative?   In this episode we talk with Dr. Ross Greene, who developed the Col...

My guest for this episode is life coach and reparenting expert Xavier Dagba, who is here to discuss the topic of boundaries in parenting.   We don't tend to learn much about having boundaries when we're young, because our culture teaches that children shouldn't really need or have them (and those of us who are using respectful parenting approaches are working against the tide here).  This the...

I often hear two related ideas about adults' screen usage around children. Sometimes the parent asking the question guiltily confesses to using screens around their children more than they would like, and to using screens as a momentary escape from the demands of parenting. Or the parent asking the question feels that they have found a sense of balance in their own screen usage, but worries about...

Sibling relationships can be SO HARD!  Sometimes it might seem that we can't leave them alone for even a second before they're at each other's throats, and on top of this we see their struggles and are reminded of the struggles that we had with our own siblings so many years ago.  This can cause us to overreact in the moment, even when we know it's not helping the situation. I discussed some of th...

If you’ve been a parent for a while, or maybe even if you haven’t, you probably saw an article on Holding Space making the rounds of online communities a few years ago.  In the article the author, Heather Plett, describes how she and her siblings were able to hold space for their dying mother in her final days because a palliative care nurse held space for them. The article outlined some principle...

  Parenting brings unconditional love and fulfillment, but what happens when those feelings mix with frustration, exhaustion, and even regret?   In this episode, I speak with Dr. Sarah LaChance Adams, expert in feminist philosophy and maternal ethics, to explore maternal ambivalence - those complex, conflicting emotions many parents experience but rarely discuss openly. Dr. Adams is the...

In this episode, Dr. Susan Pollak helps us to apply mindfulness skills to our relationships with our children so we can parent in line with our values, rather than just reacting when our children push our buttons. You'll learn: What's the point of mindfulness, and does it matter if we bring our full attention and presence to diaper changes? Why we're so hard on ourselves, even when we always try t...

Parents often reach out to me to ask how they can support their perfectionist children, who can't seem to cope with failure. I've been on the lookout for someone to talk with us for a while, but just as with our episode on anxiety , it took quite some searching to find an expert who doesn't take a behaviorist-based approach - meaning that if the behavior is fixed, the problem is fixed too. I was r...

I've heard from listeners that what they call "The Dark Horse Episode," the interview with Dr. Todd Rose, that this is one of their favorite conversations on the podcast, and for this reason I'm doing something I've never done before: reissuing that episode.  Dr. Rose and I discussed ways to personalize children's learning to help them truly discover and live their full potential - both academical...

Ever have a vague sense that your interactions with your child aren't quite aligned with your values...but aren't quite sure what to do about it?   Have you been to a protest and shouted "Black Lives Matter!  Fight the Power!"...and then gone home and forced your child to brush their teeth?   Have you chastised Grandma for 'stealing' kisses from your child because it disrespects their bo...

In this episode we hear from Denise, who claims to have listened to every Your Parenting Mojo episode... Denise is a Filipina living in Madrid, and the intentional, respectful parenting style she's chosen to use is somewhat out of place in both cultures.  She wanted to chat about what to do when her daughter is having some big feelings out in public, and a well-meaning senior citizen approaches an...

This episode on the topic of materialism concludes our series on the intersection of parenting and money.  Here we talk with Dr. Susanna Opree of Erasmus University Rotterdam, who studies the effect of advertising and commercial media on use, materialism, and well-being. We discuss how children's understanding of materialism shifts as they age, the extent to which advertising contributes to materi...

One of the questions I see asked most often in parenting forums these days is some variation on: "I’m worried about my child’s socialization now that it looks like daycares, preschools and schools have been closed for several months and will likely remain closed for several more months. Can someone please tell me if I really do need to worry about what the complete lack of socialization with other...

We're delving a little deeper into the topic of mindfulness with none other than the Mindful Mama, Hunter Clarke-Fields!  We discuss Hunter's journey from being triggered just as often as the rest of us, to using mindfulness techniques to center herself so she can parent more effectively.  She even walks me through an impromptu mini-meditation! You can buy Hunter's book, Raising good humans: A min...

Work-family conflict can seem unavoidable - especially in the era of COVID when we're either working from home with children underfoot all day, or we're an essential worker who has to leave the house and can't find childcare. In this conversation with licensed psychologist Dr. Yael Schonbrun , Assistant Professor of Psychology at Brown University, and co-host of the Psychologists Off The Clock pod...

We're almost (but not quite!) at the end of our lengthy series on the intersection of money and parenting.  Most recently, we talked with Dr. Allison Pugh to try to understand the answer to the question "Given that advertising is happening, how do parents and children respond?" In this episode we take a step back by asking "what about that advertising?" with Dr. Esther Rozendaal of Radboud Univers...

I had originally approached today's topic of Othering through a financial lens, as part of the series of episodes on the intersection of parenting and money (previous episodes have been on NYT Money colunist Ron Lieberman's book The Opposite of Spoiled , How to Pass on Mental Wealth to your Child , The Impact of Consumerism on Parenting , and How to Set Up A Play Room .  The series will conclude i...

  School districts are starting to make plans to reopen - some with sneeze guards between desks; some on reduced schedules to accommodate the amount of space needed for social distancing, while some are going online-only for the Fall semester. How will your child cope with this? Did your child adapt well to online learning when schools closed?  Will they find it relatively easy to see their f...

If you heard the recent episode on Parental Burnout, you'll know that our identities can become really confusing when we become parents, especially for women.  On one hand, society tells us that we have to work hard and do well so we can Achieve The Dream.  And on the other hand, we're told that a Good Mother sacrifices everything for her child - including her career.  So what is a parent to do? &...

One of the things people email me wanting to know about most often is "what does the research say about how to set up a play room? What toys should I buy that will have the greatest benefit for my child's learning and development?" I'd actually been putting off doing this episode for a while, in part because the research base on this topic is thin on the ground - but also because the idea just mad...

Do you often feel anxious or irritated, especially when you're around your child? Do you often feel like you might snap, perhaps even threatening violence if they don't do what you say? Are you so disconnected from them that you sometimes consider walking out and never coming back? If you have, it's possible that you're suffering from parental burnout.   Listener Kelly reached out to me recen...

We began this mini-series a few weeks ago as listener Brian Stout and I co-interviewed Dr. Carol Gilligan as an introduction to the topic of patriarchy , how it is present in every aspect of raising our children, and the negative impacts it has on our children's lives - both on boys and girls.   The interview with Dr. Gilligan laid the groundwork for us, and in this episode Brian and I are ba...