Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, Research-based Parenting Ideas To Help Kids Thrive

What your child is learning in school isn’t enoughThe 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 using more and more technology in our lives - and our children are going to need different skills to navigate it than we’ve used in our careers. The 56 foundational skills for future successA report from consulting firm McKinsey’s research arm described 56 foundational skills that will help people thrive in the future of work. Eleven of these skills are related to digital fluency and citizenship, software use and development, and understanding digital systems. The other 44 skills have nothing to do with digital knowledge or capabilities. These skills (and how to help your child learn them) are the topic

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 long episodes aren’t going anywhere; I love being able to truly understand an issue and have deep conversations with experts. But I hear you that it can be hard to find an hour to listen! That’s why I’m going to start creating summary episodes. This first one summarizes the last two episodes on the topic of video games - both the conversation with @TheGamerEducator Ash Brandin, and my narrated episode on what children learn from video games. You’ll get my take-home ideas from both episodes in less than 12 minutes! If you’re starting to see the deep learning that children are doing while they’re playing vi

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 New Mexico library (non-students can’t check out books!). I wanted to know a lot more about: Why do children find video games so attractive?  And can we use that information to make the transitions away from screen time easier - as well as support their off-screen learning? Even if video games don’t lead children to violence, are they picking up ideas that aren’t aligned with our values? What useful skills are our children learning from video games, and how is this different from school-based learning?Ready to transform how you support your child's curiosity?While we're all trying to figure out what's

Why Video Games Aren't as Harmful as You Think for KidsVideo 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 learning anything beneficial, right? In this episode with @TheGamerEducator Ash Brandin and co-interviewer parent Nicole, we talk about common struggles parents have with kids who are playing games, including: How to address dysregulation at the end of screen time How to ‘scaffold’ the child’s ability to manage their own screen time The links between screen time and intrinsic motivation Why we can feel OK using screen time to give ourselves a break How to model appropriate screen time use in front of our childrenReady to transform how you support your child's curiosity? While we're all trying to figure out what'

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 community, with other members wondering whether the symptoms they were experiencing were also related to menopause - and whether this was going to be yet another thing they were going to have to educate their doctors about to get appropriate treatment. In this episode we answer questions about: What roles do hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone play in our bodies? What is menopause, and what is perimenopause? What are some of the most common symptoms of perimenopause? (Hint - it isn't hot flashes) What are the benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy, and who should consider it? Is HRT dangerou

Discover insights on why no one will play with your child and explore effective strategies for building social skills in childrenDoes 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. I've been interested in neurodivergence for a while - I'm hoping to do an episode soon on parenting with ADHD, and in the course of research for that a parent in the Parenting Membership recommended the book Why Will No-One Play With Me. The book is designed to help parents teach their children social skills - and I do think it has some useful ideas in it, but there are some pretty big caveats. This episode takes a look at the broader set of research on teaching children social skills to ask whether we CAN do it and if we can, whether we SHOULD do it and if we should, what kinds of tools should we use? The popular

Exploring Marriage, Autism, Race, and Parenting TogetherWant 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 Asperger's Syndrome.) Curious about whether he identifies as Filipino-American... or not? And how his perspective on race differs from mine? Want to hear how he sent a chicken up into space...and then found out what the two pink lines of a pregnancy test mean? Last year, when we were coming up on our 200th podcast episode, I asked my husband Alvin if he would be willing to record a podcast episode. I had envisioned listeners asking the questions and him answering - but he wanted me to join as well! One of the first things we learned was that Alvin cannot be succinct. (Well, technically speaking, this was

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 you have? Your kids don't listen now, so how could not rewarding and punishing them possibly help?   That's what parent Dr. Houri Parsi thought when I first met her. (Houri's doctorate is in clinical psychology, focused on behaviorist-based reward and punishment systems.) She wasn't ready to believe that abandoning the tools she'd been trained in would create a better outcome, when she measured her success as a parent by whether she got immediate compliance from her children.   She ended up not completely abandoning these tools - because they still fit within her vision and values for her family (he

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?   What kinds of fights (resistance, back-talk, stalling, tantrums, etc.) were you having with them a year ago?   Are you still having those same fights now (or variations on them)?   Do you wish you weren't still having those fights? That you could get out of the endless cycle of trying an idea you saw on Instagram, seeing a small change, and backsliding to where you were before?   Do you have all the tools you need so that a year from now you can look back and know, without any shadow of a doubt, that things are different now?   Today I'm going to introduce you to several parents

    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 questions is "yes," then you're experiencing shame.   Almost all of the parents I work with are ashamed of some aspect of themselves...but not Dee.   That's not to say that Dee never struggles - far from it. But her struggles seem to feel more manageable to her, and she has a sense of 'right'-ness about her.   If Dee recognizes that she has a need, it never occurs to her to not ask for help from others in getting that need met.   How did this happen? What implications does it have for how we can raise our children so they don't experience shame?   In this episode, Dee

  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. They won't take offense and they'll just empathize and reassure you that you aren't a terrible parent; you're a great parent having a difficult day - because they've seen you on your good days as well.   In this episode I'll introduce you to SIX parents who have just this kind of relationship. Katherine, Rachel, Beth, Peju, and Kati live in the eastern United States and Jody is Australia, and they meet once a week on Zoom for 40 minutes, and each of them talks for just five minutes...and in that time, they've become incredibly close friends. The relationships they have with each other are among the dee

  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 Parent A's 'better parenting approach' isn't working, since the kids are still misbehaving - this is contempt. Parent A knows they don't want to parent the way they were raised, and also knows they aren't doing things totally in alignment with their values right now. Parent A has done a lot of work to try to heal themselves, but worries that it isn't happening fast enough to protect their children. And isn't it better than the bribing and punishing that Parent B is doing? They're being defensive. Parent B stonewalls - they are overwhelmed and shuts down, refusing to talk about the issue. Both pa

  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 you know they're going to announce they're hungry in an hour)... When your elementary schooler won't get dressed in the morning (even though you know they are FULLY CAPABLE of doing it themselves) without 300 increasingly nagging, pleading, and begging 'reminders' from you...   Wouldn't it be amazing to have the PERFECT logical consequence ready that would be appropriately proportioned to the misbehavior, and also just get your child to do the thing you're asking without you having to ask again???   But here's the thing about logical consequences: they essentially say to our child: "I don't c

  Sometimes when listeners write to me, fun things happen!

    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 episode you're going to hear from parents who are in exactly these kinds of situations, and who joined me for a group coaching call to talk through them. We worked through a role play with one parent, Meagan, and then we saw how the same process could apply to lots of other different kinds of situations.   Several of the parents who joined the call were kind enough to record messages after the call letting me know how the experience was for them, and with their permission I've included these recordings in the episode as well.   So if you're struggling to find your groove as a parent; if

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 those of us who identify as women – but I also talk about how much it hurts men as well.  And that’s not just lip service: I truly believe that patriarchy has robbed men of a full emotional life. I was talking with a parent in the Parenting Membership recently who asked her husband if he ever felt truly seen and understood.  He said ‘no,’ and ended the conversation.  She cried as she told me: “I feel so sad for him that he doesn’t know that he could be seen and understood, so he doesn’t even realize he’s missing it.” We can know these things conceptually, and we can think that patriarchy kind of sucks, but may

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 herself, and this was even harder because she she didn't have the most amazing parental role models. They often fought in front of Sara and her sibling (with insults and name calling a regular part of the mix), and they didn't repair afterward. The difficult communication between parents extended to the children as well - Sara started to fight back when she was spanked, which escalated to physical fights as she got older. If she tried to talk with her Mom about previous incidents then her Mom would make out that she was the victim, while her Dad would whiz her down to Baskin Robbins for ice cream to win back her love. S

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 Kerry Cavers so we got together afterward to chat.This is a much more personal episode than many. I actually didn't know it was going to be an episode beforehand - I thought we were going to record something that would be mostly for Kerry to use to explain her work to potential funders. But when I realized what gold we had, I decided to release the video as an episode.I did realize that we were lacking in some specific take-home messages for listeners, so I asked whether Kerry would be willing to share some ideas for ways to take action on anti-racism with us. She has a lot going on at the moment so she wasn't able to record s

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 some of the major categories of factors that impact our children's development that we may not have as much control over, because we have to acknowledge these before we can look at what we do impact. Then I look at some of the things we do control but I think we can pretty safely stop worrying about them. The impact that each of these things has is likely to be so tiny as to individually meaningless. Finally, I count down my list of the top 5 things that I think impact children's development.This episode is for parents of children aged about 2 onwards. I think infants have some different needs, and I'm planning a separ

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 mental health is good enough, does it help to wallow around in all the stuff that's in the past? In this episode we talk with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who has pioneered the connections between these kinds of Adverse Childhood Experiences and medical care for children, as well as Jackie Thu-Huong Wong, Executive Director of First 5 California. We'll learn:What is an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE);How ACEs can influence not only our physical but our mental health as well;What we know about the protective effects of relationships with caring adultsDr. Burke Harris' opinions of the 'best' authoritative parenti