Parenting is hard…but does it have to be this hard?
Wouldn’t it be better if your kids would stop pressing your buttons quite as often, and if there was a little more of you to go around (with maybe even some left over for yourself)?
On the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, Jen Lumanlan M.S., M.Ed explores academic research on parenting and child development. But she doesn’t just tell you the results of the latest study - she interviews researchers at the top of their fields, and puts current information in the context of the decades of work that have come before it. An average episode reviews ~30 peer-reviewed sources, and analyzes how the research fits into our culture and values - she does all the work, so you don’t have to!
Jen is the author of Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection & Collaboration to Transform Your Family - and the World (Sasquatch/Penguin Random House). The podcast draws on the ideas from the book to give you practical, realistic strategies to get beyond today’s whack-a-mole of issues. Your Parenting Mojo also offers workshops and memberships to give you more support in implementing the ideas you hear on the show.
The single idea that underlies all of the episodes is that our behavior is our best attempt to meet our needs. Your Parenting Mojo will help you to see through the confusing messages your child’s behavior is sending so you can parent with confidence: You’ll go from: “I don’t want to yell at you!” to “I’ve got a plan.”
New episodes are released every other week - there's content for parents who have a baby on the way through kids of middle school age. Start listening now by exploring the rich library of episodes on meltdowns, sibling conflicts, parental burnout, screen time, eating vegetables, communication with your child - and your partner… and much much more!
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Many mothers go to the doctor because they feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and they aren’t sleeping - and leave with a depression diagnosis and a prescription. The message is: your brain isn't working right, and medication will help you cope. But what if the problem isn't your brain at all? In this episode, I talk with journalist Bob Whitaker, who has spent decades investigating psychiatric treatment in the U.S. We look at how women's distress has been medicalized instead of taken seriously as a re...
If you listened to our first episode on ADHD , you already know that the story most parents get about the diagnosis has some significant gaps - in the diagnostic criteria, in the research funding, and in the case for lifelong stimulant medication. This episode goes deeper on the topic of medication for kids. Most parents medicating their child with ADHD in the U.S. are doing it because they want their child to learn and succeed in school (social concerns are seen as more important to parents in ...
Most parents have heard that play is how children learn. But in a world full of educational toys (even for babies, preschoolers, and kindergarteners!), enrichment classes, structured activities, and apps designed to make babies smarter, making time for play is harder than it sounds. The pressure to get kids ahead earlier keeps building - and the research that's supposed to reassure us often gets buried under the noise. Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek has spent more than 20 years studying how children lear...
May 11, 2026•28 min•Ep. 265
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