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 me how much her heart went out to Kelly, who was navigating what seemed like an individual-level problem w...
Jul 17, 2023•41 min
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 episode will help you to answer their question during the summer months in a way that supports their wellbeing, and also address b...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 187
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 work has intersections with patriarchy as well...and many Your Parenting Mojo listeners of both/all genders ...
Jun 26, 2023•47 min
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 focuses squarely on your needs. Why is it so hard to understand what our needs are? How can we figure out what o...
Jun 12, 2023•58 min
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 few years, rather than trying to 'bounce back' into what we were before (which frankly wasn't all that...
May 29, 2023•45 min•Ep. 185
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 their relationship too. Knowing each other well isn’t always enough They met when they were 10 and have been together fo...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 184
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 with their children. I thought: There's a podcast episode in that! I asked parents to submit short videos to...
May 01, 2023•55 min•Ep. 183
All of our children go through phases when they do things we wish they wouldn’t do. Sometimes those things are relatively harmless but are pretty annoying, because they take extra time for us to clean up - things like eating (and making crumbs) in areas where we don’t want them to eat, shaving up a bar of soap, or piling up all the toys and refusing to help clean them up. Other times it’s not so harmless. They might hit us. Or hit a (smaller) sibling, for what seems like no reason. We want to ge...
Apr 24, 2023•42 min•Ep. 182
Giving choices’ is a hot tool in the respectful parenting world. In the scripts, it usually goes like this: Child: “I want a snack!” Parent: “OK! Would you like an apple or a banana?” Child: “A banana, please!” And the parent hands over the banana. But when you actually try it in your own home, it usually looks more like this: Your child:: “I want a snack!” You: “OK! Would you like an apple or a banana?” Your child: “I want cookies!” WHY IS THAT?! Why does it never ‘work’ the way it’s supposed t...
Apr 10, 2023•30 min•Ep. 181
If there’s one topic that never fails to rile parents up, it’s sibling fighting. Why does it affect us so much? (There are two main reasons.) Why is this happening, and what can we do about it? There are two main reasons, and one strategy to use with each reason. That’s it! There are not an infinite number of reasons why this is happening, or an infinite number of things to try to get it to stop. This episode will help you to identify the cause of the fighting, and how to make it stop. Sound too...
Mar 26, 2023•44 min•Ep. 180
This Q&A episode comes from a special education preschool teacher had listened to the Why We Shouldn’t Read The Your X-Year-Old Child books anymore , and wondered: My first thought was: There’s no way I’m touching that question, because I don’t have the relevant qualifications and I’ll get torn apart.I’ve been in some groups for Autistic parents for several months now, and one thing that’s abundantly clear is that qualified professionals use ‘treatments’ for Autistic children that these now-...
Mar 20, 2023•32 min
If you're anything like me, navigating conflict comes pretty easily to you. You always know what to say to make your point in a tone that's firm but still inviting, right? You listen for the purpose of understanding the other person and don't just use the time while the other person is speaking to form your own rebuttal? You never get overwhelmed, and maintain your own sense of boundaries even when the discussion argument gets really heated? (Yeah, me either, really...) A few months ago I put ou...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 179
Do you ever have that voice in your head that tells you things like: "You shouldn't have laid in bed for so long; you should have got up earlier to get ready for the day"? Or how about: "You shouldn't let your kids watch TV; good mothers don't let their kids watch TV"? Or: "If I was any good at this parenting thing, my kids wouldn't fight with each other"? If you do, have you noticed that sometimes that voice comes out when you talk to your children, in that exasperated, shaming voice: "Why woul...
Feb 20, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 178
In this episode I take a look at the main reasons why we have these hard days - from our child's temperament to our temperament to attachment relationships, trauma, and neurodivergences - all of these intersect especially tightly on the hard days. Then we look at three ways to get through these days with a little more grace - and maybe even without having to apologize to your child at the end of it. Ready to break free from the cycle of triggered reactions and conflict in your parenting journey?...
Feb 06, 2023•41 min•Ep. 177
Do you ever feel ashamed? Many people find it among their most physical emotions, resulting in a big knot of tension or a hot flush that washes over their whole body. But what is shame, and where does it come from? I recently read a LOT of academic papers and books, and also popular books about shame, and the most helpful resource I found among all of the ones I read was written by my guest today, A.J. Bond. A.J. is a wrier and a filmmaker who experienced a shame-related breakthrough in his own ...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr 4 min
This episode kicks off a series of new episodes that I'm very excited about, which is based on listeners' questions. My goal is to produce shorter episodes that cut across the research base to help you answer the questions that are on your mind about your child's behavior and development. Our first question comes from Dee in New Zealand, who wants to know: should she should do what her preschooler is asking and buy a pair of inflatable boxing gloves so he can hit her when he's feeling angry. Or ...
Jan 23, 2023•25 min
In this most personal episode I've ever created, I'll share with you how my autism self-diagnosis has helped me to understand the experiences I've had in ways that bring a great deal more clarity and insight than I've had up to now. In addition to hearing from me, you'll hear the actual voicemail the therapist who has been helping me left to explain the results of my autism screeners, as well as conversations with friends about things that are hard in our friendships. You'll hear from listeners ...
Jan 09, 2023•52 min•Ep. 175
Most of the resources related to parenting and neurodiversity are geared toward helping neurodivergent children, not neurodivergent parents, so this episode aims to help close that gap. Whether you (or your partner, if you have one) have a diagnosis or you see yourself (or them) struggling but can't quite figure out why, this episode may help. Autism and ADHD are diagnosed at wildly differing rates in girls and boys (in large part because boys' symptoms often turn outward while girls' symptoms t...
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 174
Have you ever seen recommendations for the books called Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, and so on, by Louise Bates Ames? Every few weeks I see parents posting in online communities asking about some aspect of their child’s behavior that is confusing or annoying to them, and somebody responds: “You should read the Louise Bates Ames books!” This usually comes with the caveat that the reader will have to disregard all the 'outdated gender stuff,' but that the information on child development ...
Dec 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 173
Are you a shitty parent? Or do you ever think you might be? Parenting today is so hard, and there are so many models of 'perfect parenting' available on social media that we can compare ourselves against that provide 'evidence' that we're not doing it right. Things can get even more difficult when we believe in respectful parenting, because we have a model for what we know we want parenting to be like - and every time we fall short of that ideal, the voice is there: "You don't know what you're d...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 172
Did you read Little House on the Prairie when you were a child? I didn't, but I know it's a common American rite of passage. My guest in this new episode, Dr. Dolly Chugh, got entirely immersed in the story with her two young daughters - so much so that they took a vacation to the places depicted in the story, and her daughters danced around in prairie dresses. Dr. Chugh didn't realized until afterward that there was something missing from both Little House on the Prairie and from her family's e...
Nov 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min
In this episode, we explore procrastination—why it happens, its effects on our well-being, and practical solutions. Whether you struggle with putting things off, worry about your child developing this habit, or just want to understand the psychology behind it, this episode delivers valuable insights. Our guest, Dr. Fuschia Sirois from Durham University, brings over 20 years of research on procrastination to our conversation. She reveals the emotional foundations of procrastination and offers pra...
Oct 24, 2022•55 min•Ep. 170
Liann did not have an easy entry into motherhood. Her first child’s birth was pretty traumatic; it was followed by a miscarriage and then very quickly by another pregnancy. And then by COVID. She was already overwhelmed and then everyone was isolated…and suddenly Liann had a whole lot of anger that she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t think things could be more difficult than they were in the immediate postpartum period…and then they were. Her toddler, Hewitt, resented the new baby: Liann would be...
Oct 10, 2022•53 min
I know it can be really difficult to navigate all the events happening in the world today. It seems like things are falling apart, with wars, climate change-caused drought and wildfires in some areas and flooding in others, with hunger not following far behind. And things aren’t any better on the political front either. When difficult things happen out there in the world, they spill over into our relationships with our children. We suddenly find ourselves snapping at them far more easily than us...
Oct 03, 2022•41 min
In this conversation with Dean Spade we resolve a long-running challenge in my understanding: when we talked with Dr. john powell on the topic of Othering and Belonging a couple of years ago we discussed how volunteering promotes othering, because it perpetuates the idea that the volunteer is a person with resources to give, and the recipient has little in the way of useful knowledge or resources of their own. Dr. powell agreed, but we didn’t have time to discuss what to do instead. In this epis...
Sep 26, 2022•58 min
Claire had used respectful parenting methods since her children were babies, so child-led learning seemed like a natural fit for her. She protected her toddler’s free play time and involved her in household chores and nature walks. Claire attended school as a child (just like I did!); she even enjoyed elementary school. By high school she didn’t see the relevance between what she was being taught and the things she was interested in - by that time her biggest lessons came from extracurricular ar...
Sep 12, 2022•44 min•Ep. 166
At the beginning of our stay at a friend’s house in Oregon six weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter Carys had biked a flat mile on a mountain biking trail; when we got to a very slight incline she made it 20 feet further and then it all fell apart. She whined; she cried; she refused to go on. Later in the day, after we had both calmed down, we discussed the idea of Doing Hard Things, and we ultimately both agreed that we wanted to improve our mountain biking skills this summer. She has done bot...
Aug 26, 2022•51 min•Ep. 165
Parents have been asking me for episodes on neurodivergence for a while now so I’m hoping this episode will become the start of a mini-series. In this first conversation I talk with Dr. Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist, co-author of the new book Neurodiveristy Studies: A New Critical Paradigm. We look at this topic through the lens of autism, and I share some information I found to be pretty surprising when, out of curiosity, I took the Autism Spectrum Quotient screening online. We discuss ways that...
Aug 21, 2022•48 min•Ep. 164
Every once in a while a blog post about ‘childism’ makes the rounds on social media, which is described as being a “prejudice against young people” that’s on par with sexism, racism, and homophobia. But the Director of the Childism Institute, Dr. John Wall, argues that that definition implies children are simply victims of whatever adults throw at them - when actually they are active agents who create meaning for themselves. Dr. Wall’s most recent book is called Give Children The Vote - when I p...
Aug 15, 2022•51 min•Ep. 163
This episode builds on our conversation with Dr. Atle Dyregrov on the topic of talking with children about death , where we focused mainly on death as a general concept and navigating the first few days after the death. Grief therapist Katie Lear has a new book called A Parent's Guide to Managing Childhood Grief and focuses on the much longer period of mourning that follows the death of someone close to a child. We look at: The four 'tasks' of mourning that most people (including children) move ...
Aug 01, 2022•59 min
