Photo Courtesy of Dudley Dana In this fantastic new episode of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, John tries to inspire Sara to be more cooperative. You can guess how well that works. As the usual Sara-John dynamics fly, you’ll learn about three situations that tend to elicit children’s defiance, how children’s styles may make them more or less cooperative, general principles of inspiring cooperation in children, and specific techniques you can try out with your children. You’ll also...

When John mentions the title of this episode of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, Sara emits the sophisticated professional response of “Eewww gross.” Don’t worry. Things get better from there, because you get to hear a wide range of strategies for teaching children about healthy relationships, including Sara’s super-secret and bizarrely named strategy called “the spinach in the muffins technique.” You also get to hear several inappropriate self-disclosures...

John begins this episode feeling nervous, mostly because he has unrealistic expectations about wishing to solve everyone’s anxiety problems with one podcast episode. Fortunately, because Sara is a genius, she immediately helps John feel better about his unrealistic expectations . . . although Sara also immediately makes it so John regrets calling her a genius.

Sara and John review many different motivations for lying. These include, but are not limited to Penelope’s ego-boosting motivation. For parents, it can be helpful to understand the goals of your children’s lies. Obviously (or maybe not so obviously), if your children lie because they’re afraid to admit they did something wrong, then using harsh punishment with your children may make them even more afraid to tell you the truth and more inclined to lie and more likely to become even better...

Two brothers, ages 7 and 9, were arguing over an imaginary cookie. In a dramatic turn of events, the older brother brought the invisible cookie to his lips, and took an imaginary bite. Immediately, the younger brother fell to his knees, crying and wailing over the loss of this imagined—yet highly coveted and presumably scrumptious—cookie....

“Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, this podcast was thought to be lost forever. Then, somehow the universe returned it to us. As a lost, but freshly rediscovered relic, it includes massive secrets that are about to be unleashed on society. The good news is that you could be the first of your friends and families to hear this secret, life-enhancing message. Listen carefully. Listen closely. Listen with purpose. This podcast will transform your life.”

For this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast you should just let yourself relax, let go of all expectations, and tune in. You can even practice being bored, because one part of the secret to self-regulation is that it’s all about embracing your boringness (Spoiler alert, Sara gets bored at the end).

In today’s episode, Dr. Sara begins by imagining what it might be like if children, teachers, coworkers, parents, and even world leaders, were able to regulate their emotions.  John and Sara explain the 5 crucial steps parents can follow if they want to help their kids learn to navigate the big world of emotions.

arenting is difficult. Parenting is also wonderful. As parents, most days we’re reminded of parenting challenges and joys. In today’s episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John talk (and John dons his professorial persona and talks too much). Sara and John they talk about adding the crucial tool of behavior modification to your parenting toolbox. Don’t worry, we know how the idea of “behavior modification” can feel to parents; it can feel too sterile and mechanistic.

One day, Sara woke up tired; she was tired of always having to go to a studio to record the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast episodes. She emailed John and Mike (the sound guy) and suggested we take the show on the road. So we did. Mike put lapel microphones on Sara and John, and set up a standing mic for 50 students in Ariel Goodman’s “Intimate and Family Relationships” class (Counseling 242). The good news is that we got some fabulous Q and A...

In this episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John take on the Trump phenomenon and although neither of them speak Latin, the bottom-line message is “Carpe Diem!” or “Seize the day!”   On their way to seizing the day, Sara and John share their own parental shortcomings. They also brainstorm how to respond when teenage boys come home and say things like, “I just learned that oral sex isn’t really sexL!”...

What do you feel when your lovely child misbehaves and then the misbehavior continues or repeats? What happens when you feel terribly angry and just want to make your child’s behavior stop? What happens if you spank your child . . . and then . . . much to your relief, your child’s annoying behavior stops! In this episode, not only do Dr. Sara and Dr. John discuss the negative outcomes linked to spanking, John also annoys Sara so much that she takes the impressive step of turning off his...

It would be nice to know everything. And if you have children, it would be nice to know about all the wild parenting adventures awaiting you. But you don’t know. You don’t know because there’s no special instruction manual that comes along with the birth of your first child. In this Practically Perfect Parenting episode, we talk about all things parenting education, because parenting education is the best substitute for the absence of an instruction manual...

This OPENING episode of Season 2 of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast is positively packed with information and tantalizing tips. TECHNOLOGY and SCREEN TIME is a huge issue for many parents. In this captivating episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John are talking back to technology; they’re saying, “Hey technology, we’re taking you down! Well, not really. But the episode does include a range of AMAZING insights and tips to help parents understand and deal with the dangers and opportunities of...

Why Youth Sports Makes Parents Crazy In this—the final episode of Season One—Dr. Sara and Dr. John talk about how youth sports can be the royal road to emotional problems for parents. Highlights include: (a) a discussion of how easy and natural it is for parents to get overemotional about their child’s athletic performance; (b) ideas for emotional preparation; (c) the sorts of bad advice parents can yell from the sideline (but shouldn’t!); and (d) insights from Coach Collin Fehr, who, with...

Youth Sports: Benefits, Opportunities, & Advice for Parents In this action-packed episode, Dr. Sara gathers important insights about youth sports from a parent and two young athletes. Then, she treats Dr. John with contempt (not really) because he doesn’t understand the term “Capitalization” (that’s true), and later she has to put John in time-out because he gets all agitated and uses the words “pissed off” while just talking about soccer referees. More importantly, Sara and John share a...

How Parents Can Help Children Deal with Grief In our last podcast Dr. Sara and Dr. John, teamed up with Dr. Tina Barrett from Tamarack Grief Resource Center as we answered some questions about how to talk about death. This week, we go from talking to doing, as we invite Dr. Tina back, this time to discuss how parents can help children deal with grief. After Dr. Sara and Dr. John check in on each other’s grief memories, Dr. Tina shares more of her infinite wisdom on how we, as practically...

Talking with Children about Life & Death In keeping with our “Big Talks” theme, this episode focuses on how parents can face and manage conversations about death with their children. Beginning with memories from their childhoods and concluding with money tips and resources, Dr. Sara and Dr. John ramble from practical tips to philosophical truths. Best of all, sandwiched in the middle is an interview with Dr. Tina Barrett, executive director of the Tamarack Grief Resource Center in...

Teens & Depression In this episode, Dr. Sara and Dr. John take on the serious topic of teenage depression. There are no laughs or giggles, but you’ll get to hear Sara ask John a rapid-fire series of many questions about teen depression, which is sort of funny. Her questions include: (a) how parents can distinguish between depression and normal sadness, (b) whether anti-depressant medications are effective, (c) what sorts of therapies might be helpful, and many more. John dazzles with...

When Teens Talk Back   In this episode, Dr. Sara decides to consult with Dr. John about her hypothetical “friend’s” teenage and pre-teen boys, who coincidently, happen to be the same ages as Sara’s own children. Other than being a disastrously bad consultant, John ends up complaining about how disrespectful our culture is toward teens. This leads Sara and John to affirm that, instead of lowering the expectation bar for teens, we should re-focus on what’s great about teenage brains. Overall,...

Let's Do The Sex Talk Again Would you rather have your child learn about sex from Fergus, the unsupervised kid down the street . . . or from internet pornography . . . or from YOU? We hope you can see that the answer to that question is obvious. In this episode, Dr. Sara encourages you to become an “askable parent” and to get comfortable shouting out the words “vagina” and “penis,” instead of avoiding the topic. She also shares the clever line: If you’ve got a protective cover on your phone,...

The American expectation is that pregnant women and new moms will be happy and fulfilled. But the reality is that approximately 20% of pregnant women are diagnosed with depression during pregnancy. So what happens when pregnancy and childbirth bring along the storm clouds of depression?  In this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast episode you’ll learn more about post-partum depression and hear writer and founder of Postpartum Support International, Jane Honikman share a universal message to...

Getting a divorce isn’t part of the fairy tale family story. No one who gets romantically connected and has children plans on getting divorced. In this PPPP episode, Dr. John and Dr. Sara discuss the divorced children’s bill of rights. In the process, they provide information to help parents make positive family adjustments to a divorce and shared parenting situation. If you want to hear John’s “Stupid-Ass Parenting Class” story, Sara’s rules on post-divorce dating, and the polarized...

In this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, Dr. Sara starts off by spoiling the romantic hopes and dreams of everyone—including Dr. John. Instead of embracing fairy tale relationship patterns that include love, sex, babies, and happiness, Sara offers a rather depressing list of reasons why having children tends to decrease relationship satisfaction. Fortunately, later in the show she also provides a list of excellent ideas and solutions that should give us all hope for the happily ever...