In this heartfelt episode of The Balanced Parent, your host returns from a summer sabbatical to share a deeply personal journey. After taking a break to reconnect with my children and my purpose as a parenting coach and educator, I faced immense challenges, including the diagnosis process for my daughter. During this time, maintaining authenticity on the podcast became a significant struggle, as my family's difficulties were intensely private. Hence, I took a break from work and social media.

In this episode, we are joined by Kelly Smith, a yoga and meditation teacher and founder of Yoga For You. Kelly shares her insights into how mindfulness and yoga can help us connect with our authentic selves and cultivate inner joy and power. She encourages us to find our own personal practice, listen to our bodies, and access our most authentic selves. For more show notes, visit www.laurafroyen.com/podcast.

I'm excited to share that my latest podcast episode features a special guest, Dr. Rina Bliss. Dr. Bliss is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University and the author of several books, including Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential. For more show notes, visit www.laurafroyen.com/podcast.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, an award-winning psychologist, researcher, and professor at Long Island University, Brooklyn, to discuss the power of mindful eating for family connections. If you're looking for practical ways to improve your family's eating habits and deepen your connection with your children, this episode is a must-listen. Join us as we explore the power of mindful eating with Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers and discover how it can transform your...

I am excited to share with you the latest episode of my podcast, where we explore the topic of nutrition and ADHD in children. As a parenting expert, I always emphasize the importance of a holistic approach to raising our children; this episode is no exception. I had the pleasure of interviewing Momina Salim, a certified Pediatric Functional Medicine Health Coach with extensive experience supporting frustrated parents of children diagnosed or suspected of ADHD. Momina helps parents address...

As a parent, I know how challenging it can be to juggle the many responsibilities that come with caring for our children, partners, and ourselves. As you may remember, recently I've been struggling with health issues and burnout, and it has been a really difficult journey. I've come to realize that many other parents are experiencing similar struggles, and it's time we have a compassionate conversation about it. That's why I'm excited to share my latest podcast episode where I speak with...

This week on The Balanced Parent podcast, we will have a deep-dive discussion into how we can help our children develop crucial skills for building meaningful social connections, like perspective-taking and problem-solving. Miriam Campbell will be joining me in this discussion. She is a mom who uses her experience as a speech therapist, social worker, teacher, and parent to support parents who want to develop their children's social and emotional skills.​ ​​ If you want to consult with...

When I ask the parents I work with about their long-term goals for their children, kindness is one of the qualities I hear most about, and it's no wonder, right? Most of us have personal experiences where we have been on the receiving end of the kindness (and unkindness) of others, and it makes sense that we hope that our children will put good out into the world. But how is something like "kindness" taught and learned? Well, similar to the idea of "balance" it's not necessarily a thing you...

Ok, so we've all heard the term "conscious parenting" before, right? We've even talked about it on the show, but out there in the online world I see a LOT of people talking about it in a lot of different ways and I'm not always sure we are talking about the same thing. In my mind there is a difference between respectful, collaborative parenting (which is about HOW you interact with your kids, like the actual practices and things you say and do) and conscious parenting. ​ So what exactly is...

A huge part of my mothering journey has been learning to quiet the fears and outside influences, and seek instead to truly learn with curiosity about my child and myself. The more I learned about the unique child I had been blessed with, the more I was able to see her true needs and trust myself to meet them. I kind of had to figure out how to do this on my own (although the RIE approach helped immensely) and I wished I'd had someone to tell me that I could trust myself and my child, and then...

As my child approaches ten and has started to ask for a phone, it is important that as parents we know how to guide our kids in navigating technology and social media with intention and safety in mind. An important aspect of this is figuring out how to model for our kids the boundaries and relationships with social media that we want them to have. ​ To help me in this conversation, I have brought in Lena Derhally. She is an author and Imago-certified psychotherapist in private practice. She...

On this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, I will be joined by Carol Muleta and we will be chatting about how we can help our children develop self-discipline and resilience. Something that I know we all want for our children but that can be difficult to figure out how to nurture respectfully. Carol Muleta is a Parenting Strategist and Consultant. She created The Parenting 411, a portal where she engages parents and awakens the JOY in their journey with her fresh approach to...

We are nearing the end of my 30 Days of Play Challenge. And with that, I would like to thank those who have joined. I want you to know that I am proud of everyone who put in the work to know more about their children through play and made the effort to make independent play better. I am also proud of every parent in this community who committed to becoming balanced. ​ And before we end our play challenge, I would like everyone to know that there will be a Wrap-Up Webinar on January 31st at 1...

We are now halfway through our 30 Days of Play Challenge. For the past few weeks, we've talked about unstructured, independent play and its wonderful advantages it has for kids. Today, I want to give you a full well-rounded picture of how play can help support your kids, and how you can harness the power of a specific type of play, "structured play" (think games with rules someone else made up), to encourage 4 skills that are key to building resilience. To help me in this conversation, I...

As you may have been aware, we are now in the midst of our annual 30 Days of Play Challenge. And when it comes to the play challenge, one of the main things everyone asks for is assistance in figuring out how to encourage your children to play independently more often. Last week we discussed the things your child needs in order to get into independent play, and this week we are going to discuss what YOU can do to really deepen their play skills and experience. ​ And so in this episode, I will...

We are now back on The Balanced Parent podcast! As you all know, we focus on our children's play every January. And I would like to invite you to join me in my 30 Days of Play Challenge. As part of this challenge, the episodes on the podcast for this month will be all about PLAY! Yay! ​ To start the month off, I wanted to focus on one of the most common questions I get: How can I get my kids to play more independently? The secret to getting more of the coveted independent play we first have...

As we enter into a season meant to be filled with light, love, & joy, I wanted to just acknowledge that this can also be a time filled with pressure, stress, and overwhelm. We take on a lot as parents during this time, and just in case no one has said this to you yet, it's ok, more than ok, it's GOOD, to say "no" to some things. To release traditions that feel confining, to embrace slowing down, doing less, and savoring more, and to pause what needs to so that you can be fully present...

This week's episode is going to be a little different. If you have been following me and The Balanced Parent Podcast, you know that there are times where members of my BalancingU membership community so generously allow us to "listen in" to their coaching sessions. It can be so helpful to hear others' experiences and I know that you may have similar struggles and questions. This way, you would know that you are not alone and just like you, the couple that I coached in this episode wants to...