Parenting Beyond Power is officially available today! Come join a mini-celebration with me in this podcast episode, and TODAY on Zoom at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/8pm Central Europe, and in-person this weekend if you're in the Bay Area! Do you celebrate your achievements? I don't know about you, but I find it pretty difficult. I didn't celebrate getting into Berkeley or Yale, or graduating from either of those places either (in fact, I think I was in the car driving away from each of...

One of the questions I'm asked most often about Parenting Beyond Power (preorder bonuses are available for just a few more days!) is: How is reading the book different from listening to the podcast? So when a group of listeners volunteered to get together to discuss what they got out of the book, that was the first thing I wanted to ask them. The core premise of the book is that the social forces of White supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism have really hurt us - they're the biggest...

Do you try to give your children messages about gender that are aligned with your values? Do you tell your daughter that she can do anything she wants to do, and look for shows that have equal representation of male- and female-presenting characters? If so, you're off to a good start. And...there's so much more to do. One of the core ideas in my book, Parenting Beyond Power, is that we parents pass cultural messages on to our children. We do that through the books we read, the actions...

In this episode we hear from listener Lindsay who wonders whether it's safe to delay math learning, since (they've heard) there's a 'critical window' for learning language. Would delaying math learning mean that our child can't catch up later? Will they develop a negative view of their own learning? What if they can't get into college? We address all of these questions and more.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

‘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...

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...

This QandA 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: If we don’t use these kinds of ‘milestones’ as guidelines for our children’s behavior, how will we identify children who need extra help? And what kind of help will we give them? 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...

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...

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:...

"I'm doing the best I can with my child but some days are just really hard - and at the end of them I feel like a terrible parent. I'm getting really good at apologizing to my child but I'm worried that I'm doing some damage by going through so many of these cycles where I explode and then say sorry. How can I get through these days?" 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,...

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...

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...

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...

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'...

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...

Are you a s****y 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...

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...