Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, Research-based Parenting Ideas To Help Kids Thrive

In this second episode of Sharing Your Parenting Mojo we talk with Rose, who is American but lives in Germany, about discussing math with girls – as well as with managing her daughter’s sugar intake. https://pretentiousmama.wordpress.com/2019/03/26/talk-numbers-with-your-little-girl/ (Here’s Rose’s blog), where she discusses what she thought of my https://yourparentingmojo.com/pink/ (Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue episode). If you’d like to be interviewed for Sharing Your Parenting Mojo, https://forms.gle/xDWkGUUr4QvYS3UG9 (please complete the form located here) and I’ll be in touch if there’s a fit…

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  https://yourparentingmojo.com/race/ (Click here to view all the items in this series.) In this episode we continue our series on the intersection of race and parenting, which we started with https://yourparentingmojo.com/whiteprivilege/ (Dr. Margaret Hagerman on the topic of white privilege in parenting); then we covered https://yourparentingmojo.com/schoolprivilege/ (white privilege in schools with Dr. Allison Roda) and https://yourparentingmojo.com/talkingaboutrace/ (what parents can do to overcome structural racism as well as talk with their children about race with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum). Today we’re continuing the series by learning from Dr. John Bickford about how to actually have a conversation with our child on a topic as complex and difficult as slavery or the Civil Rights Movement, using both primary sources and children’s ‘trade’ books. During the episode you’ll hear Dr. Bickford and

Welcome to the first episode in a new series that I’m calling Sharing Your Parenting Mojo, where I interview listeners about what they’ve learned from the show as well as the parenting challenges they’re facing.  Today we talk with Ontario, Canada-based listener https://www.jessicabarnes.ca/wp-content/endurance-page-cache/_index.html (Jess Barnes), a registered social worker and parent of almost-two about a mindfulness tool that can help us to stay calm when our children push our buttons. If you’d like to be interviewed for Sharing Your Parenting Mojo, https://forms.gle/xDWkGUUr4QvYS3UG9 (please complete the form located here) and I’ll be in touch if there’s a fit…   https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/ () Read Full Transcript Jen: 00:57 Hello and welcome to this new segment of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, which we're calling Sharing Your Parenting Mojo. I'm here today with listener Jess and we're going to talk about what she's learned from the show about having developmentally app

The way we set limits has such profound implications for our parenting: it’s the difference between parenting in a constant state of anxiety, and being truly calm and confident that you’re making the right decisions as you move through your day. If we set ineffective limits, our child never knows where we stand. They push and push and push because they know we will allow it, then finally we blow up because they pushed us TOO FAR and they end up in tears (or angry) and we end up angry (or in tears, or both). But doesn’t setting limits mean being “harsh” or “punitive”? Not at all! When we set the right limits (by which I mean the right limits for your family), you can hold those limits effectively and the testing behavior will diminish dramatically. The result? More harmony at home. Less uncertainty for you. More confidence for your child. Give it a try!   https://yourparentingmojo.com/limits/?utm_campaign=settinglimits&utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=YourParentingM

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  https://yourparentingmojo.com/race/ (Click here to view all the items in this series.) We’ve laid a lot of groundwork on topics related to race by now: we learned about white https://yourparentingmojo.com/whiteprivilege/ (privilege in parenting), and https://yourparentingmojo.com/schoolprivilege/ (white privilege in schools), and even https://yourparentingmojo.com/sports/ (how parents can use sports to give their children advantages in school and in life). Today my listener Dr. Kim Rybacki and I interview a giant in the field: Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of the now-classic book (recently released in a 20th anniversary edition!) https://www.amazon.com/Black-Kids-Sitting-Together-Cafeteria/dp/0465083617 (Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race). We begin by assessing what is White parents’ responsibility to help dismantle structural racism, and

Individual sports or competitive?  Recreational or organized?  Everyone gets a trophy or just the winners? And why do sports in the first place?  Granted there are some physical benefits, but don’t we also hope that our children will learn some kind of lessons about persistence and team work that will stand them in good stead in the future? In this interview with Dr. Hilary Levy Friedman we discuss her book https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Raising-Children-Competitive/dp/0520276760 (Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture), the advantages that sports can confer on children (which might not be the ones you expect!), as well as what children themselves think about these issues. Read Full Transcript Jen: 01:23 Hello and welcome to today's episode of Your Parenting Mojo podcast, and today's episode actually comes to us courtesy of a question from my husband who said “You should really do an episode on the benefits of sports for children.” And I said, sure and I said about re

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  https://yourparentingmojo.com/race/ (Click here to view all the items in this series.) Public schools are open to all children, no matter what their race, so where’s the privilege in schools? In this episode we’ll learn more about how even (and perhaps especially) well-meaning liberal white parents perpetuate inequalities in schools which disadvantage children from non-dominant cultures. We’ll cover the way that purportedly ‘scientific’ standardized tests perpetuate inequality, ‘second generation segregation’ (which is still alive and well in schools), how white parents who want the best for their children end up disadvantaging others – and what are some steps we can take to move forward.   References Antonio, A., Chang, M.J., Hakuta, K., Kenny, D.A., Levin, S., & Milem, J.F. (2004). Effects of racial diversity on complex thinking in college students. Psychological Science 15(8), 507-510.

“Is RIE backed by scientific research?” It’s a question that comes up every once in a while among parents who use the Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) approach to raising their children, and then they all (virtually) look at each other kind of uneasily because no study has ever shown that children raised using RIE methods have any better outcomes than children who aren’t. Given how much I focus on scientific research, you would think that I would have determined my overall approach to parenting through extensive reading of the literature – but actually I discovered RIE even before I started looking at research and I latched onto it because parenting in a respectful way just felt right.  I knew that love was necessary but not the only tool I would to discipline (used in its original sense, meaning “to teach”) my daughter about how to live in our family.  I knew immediately that respect was the tool I sought. But it always niggled at me (and these other parents):

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  https://yourparentingmojo.com/race/ (Click here to view all the items in this series.) This episode launches a series of conversations on the intersection of race and parenting. I spent a month wading around in the psychological literature on this topic and deciding how best to approach it, and eventually decided to split it into four topics. Today we’ll dig into white privilege in parenting through a conversation with https://www.margarethagerman.com/ (Dr. Margaret Hagerman) on her book https://amzn.to/2MyZXJC (White kids: Growing up with privilege in a racially divided America) [affiliate link]. For those of us who are white, white privilege can be an incredibly uncomfortable to discuss. After all, we didn’t ask for this privilege – we were just born into a system where we have it. But the reality is that we do have it, and many of the actions we take on a daily basis mean that we

We’ve already covered emotion regulation a few times on the show: there were these older short episodes on https://yourparentingmojo.com/youreok/ (Three Reasons Not to Say “You’re OK!”) and https://yourparentingmojo.com/emotionregulation/ (Modeling Emotion Regulation), as well as https://yourparentingmojo.com/selfreg/ (the more recent one) on Dr. Stuart Shanker’s book Self-Reg. But I realized I’d never done the episode that should underlie all of these, which discusses what actually is emotion regulation and when (for crying out loud!) our children will be able to do it.  So we cover that in this episode, as well as some resources to help you support your child in developing this capability, the most important of which is Dr. John Gottman’s book https://amzn.to/2S5mrqR (Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child) [affiliate link].   Download your free workbook! If you’re in the thick of struggles with emotion regulation right now and you find yourself punishing or thinking about punishing your child fo

I regularly receive questions from listeners asking me whether they should put their child in daycare or preschool and my response has typically been that there isn’t a lot of research on the benefits and drawbacks for middle class children on whether or not the child goes to daycare/preschool, and that is still true. I’ve done research on my listeners and while parents of all types listen to the show, the majority of you are fortunate enough to not be highly economically challenged. So in this episode we’ll talk about why preschool is considered to be such a good thing for children of lower-income families, and also what research is available on the effects – both positive and negative – of daycare and preschool on children of middle- and upper-income families. You’ll also hear me mention in the show that it’s really, really difficult even for researchers to accurately measure the quality of a daycare/preschool setting because you can’t just get data on child:teacher ratios and teacher qualifications to

Emotion regulation: It’s one of the biggest challenges of childhood (and parenthood!).  We all want our children to be able to do it, but they struggle with it so much, and this is the root of many of our own struggles in parenting. But instead of trying to get them to reduce the intensity of their emotions, should we instead be trying to reduce the stress they experience from things like a too-hard seat at school, itchy labels, and the scratch of cutlery on plates?  Is there any peer-reviewed research supporting this idea? We’ll find out in this, the most frustrating episode I’ve ever researched, on Dr. Stuart Shanker’s book Self-Reg! References Baumeister, R.F., Twenge, J.M., & Nuss, C.K. (2002). Effects of social exclusion on cognitive processes: Anticipated aloneness reduces intelligent thought. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(4), 817-827. Crnic, K.A., & Greenberg, M.T. (1990). Minor parenting stresses with young children. Child Development 61(5), 1

What is – WHAT? Resources for Infant Educarers, or RIE (pronounced like Rye bread) is the parenting approach that we use with our daughter Carys which is grounded in respect for the child.  I’ve wanted to do an episode on this topic ever since I started the show but at first I didn’t want you thinking I was all California-granola-hippie-crazy and stop listening.  Now I figure there are enough of you that have been listening for quite a while that you’re willing to at least listen to this ‘respect for children’ idea. Because it’s no exaggeration to say that it has literally transformed my parenting, and underpins every interaction I have with my daughter.  I’m so proud of the relationship we have that’s based in our respect for each other. In this episode we’ll cover a brief history of how RIE came into existence, Magda Gerber’s eight qualities of a good parent, and how to encourage your child to play independently… And I’ll be honest and say that this is probably the first episode in the entire show whi

We all have goals for our children, even if these are things that we’ve never formally articulated and are ideas we’ve inherited from half-remembered bits of parenting books and blogs (and the occasional podcast) and the way we were parented ourselves. But do you ever find that the way you’re parenting in the moment doesn’t necessarily support your overarching goals?  So, if you have a goal to raise an independent child but every time the child struggles with something you step in and “help,” then your daily interactions with your child may not help your child to achieve that independence. In this episode Dr. Joan Grusec of the University of Toronto helps us to think through some of the ways we can shift our daily interactions with our children to ones that bring our relationship with them (rather than our need for compliance) to the fore in a way that supports our longer-term parenting goals.   References Coplan, R.J., Hastings, P.D., Lagace,-Seguin, D.G., &

If you’ve been following the show for a while now, you’ll know that my daughter and I LOVE to spend time outside.  I looked at the research on the https://yourparentingmojo.com/outdoor/ (benefits of outdoor play for young children), and in my https://yourparentingmojo.com/wildchild/ (interview with Dr. Scott Sampson on his book How to Raise a Wild Child), so I am already convinced of its benefits for young children. So doesn’t it go without saying that these benefits will continue for older children, and that if we allowed school-aged children to spend more time outside then all kinds of improved learning outcomes would follow? When I started digging into the research I was shocked by what I found.  Studies employing poor-quality methodology abound.  I’m not sure a control group exists in the whole lot of them.  And “results” are measured in terms of how much students like the program, or how much their self-esteem has improved (as subjectively measured by a teacher’

Parent-Teacher conferences are about to be underway in many places, so I thought it might be helpful to give you some resources to make these as productive for you and your child as possible. In this episode we talk with Dr. Margaret Caspe and Dr. Elena Lopez of the Global Family Research Project, which develops authentic partnerships to support children’s learning in the home, school, and community.  I actually used Dr. Lopez’ textbook for my Master’s in Education, so I’ve been familiar with her work for a while and knew she and her colleagues at GFRP were just the right people to help us learn more about Parent-Teacher conferences (for example, did you know that teachers find them just as scary as parents?!) and understand how to advocate for our child – and for all of the children in our community. The resource guide on Parent-Teacher Conferences that we reference throughout this episode https://globalfrp.org/Articles/Parent-Teacher-Conferences-Strategies-for-Principals-Teachers-a

A couple of months ago, an article by journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer – whose work I normally greatly respect – started making the rounds on Facebook.  Then (knowing my approach to parenting) a couple of readers emailed it to me and asked me what I thought of it. The article was called https://amp.slate.com/articles/life/the_kids/2017/08/rewards_systems_for_kids_are_effective_if_you_use_them_correctly.html (Go Ahead: Heap Rewards On Your Kid), with the subtitle: Parents are told stickers and trinkets for good behavior will ruin their children—but the research is wildly misunderstood. Moyer’s main point is that while a large number of sources state that rewards are detrimental to children’s development (largely to their intrinsic motivation), “the literature on the potential dangers of rewards has been misinterpreted while the findings on its benefits have been largely overlooked.” I had already done https://yourparentingmojo.com/009-do-you-punish-your-child-with-reward

Is attachment the same as bonding?  Can I have a healthy attachment with my baby if I don’t breastfeed? Do I have to babywear to develop an attachment to my baby? Will being apart from my baby disrupt our attachment relationship? Is co-sleeping critical to attachment?   These are just a few of the questions that listeners wrote to me after I sent out a call for questions on Attachment.  This was such an enormous topic to cover that https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Psychology/Faculty-Bios/Arietta-Slade (Dr. Arietta Slade) and I did the best we could in the time we had, and we did indeed cover a lot of ground. If you’ve ever been curious about the scientific evidence on how attachment forms, what are its benefits, and what it has NOT been shown to do, this is the episode for you.  We also cover reflective functioning, one of the central ways that the attachment relationship develops, and discuss how to improve our skills in th

We’re a couple of weeks into the new school year by now and I hope that for most of you the morning drop-offs have gotten a bit easier than they were in the beginning. But some of you may still be struggling with a child who doesn’t want to go to school, who resists you leaving at drop-0ff time, and who might be suddenly suffering from stomachaches and headaches (particularly on Sunday nights or weekday mornings) that had not previously been a problem. Today’s interview with http://www.changeanxiety.com/about.htm#Dalton (Dr. Jonathan Dalton), director of the Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change in Rockville, MD is going to help us understand whether our child is having a ‘normal’ amount of difficulty transitioning to school or if they are struggling enough that they might need extra help – and if so, what to do about it.   References Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2009). Attachment in the classroom. Educational Psychology Review 21, 141-170. Dalton, J., &

This episode revisits the concept of the 30 Million Word Gap concept, https://yourparentingmojo.com/wordgap/ (which we first covered in an interview with Dr. Doug Sperry) a few weeks back. After she heard that I was going to talk with Dr. Sperry, Dr. Roberta Golinkoff – https://yourparentingmojo.com/becomingbrilliant/ (with whom we discussed her book Becoming Brilliant) almost two years ago now – asked to come back on to present a rebuttal.  We’re going to learn a lot more about the importance of child-directed speech! This episode serves two purposes: it helps us to understand another aspect of the 30 Million Word Gap, and it also demonstrates pretty clearly that scientists – both of whom have the best interests of children at heart – see very different ways of achieving that end. References Adair, J.K., Colegrave, K.S-S, & McManus. M.E. (2017). How the word gap argument negatively impacts young children of Latinx immigrants’ conceptualizations of learning. Harvard Edu