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

  So, does your child ever throw tantrums?  Yes?  Well, the good news is that you’re not alone.  And this isn’t something us Western parents have brought upon ourselves with our strange parenting ways; they’re actually fairly common (although not universal) in other cultures as well. What causes a tantrum?  And what can parents do to both prevent tantrums from occurring and cope with them more effectively once they start?  Join us today to learn more.     Taming Your Triggers   If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, Taming Your Triggers will be open for enrollment soon. We’ll help you to: Understand the real causes of your triggered feelings, and begin to heal the hurts that cause them Use new tools like the ones Katie describes to find ways to meet both her and her children’s needs Effectively repair with your children on the fewer instances when you are still triggered It’s a 10-week workshop with one module delivered every week, an amazing

In just a few years, today’s children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those that were available to their parents or grandparents. While the U.S. economy becomes ever more information-driven, our system of education seems stuck on the idea that “content is king,” neglecting other skills that 21st century citizens sorely need. Backed by the latest scientific evidence and illustrated with examples of what’s being done right in schools today, Becoming Brilliant (Affiliate link) introduces the “6Cs” collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence along with ways parents can nurture their children’s development in each area. Join me for an engaging chat with award-winning Professor Roberta Golinkoff about the key takeaways from the new book.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: 00:33 Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today’s episode is called Becoming Brilliant. I’m so excited to welcome my guest today, Roberta

I’ve never said the words “good job” to my toddler. I was lucky – I stumbled on Alfie Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards early enough that I was able to break the habit before my daughter had really done anything much that might be construed as requiring a “good job.” I’m going to be absolutely transparent here and say that this episode draws very heavily on Alfie Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards, which – along with one of his other books, Unconditional Parenting, are a cornerstone of my approach to parenting. If you have time, you should absolutely buy the book and read it yourself. But assuming you don’t have the time for 300 pages of (really, very good) writing plus a hundred more of notes and references to explain why both physical and verbal rewards are just as harmful to your children as punishing them, this episode will help you to get to the crux of the issue much faster. I’ll also get into the research that Kohn draws on, as well as relevant research that’s been published since the book came out in 1993

  I’m afraid this is an episode I wish I didn’t have to record. When I launched the podcast I asked anyone who has a question about parenting or child development that I might be able to answer by reviewing the scientific literature to reach out and let me know, and someone got in touch to ask about the impact of domestic violence on children. I was a little hesitant to do an episode on it at first because I was hoping that this would be something that wouldn’t really affect the majority of my audience. But as I did a search of the literature I found that domestic violence is depressingly common and more children are exposed to it than we would like. And if you’re getting ready to hit that ‘pause’ button and move on to a different episode, don’t do it yet – there’s also research linking exposure to domestic violence dragging down the test scores of everyone else in that child’s class. So even if you’re not hitting anyone or being hit yourself, this issue probably impacts someone in your child’s class,

  (Believe it or not, this is Carys’ “I freaking love homemade spinach ravioli with broccoli” face!)   I was sitting in a restaurant recently with half an eye on a toddler and his parents at the next table. The parents were trying to get the toddler to eat some of his broccoli before he ate the second helping of chicken that he was asking for. All of a sudden a line from Pink Floyd’s album “The Wall” popped into my head: If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat? This is the way I was raised; you finish everything on your plate and you certainly don’t get dessert if you don’t finish your meal. But as is the custom with the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, I want to use this episode to question why we do this and find out what scientific research has to say about it all. We want our toddlers to eat a balanced diet, and we assume we have to teach them what a balanced diet means. But do we really? Or can we trust that our children wi

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  Click here to view all the items in this series. I’d always assumed that if I didn’t mention race to my daughter, if it was just a non-issue, that she wouldn’t grow up to be racist. Boy, was I wrong about that. It turns out that our brains are wired to make generalizations about people, and race is a pretty obviously noticeable way of categorizing people. If your child is older than three, try tearing a few pictures of White people and a few more of Black people out of a magazine and ask him to group them any way he likes. Based on the research, I’d put money on him sorting the pictures by race. So what have we learned about reversing racism once it has already developed? How can we prevent our children from becoming racist in the first place? And where do they learn these things anyway? (Surprise: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”)   References Aboud, F.E. (2003). The formation of in-group

When I started talking with people about the idea for this podcast, one theme that came up consistently was the idea of supporting our children’s growth and development. A friend of mine summed it up most concisely and articulately by asking “how do I know when to lead and when I should step back and let my daughter lead?” This episode covers the concept of “scaffolding,” which is a method parents can use to observe and support their children’s development by providing just enough assistance to keep the child in their “Zone of Proximal Development.” This tool can help you to know you’re providing enough support…but not so much that your child will never learn to be self-sufficient.   Learning Membership Do you want to turn your child’s interests into learning opportunities? The Learning Membership is here to help you. Make learning a fun adventure that not only strengthens your bond, but also nurtures your child’s intrinsic love of learning—an essential foundation for success in an AI-driven world. G

I’m so excited to welcome my first guest on the Your Parenting Mojo podcast: Professor Tara Callaghan of St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.   Professor Callaghan has spent a great number of years studying the emergence of artistic ability in young children and she shares some of her insights with us.  This is a rather longer episode than usual so here are some places you might want to skip ahead to if you have specific interest: [03:55]: The connection between individuality and creativity, especially in Western cultures [09:00]: What is “symbolic representation” and why is the development of symbolic representation an important milestone for young children? [12:10]: Is it helpful for parents to ask a child “What are you drawing?” [15:25]: When do children understand symbols? [31:15]: What can parents do to support children’s development of symbolic representation in particular and artistic ability in general?   Dr. Tara Callaghan's Book Early social cognition in three cultural contexts

So did you teach your toddler to read yet? And if not, why not? I’m just kidding, of course. I wanted to write this episode on encouraging literacy in middle to older toddlers, but the more I researched the more I found the issues go much further back than what you do in toddlerhood. Then I found – and read! – a 45,000 word essay by Larry Sanger, who taught his baby son to read.  I’m not kidding.  Check out the link to the video on YouTube in the references. My two-year-old can’t read yet.  Did I miss the boat?  Would her learning outcomes have been better if I had taught her as a baby? Is TV a good medium to teach reading and vocabulary? What are some of the things parents of young toddlers can do to encourage reading readiness when the child is ready? We talk about all this and more in episode 3, and there’s more to come for older toddlers in a few episodes time.   References American Academy of Pediatrics (2016). Media and Children. Accessed August 19th, 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.aap

Imagine this: you’re with your toddler son or daughter at a playground on a Saturday afternoon so there are a lot of people around.  You’re sitting on a bench while your child plays in the sandpit where several others are playing as well.  You’re half paying attention while you catch up with some texts on your phone.  You hear a scream and when you look up you see a child you don’t know clutching tightly onto the spade your child had been playing with, and your child is about to burst into tears. Or this: You’re at the playground on a Saturday afternoon and your child is in the sand pit, but when you hear the scream you look up to see your child holding the spade, and a child you don’t know has clearly just had it removed from his possession. What do you do? Assuming you want your children to learn how to share things, what’s the best way to encourage that behavior?  What signs can you look for to understand whether they’re developmentally ready?  Does praising a child who proactively shares something enco

Have you ever thought about how common the murder of children has been in societies we now call “Western” in the past, as well as societies all over the world today? In my naivete as a parent I figured there would be some differences in how people parent their children around the world, but I never imagined that people in my own back yards would parent completely differently from me.  And I sort of figured that the ‘around the world’ differences were mostly a function of the availability of products and services – wouldn’t everyone encourage artistic ability if they had access to paper and crayons?  Turns out it’s not the case. Elders and even ancestors occupied the top of the family heap in most societies for most of our history.  In Western (also called “WEIRD”) societies, we’ve reversed this paradigm and children find themselves ruling the roost.  Yet we’re also starting to “borrow” elements of other cultures – like baby-wearing and elimination communication.  I’ll also examine how several other cultures

I always thought the infant phase would be the hardest part of parenting, when all the baby does is eat and sleep and cry.  Now I have a toddler I’m finding it’s harder than having a baby, some of the support systems that I had when she was a baby aren’t there any more, and the parenting skills I need are totally different.  How do I even know what I need to learn to not mess up this parenting thing?  Should I go back to school to try to figure it all out? In this episode I’ll tell you the history and principles behind the podcast and what we’ll learn together. Note: When I revamped the website I decided that after two years of shows, some of the information in this episode was out of date.  I recently re-recorded it to highlight the resources I’ve created for you. Please do subscribe to the show by entering your name and email address in the box below to receive updates when new podcast episodes and blog posts are published, as well as calls for questions and occasional requests for co-interviewers.  And