Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

214: Ask Alvin Anything: Part 2

May 27, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 59.9 MB

Want to know how my autism self-diagnosis has affected my relationship with my husband? (I will apologize to autistic listeners here as an ableist perspective is still something we're working on, and he also uses some outdated terminology probably from an old book he's started twice - but not yet finished - on supporting partners with Asperger's Syndrome.) Curious about whether he identifies as Filipino-American... or not? And how his perspective on race differs from mine? Want to hear ...

213: How to stop using power over your child (and still get things done)

May 13, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.2 MB

Do you hate punishing (with Time Outs, withdrawing privileges, or even yelling at) your child? Do you feel guilty after you punish them, wishing there was a way to just get them to listen? And do bribes ("If you brush your teeth now, you can have 5 minutes of screen time...") feel just as awful? But what other choice do you have? Your kids don't listen now, so how could not rewarding and punishing them possibly help? That's what parent Dr. Houri Parsi thought when I first met ...

212: How to make the sustainable change you want to see in your family

May 06, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 56 MB

Here's a little thought exercise: think back to what you were doing this time last year, right around Mother's Day (in the U.S...I know it has already passed in other places!). What kinds of things were your children doing that were really endearing? What kinds of things were they doing that drove you up the wall? What kinds of fights (resistance, back-talk, stalling, tantrums, etc.) were you having with them a year ago? Are you still having those same fights now (or variation...

211: How to raise a child who doesn’t experience shame

April 29, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 69.4 MB

Are there parts of yourself that you don't share with other people? Things that you think: "If people knew that about me, they wouldn't love me / they'd think I'm a terrible person / they wouldn't even want to be around me"? When you mess up, does it seem like it's not that you did a silly/bad thing, but that you are a stupid/bad person? If your answer to any of these questions is "yes," then you're experiencing shame. Almost all of the parents I work with are ashamed of some ...

210: The power of learning in community

April 22, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 67 MB

Do you have a core group of parent friends who are always there for you? Friends who might not be 100% aligned with your parenting philosophy, but they're close enough that you know that when they do offer suggestions you would at least consider doing them? And on the days when you just want to just vent and not hear any advice at all, you know that it'll be totally fine for you to vent. They won't take offense and they'll just empathize and reassure you that you aren't a terrible parent;...

209: How to get on the same page as your parenting partner

April 15, 2024 00:00 - 48 minutes - 44.4 MB

Do you ever fight with your partner? Do you ever fight with your partner about parenting? (Pretty much all of the couples I work with do both of those things.) And these arguments tend to follow a pretty well-defined formula: Child misbehaves. Parent A gets overwhelmed, criticizes the child and snaps at Partner B for not doing more to help. Parent B and says that clearly Parent A's 'better parenting approach' isn't working, since the kids are still misbehaving - this is contemp...

208: Three reasons why setting limits is hard (and what to do about each of them)

April 08, 2024 00:00 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB

Do you ever wish that you know the appropriate logical consequence to give your child (aged 1-10) for each different kind of misbehavior you see? When your toddler empties the water out of the dog's bowl for the 10th time today... When your preschooler climbs on the table three minutes after you told them to get off it... When your kindergartener refuses to come to the table for dinner (and you know they're going to announce they're hungry in an hour)... When your elementary schooler w...

207: How to not be a permissive parent

April 01, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 65.8 MB

Sometimes when listeners write to me, fun things happen! 🤪 Listener Diana replied to a recent email because she had listened to quite a lot of my episodes (although more of the earlier ones than the recent ones) and she was generally on board with my approach. But she was having a hard time! Despite doing a lot of things for her children, and trying to remain calm and 'unruffled' and show that she loves them unconditionally, but as pretty often when she asked them to do something the...

206: How to find yourself as a parent

March 25, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 75 MB

It can be really hard to see what's happening in our struggles with our children. They refuse to go to bed at bedtime; we're at home alone all day with a baby who doesn't like being put down, and our older child who is now being aggressive, and there's no time for us to even take a shower, and maybe it seems like everyone around us is judging our parenting choices. In this very different episode you're going to hear from parents who are in exactly these kinds of situations, and who join...

205: How patriarchy hurts us…all of us

March 11, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.9 MB

I have to admit, I’m a bit scared to say it… The P-word… “Patriarchy.”(Phew! I did it!)I know some listeners find it hard to hear. I’ve spoken with more than one woman who has told me: “I sent your podcast to my husband but then he heard the word “Patriarchy” and it was all over. There’s some sadness there for me, for sure. Every time I talk about patriarchy I talk about how much it hurts me and those of us who identify as women – but I also talk about how much it hurts men as well. A...

204: How to create more time by taking care of yourself

February 19, 2024 00:00 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MB

Sara has always tried really hard to not just be a good parent, but a really good parent. The best parent. (When I coached her and her partner recently to create some content for the Parenting Membership that you'll hear more about in a few weeks, her partner said to her: You hold everyone else to a high standard. You hold yourself to a higher standard.) Sara put a lot of pressure on herself, and this was even harder because she she didn't have the most amazing parental role models. ...

203: How to move toward anti-racism with Kerry Cavers

February 12, 2024 00:00 - 58 minutes - 54 MB

Last year I hosted a panel event in Vancouver where four people who have been active in helping us to navigate toward an anti-racist, post-patriarchal, post-capitalist future came together to share their ideas in front of a live audience. It was a beautiful event (eventually we'll process the video of it to share with you!), and I really hit it off with Moms Against Racism Canada founder Kerry Cavers so we got together afterward to chat. This is a much more personal episode than ...

Q&A#5: What really matters in parenting? Part 1

February 05, 2024 00:00 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MB

Listener Roberta submitted a question recently on YourParentingMojo.com/question: What does the research say are the decisions that really matter in parenting? That question immediately got my brain churning about what could be included, and how we would decide what to include, and how much of what's included could actually be research-based. The episode begins with a look at some of the major categories of factors that impact our children's development that we may not have a...

202: How to Heal from Adverse Childhood Experiences with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and Jackie Thu-Huong Wong

January 29, 2024 00:00 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MB

My mom died when I was 10, and for a while people in our small village would look at my sister and me as if we were 'special' in some weird way. By the time I was a young adult that was just one of a stew of difficult experiences I'd had, and I also realized: my stuff is not special. By that age, most people are carrying around some kind of trauma. But so what? Does it matter? If our mental health is good enough, does it help to wallow around in all the stuff that's in the past? ...

201: How to create a culture of consent in our families

January 15, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 57 MB

When Carys was about three, I forced a dropper of antibiotics into her mouth to just get her to take it, so she would start to feel better. We were both tired and hangry and I didn't see another path forward, when she was refusing something that I knew would help her. What other choice did I have? My husband did see another path when he arrived home later that evening, and before she went to bed she willingly took a full dose of the medicine. These kinds of situations come up often i...

200: Ask Alvin Anything (Part 1!)

January 02, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.8 MB

When I saw that our 200th episode was coming up, I knew I wanted to do something special to celebrate. Listeners called in with questions for me for our 100th episode, which was released in September 2019. The numbering is a bit fuzzy, I have to admit - we're actually well over 200 episodes because there have been an assortment of Sharing Your Parenting Mojo conversations with parents and other folks that use a different numbering system, but whatever. It's still a milestone😊 Back then, I...

199: Digging Deeper into Parenting Beyond Power with Rachel Disney

December 11, 2023 00:00 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MB

Listener Rachel also reached out with some questions, and due to my book tour schedule it took us a little longer to get a call on the calendar, but eventually - on a day in Seattle when I also had a coaching call and two two-hour workshops based on the book - we made it happen. Rachel's questions go deeeep. She wanted to know: If there are ideas I logically know are the right ones to follow but I still have trouble doing it; How my parenting is evolving as Carys gets older (her own da...

198: The connection between your ideas about childhood and politics with Dr. Toby Rollo

November 27, 2023 00:00 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MB

A couple of years ago I was watching a session of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education's online conference by unschooling advocate Idzie Desmerais. At some point she dropped a quote into her presentation that I jotted down but didn't think much of at the time: What if your ideas about politics were just your ideas about childhood, extrapolated? I returned to my notes some months later, having spent much of that time immersed in writing the first draft of the book, the quote almost...

197: What to do about reward and punishment systems at school with Denise Suarez

November 13, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 68.8 MB

This is the first in a series of 'back to basics' episodes here on the show, where we'll look at the everyday challenges you're facing as a parent. (Have an idea for an episode? Share it on this thread in our free Facebook group [insert link], send us a max 2 minute video of you saying your question, or click here to record an audio message for me...) I'd wanted to do an episode on the use of reward & punishment systems in classrooms for a while, and when I mentioned this to my commu...

196: Parenting on Earth with Elizabeth Cripps

October 30, 2023 01:00 - 54 minutes - 50 MB

Do you worry about the state of the Earth? Climate change perhaps above all else, but also resource extraction, air pollution, and the injustice that goes along with the ways the impacts of these things are distributed? You're not the only one. I know not everyone goes this far, but one of the reasons I waited so long to have a baby, almost didn't have a baby, and will only have one child is to reduce my impact on climate change. We all know we're supposed to fly less, drive ...

196: How to do right by your child – and everyone else’s with Dr. Elizabeth Cripps

October 30, 2023 00:00 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MB

Do you worry about the state of the Earth? Climate change perhaps above all else, but also resource extraction, air pollution, and the injustice that goes along with the ways the impacts of these things are distributed? You're not the only one. I know not everyone goes this far, but one of the reasons I waited so long to have a baby, almost didn't have a baby, and will only have one child is to reduce my impact on climate change. We all know we're supposed to fly less, drive ...

195: Raising Good Humans Every Day with Hunter Clarke-Fields

October 16, 2023 00:00 - 48 minutes - 44 MB

Hunter Clarke-Fields is back with us again! She's the author of Raising Good Humans, and now the new book Raising Good Humans Every Day (affiliate links). Why does the world need two books with such similar titles? Are they even different?! Yes, they are! Raising Good Humans Every Day is small! And short! And the chapters are short! Each one contains just one practice, described in a few pages. If you've got five minutes you can read a chapter and then put the idea into pract...

194: Regulating for the kids…and for your marriage

October 09, 2023 00:00 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MB

Do you ever feel triggered by your partner's behavior? (No? Just me? 😬) Many parents who join the Taming Your Triggers workshop sign up for help navigating their children's behavior...and then once they're inside they confess that their partner's behavior is even more triggering than their child's. As you might imagine, many of the participants in the Taming Your Triggers workshop are women. (Classic patriarchy at work: caregiving is women's work, and so is managing the emoti...

193: You don’t have to believe everything you think

October 02, 2023 00:00 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MB

In this short episode, I'm going to teach you a real, legit, bona fide magic trick. And unlike most magic tricks which rely on sleight of hand to convince you of something that has happened when it really hasn't, this one actually works. It helps you to see that things are not as bad as they seem, and that you can cope, even when things feel incredibly difficult and that you're failing as a parent. I asked four listeners to help me explain the concept to you, and how it has helpe...

192: What to do with the myth of Polyvagal Theory

September 18, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 71.2 MB

Polyvagal Theory is everywhere these days. Psychologists talk about it; parenting coaches talk about it; if you’re in the mental health field you’re probably referring to polyvagal theory in some way. So one would assume that there’s lots of evidence for it, right? Well, maybe. Maybe not. In this episode I dig into the foundational principles of Polyvagal Theory and find that there's a lot less evidence supporting it than you might think, given how many places it's used. So...

191: Parenting Beyond Power launch celebration

September 05, 2023 04:00 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MB

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...

190: How to use the tools in Parenting Beyond Power

August 28, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.2 MB

One of the questions I'm asked most often about Parenting Beyond Power (preorder bonuses are available for just a few more days!) is: 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 reason why we feel so much pain and shame. And we will pass on tho...

189: Childhood Unlimited with Virginia Mendez

August 14, 2023 00:00 - 51 minutes - 46.9 MB

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 ac...

Q&A 4: Is it safe to delay math learning?

July 31, 2023 00:00 - 25 minutes - 23.8 MB

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. The Learning Membership Discover an empowering learning approach for your child. The Learning Memb...

188: How to learn way beyond ‘doing well in school’

July 17, 2023 00:00 - 41 minutes - 37.8 MB

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 p...

187: What to do when my child says: “I’m booored!”?

July 10, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MB

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 wellbei...

Q&A #3: Why do you have to go to work?

June 26, 2023 00:00 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MB

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 ...

186: How to meet your needs with Mara Glatzel

June 12, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.2 MB

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 ou...

185: How can we raise resilient children?

May 29, 2023 00:00 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MB

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...

184: How to get on the same page as your co-parent

May 08, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.1 MB

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 have been ...

183: What I wish I’d known about parenting

May 01, 2023 00:00 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MB

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 ...

182: How to get frustrating behavior to stop

April 24, 2023 00:00 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MB

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. W...

181: Why ‘giving choices’ doesn’t work – and what to do instead

April 10, 2023 00:00 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MB

‘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 cookies!”WHY IS THAT?! Why does it n...

180: How to get your children to stop fighting

March 26, 2023 13:00 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MB

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 to make it stop.Sound to...

Q&A #2: How do we help children who are ‘falling behind’ without using milestones?

March 20, 2023 00:00 - 34 minutes - 31.6 MB

This Q&A 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: 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 apart.I’ve been in some groups for Autistic parents for several months now, and one thing that’s abundantly clear is that qualified professionals use ‘treatments’ for Autistic children that these now...

179: I Never Thought of It That Way with Mónica Guzmán and Lulu

March 06, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 61.2 MB

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 a...

178: How to heal your inner critic

February 20, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.4 MB

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: "...

177: Three ways to be a good parent, even on bad days

February 06, 2023 00:00 - 39 minutes - 36.4 MB

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, trauma, and neurodivergences - all of these intersect especially tightly on the hard days. Then we look at three ways to get through these days with a little more grace - and maybe even without having to apologize to your child at the end of it. Taming Your Triggers We're getting everything ready to welcome a new coho...

176: How to begin healing shame with A.J. Bond

January 30, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.5 MB

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 ...

Q&A #1: Should I let my child hit me, or a pillow?

January 23, 2023 00:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MB

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 an...

175: I’ll be me; can you be you?

January 09, 2023 00:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MB

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...

174: Support for Neurodivergent Parents with Dr. Rahimeh Andalibian & Sara Goodrich

December 19, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 63.4 MB

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' sympt...

173: Why we shouldn’t read the “Your X-Year-Old Child” books any more

December 05, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 64.9 MB

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 develo...

172: You Are Not A Sh*tty Parent with Carla Naumburg

November 21, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 57 MB

Are you a shitty 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 know what y...

171: How Good People Can Create A More Just Future with Dr. Dolly Chugh

November 07, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 58 MB

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...

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