Episodes

As a parent of teens, you might be familiar with what I like to call the dreaded "screaming hair fit," caused by everything from finding the perfect outfit before an important event, a haircut gone wrong or even just a pimple on their face. Transition times with teens can be especially turbulent; and leave you feeling pulled you into their emotional "vortex" with no way to get yourself out of it. If this sounds familiar join me for today's discussion where I'll look closer at why this phenomenon...

As parents we have all heard the same messaging about – making sure our teens talk to us face-to-face and spend less time on their screens. However, when it comes to texting with them this may not always be the hard and fast rule. So why on earth would I tell you to text your teen? Tune into today’s episode and discover how texting your teen can make having conversations easier while also aiding in their growth and development. MEET JENNIFER KOLARI Jennifer Kolari is the host of the “Connecte...

Making mistakes is guaranteed in life. But they’re also an inevitable and intricate part of learning and growth. This means how we react to those mistakes, especially in front of our kids, really teaches them how to respond to errors and perfection. Our kids are always watching us, and we are always teaching them — is the message clear? VALENTINE’S SALE | HAPPENING NOW | It’s time for a revolution in parenting that’s based on the neuroscience of love. To celebrate the month of LOVE, we are o...

February is the perfect month to explore the science behind love and its impact on parenting. Discover how dopamine and oxytocin, aka ‘happy hormones’, can help you better understand yourself, build stronger relationships with your family, and foster meaningful connection through deeper insight of emotions.. Join us for an in-depth journey into the neurobiology of love. Have you seen my latest course? Master Procrastinator Course | “From No to Go” ….a course specifically designed to help your...

Ever feel like you are stuck in this never ending loop of back and forth with your kids? In today’s episode, I’m talking about “the protest”. When it comes to strong-will kids or “Gladiators” as I lovingly call them you will often see this sort of pushing back, or automatic no to almost any new idea and or transition. They just have a very powerful counter to whatever it is you say, that they hold strong to and don’t back down from. How you respond to the protest can really make a difference i...

What is a gladiator child? I realized I referenced that term a lot in some of my podcast episodes but I haven’t actually done an episode that speaks specifically on what a gladiator child is like, who they are and what their incredible qualities are. So join me this week to explore what it means to have a “gladiator child” and learn just how much they really do bring to our lives and the world at large. Have you seen my latest course? Master Procrastinator Course | “From No to Go” ….a course ...

Having older children now has made me very much aware of time and pace at which it moves. Everyone warns you of this fact when you first become a parent and it isn’t until, you look back you realize how fast time actually went. For many of you who have little ones who are exhausted, and it just seems like it’s never going to end. Instead every day, gets harder and harder and truth is sometimes it does. But the other truth is time really does fly and if we aren’t paying attention to it, we can m...

The holidays can be wonderful, warm and lovely but they can also be really stressful. Kids are tired, they’re sugared up and full of excitement. Unfortunately, excitement doesn’t always feel great in a child’s body. Sometimes it just feels like excess energy that they have to diffuse. With this level of excitement during the holiday season comes a lot of expectations and worry about, are my kids going to behave at dinner, are they going to be rude when they get a gift they don’t want, how are t...

Today I have my favorite guest, Natalie Syrmopoulos, joining me, and we’re talking about how to invest in play even when you’ve had a really stressful day. Like most parents just hearing that probably sounds exhausting, and it not like something that you really want to do. If you can relate, this episode is just what you need. Join us to hear our top tips for how to keep it fun even when you’ve had a hard day. Connect with Natalie Syrmopoulos Website: https://evolvingwithnatalie.com/Instagram:...

Today I want to talk about teenage angst and in particular, the age of 15. 15 is a tough age for teenagers that I call that the ‘existential year’. Whether you have a teen this age or one upcoming join me and together let’s figure out what’s going on in their teenager brain, and learn what it is you can do to help comfort and soothe them all while forging a deeper connection. Have you seen my latest course? Master Procrastinator Course | “From No to Go” ….a course specifically designed to help...

It is unbelievably challenging to parent a master procrastinator. Your days are filled with worry, and an ever-growing pit in your stomach as you watch them play video games, or sit on their phone amidst looming homework due dates and projects that haven’t even been started yet. Often leading you to parent from a place of fear, where nagging, begging, pleading, threatening and the removal of their things is the only option you know to take. This isn’t how you envisioned life when it came to rai...

Today I'm going to talk about baby play, also known as limbic bonding. This is one of the pillars of Connected Parenting that includes moments where you deeply connect with your child, look in their eyes, rub noses, put your hands on their cheeks, or play with and tickle them. In those precious moments, incredible things are happening... You're bonding You're building emotional resilience You're strengthening the immune system You're speeding up neuroplasticity It is really a wonderful, wonderfu...

Today's an interesting topic --------- I'm going to talk about self-heckling and the broken self esteem that comes as a result of it. Self-heckling is that constant voice inside our head, that says things like... "of course, you couldn't do that", "someone else would do it better than you" "you're a failure" This leaves us or our children and us feeling less than, like we don't matter or that everyone is better than us so why bother trying. If this is an area that you or your child struggle with...

Today I want to talk about sleep as it is certainly a big issue for not only kids in general but more specifically gladiator kids and even us as parents. This can be especially true right after a high anxiety holiday like Halloween and or the upcoming time change that happens at the beginning of November. Sleep patterns get thrown off or completely tossed out the window. The good news is that if you or your kids are having trouble sleeping there are strategies you can use to not only help yourse...

For most kids Halloween and the time leading up to it can be really fun and they love it. But for a lot of very sensitive children the feelings and reactions can be quite the opposite and extremely anxiety provoking. Everywhere they look they are seeing scary images on every lawn, and on every commercial on television, there's images of witches, ghouls and ghosts. If this is something you are facing this Halloween season, then join me for this week's episode to talk about what we can do as paren...

The teen dating scene, has become extremely complicated both for them and us as parents. In fact by the time you listen to this, the scene may have even morphed and changed a little bit again. Social media of course has played a huge part in really complicating things for sure because teens have been given the ability to talk to a number of different people all at the same time. The novelty of these situations and conversations send out reward chemicals like, oxytocin and serotonin into the brai...

Childhood is a time where kids are trying to figure out how to be heard, how to make an impact, when to back off, and when to step forward. They do this by making a lot of mistakes, bumping up against things and learning sometimes the hard, experiential way, what does and doesn't work. Today I want to talk about socially aggressive behavior and bullying, how to help your children if they are victims of this behaviour and also how to help your children manage their emotions if they are the aggres...

Your kids have been at school all day and then they've probably had after school programs, so by the time they sit down to do their homework at night, they are fried, they are tired, and they don't want to do it. The odd child already has their homework done and is bringing it to you to sign off on but that's very rare.Most kids procrastinate, drag their heels and refuse to do it. Some kids in fact, many kids would rather have a complete meltdown. They would rather scream, yell and get in to a b...

Anxiety and worrying get a bad rap. We are taught to think of them as a bad thing and something we have to fight against. This is why it is vital that we help our kids understand the important role anxiety plays in our lives. For instance if we didn't have anxiety, then we wouldn't look twice when we cross the street and that could end very badly for us. The reality is a healthy amount of anxiety helps us make good choices and so it is our job to help our kids understand the importance of this c...

Sometimes your kid will say things like, I keep thinking of this, or every time I hold a glass, I think about smashing it and they get worried about what they see as troublesome thoughts better known as intrusive thoughts. So today I want to talk about these weird thoughts that come up for all of us at one point or another in different ways, what they are and how we should handle them. The truth is they happen to all of us and they are connected to impulse control. ...so what happens now? Join m...

Today I have a really unique episode planned with my daughter Zoe. Just in time for the return to school, schedules and keeping everyone on track we are doing a deep dive into the CALM technique. We're going to roleplay and act out some ridiculous things that can happen in our homes and show what the before and after using the CALM technique looks like. If you haven't already listened to my early episodes where I talk about this CALM technique I would go back and listen to episode one and two, j...

Kids and teenagers exist in time, which means they're almost never outside of time. When you're in time you care about what's happening in front of you and the part of the brain that actually thinks about where you are relative to time is just either not there or not yet developed. This means when our kids are eating their cereal, playing on their iPad or with their Lego in the morning thinking they have a few minutes left, and we are trying to factor in morning traffic frustrated with why they ...

Irrelevant behaviors is something that can be common all the way through childhood and even to into the teenage years. Irrelevant behaviors are the hooting, screaming, shrieking, singing silly songs, doing crazy dances sort of behaviors that really there's no purpose for. They are more like a discharge of energy as if the battery's overcharged and needs a way to get that extra energy out. Often they show themselves during a transitional phase like getting out of the car, or moving from the day's...

For some kids their anxiety and nerves pick up two or three weeks before school even starts. They really start to get anxious about going back to school. They wonder who is my teacher going to be? Who's going to be my class? Am I going to be able to do the work? Am I going to be able to do what a grade six or a grade five does. For high school kids, it's a huge transition, going from middle school to high school and all the adjustments that come with such a back to school move. So overall it's a...