Episodes

What is the most important part of parenting? As an analogy, think of a geologist sifting sediment through a strainer looking for cool rocks. All the sand comes out the bottom, and the pebbles and rocks stay inside the strainer. People, and children especially, are the same way. Let me explain! Before I was conscious — it’s kind of funny, I say it like I was asleep for years of my life — I was so concerned with the parts of parenting that I had no control over! I thought, my kids will be bette...

What would you do if you had more time every day? What wonderful goals would you accomplish? What feats of parenthood would you achieve? Well, what’re you waiting for? Stop imagining it and start doing it! You may have seen Pomodoro timers (the little tomato-shaped kitchen timers) in many people’s houses. This is the hallmark of Pomodoro technique, a time management system developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. Pomodoro technique is applied by breaking up a block of “work time” into smal...

Have you ever felt guilty relaxing? I know I have! When my kids were little, guilt about not being busy ruled my life. I scheduled us up to our ears in activities and plans. It was way too much for David and my kids! In time, I came to realize the value in taking things slow and relaxing now and again. Relaxation, or “downtime” as I often call it, is an important tool to help you recharge and recalibrate between periods of work during the day. It can be spent alone, with friends, with your spo...

What do we do when we put too much pressure on ourselves? What if we don’t push ourselves enough? There’s a delicate balance between grit and grace — insatiable, relentless opposing forces that both have a vital place in your personal development. For some of you, grace is the special of the day, and it’s always on tap. Perhaps you had plans in order — meal prep, a workout, learning a new recipe for family dinner, tackling a side project, cleaning a room. And, even though you had no reason not ...

I thought this week would be wonderful to do a follow-up on teaching kids emotional literacy and self-regulation after last week’s episode. My title is, once again, alliteration. You know how I love it! Engaging with Grady as he plays sports and video games has been an exciting trip into the realm of new youth slang! He talks about using “strats” (strategies) to be a competent sportsman or gamer, and the need to stack or combine multiple “strats” for success. In a similar fashion, as parents we...

How do we respond when our emotions feel like they’re going to explode out, just like a shaken soda can? As adults, we have rough days all the time. Emotions run high; we feel out-of-control. We want to scream or cry or throw things, and we have decades of experience being human! That means that we (usually) have tools to monitor and regulate our own emotions. Small children have no such safeguards! When kids have big or tricky emotions, it is their first time experiencing them! As adults, in p...

The theme for this week is centered around taking one small step toward recognizing and honoring your child as a unique spirit — a gift from God, the Universe, whatever you want to call the great cosmic power — with an appropriately unique set of skills, abilities, and needs. I remember a conversation with my daughter Lily when she was very small, in elementary school, wherein she told me unprompted that she was like a sponge. When I asked her what she meant by that, she explained that she felt...

This week I wanted to share a story about food — because, like, who doesn’t love food? This is also the story of a mutual aid effort I’m getting involved in. This program is called Lasagna Love, it’s now extended to all 50 states in the USA, and my family and I are enjoying this opportunity to spread random acts of kindness in the form of food. Lasagna Love matches people who need food with people willing and able to make lasagna. Lasagna Love provides the recipe; a donor makes and delivers the...

The grass is always greener on the other side … right? WRONG! On a slight tangent from last episode’s subject, I’ll be talking more about lessons learned during my first forays into coaching. I came to use the expression “Facebook grass” to refer to that bit of sweet sweet greenery in your neighbor’s metaphorical “yard” of social media — a beautiful, cultivated space that appears to be free of all the problems of your mundane and at times miserable existence. When I was first meeting other coa...

What does a pizza parlor have to do with parenting, anyway?! Well … let me tell you. Several years ago, when I was just beginning to do life coaching, I attended a seminar for life coaches. I met many of my heroes there and found myself up to my neck in information. Naturally, I was curious about these people and how their lives stacked up now that they were living what I considered the “dream life” — an intersection of self-directed employment and a beautiful vocation of helping other people, ...

Let’s revisit last week’s question: how do you care for a child with a radically different personality than your own? As you know if you’ve listened to much of our podcast, my problem was the opposite. Early on in my saga of marriage and parenthood, I had the family scheduled up to our ears. I couldn’t allow us to have a single free moment; I needed social events to occupy all our free time. I felt like we were on a treadmill going at like 10 or 11 — and then God gave me these beautiful introve...

How do you care for a child with a radically different personality than your own? This is the very question I asked myself as I came to realize that my oldest, Lily, was nothing like me, and was not supposed to be. Two events changed my outlook. First, reading Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s The Conscious Parent, which is an INCREDIBLE read by the way (or listen, if you prefer the audiobook), shattered my paradigm and aligned my expectations for raising my children away from what my ego expected and want...

Sometimes all we need is time to chill! When Grady was starting school, I got many reports from his teachers that he was crying often. Not just crying for mom and dad at the beginning of class, but crying ALL. DAY. LONG. It was shocking to me, mainly because Grady’s red zone (don’t know what that is? see episode 89!) was usually “hot”: getting red in the face, pushing people, turning over chairs, causing a miniature path of destruction, and so on. Crying was something I’d have expected from Lil...

Birthday parenting? What does that mean?! Okay, let me tell you, because this is some really good symbolism. So this week, Lily and I went to the mall to shop for a birthday gift for one of her friends, who we’ll call Sally. She picked a couple things and I said, “is that something YOU would like, or something SALLY would like?” After some introspection, Lily got into Freaky Friday mode and did a personality and perspective shift, almost as though she were becoming Sally like a character in a p...

This week, I want to talk about leapfrog thoughts. I came up with this term to describe the leaps and bounds of an unmanaged mind imagining the worst-case scenarios, as I used to do when my children did things I thought were incorrect. I remember when I was teaching and the school provided YMCA pre-K daycare, I watched Lily from afar begging for the teacher to hold her and bawling her eyes out at 10:30 in the morning. My brain instantly jumped to “oh no, she’s never going to be sociable, she’s n...

How do you stay focused on long-term goals? How do you get back on the horse after you’ve fallen off? I hope this episode will illuminate some useful principles for you. Darren Hardy’s excellent book The Compound Effect posits that every major success in life is compounded from tiny, almost imperceptible choices made on a day-to-day basis. For example, having a strong, healthy body means keeping to daily regimens like exercise and a food intake rich in nutrients, healthy fats, and protein. Havi...

Suppose that you notice that your child or children interrupt you often when you may be busy on a phone call or talking to somebody in person. Why is that? And what can you do to quietly communicate your attention to your children’s woes? Well, first of all, know that this is totally normal for any children under the age of seven. Second, know that even if they’re well over that age, it’s not malicious intent driving them to distract you from your important business. They simply haven’t learned...

This week, I’ll be drawing on the lesson that changed the trajectory of my life. Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s book The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children is a must-read for a parent attempting to make the journey into a conscious, healthy parenting style. Several years ago I was doing my workout and listening to the audiobook, and this quote hit me so hard that I almost dropped my dumbells! Dr. Tsabary says: “When you parent, it’s crucial you realize you aren’t raising ...

A tantrum can look a lot of different ways, but it’s a global word to describe a child having a hard time. Here’s a secret: toddlers aren’t the only people who have tantrums. Older kids have them. Teenagers have them. ADULTS have them! If you feel exhausted at the end of the day, like you’ve been riding a roller-coaster, it’s likely that you’ve been having tantrums right along with your kids. I know because I used to do that, and I STILL do it sometimes. But guess what? You gotta chill, girlfri...

This episode deals with a lot of subjects, but I’ll be focusing on a specific tool that you can use: the expression “asked and answered,” which is short form for “you’ve asked, and I’ve given my answer.” Now for an example: Suppose you’re in the checkout line at the store and your child wants a lollipop. They ask, you say no — but they keep asking and they keep whining and maybe even throw a tantrum, and then you’re embarrassed. And then you break. You say, “okay, fine. You can have a lollipop....

I’m always trying to think of things that worked in my classroom with 20 kids so they’ll scale down and work in your four walls. One thing that helped my 1st-graders was teaching them tangible words to stand up for themselves and be assertive. At the beginning of the year, we’d teach them to counter teasing, bullying, etc. with a polite but assertive “please stop, I don’t like that.” Why this phrase? First, this phrase is a valuable tool for small children who are just beginning to get a grasp ...

What if I told you there was a real unicorn in Paris you could visit? Well, hold your horses, because there isn’t really a unicorn in Paris! But for children, and not just young children, that might be totally believable. Why is that? A child’s mind is full of imagination and floats along to the whimsical tune of adventuring through a totally unexplored (to them) world, and it really seems magical to them. Their minds are impressionable and vulnerable, and can be easily made to believe in thing...

Imagine you’re on a flight and the plane starts experiencing serious turbulence. How do you react? If the flight attendants are freaking out, you might also freak out — maybe even start calling people to say your last goodbyes! But if the flight attendants are calmly carrying out their tasks, you may be more inclined to be calm as well. Children are the same way around their parents and leaders. They need to be exposed to calm, assertive leadership methods so that they don’t freak out and go in...

This week I thought I’d touch on a serious life hack that I use ALL the time. I’m amazed that we’re so far in and I haven’t shared this trick with you! Mel Robbins, who has a formidable skill set as a lawyer, journalist, and keynote speaker, gave a talk at the 2011 TEDx San Francisco called “How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over” . The last couple minutes of her address deal with what she calls the “five-second rule” for self-motivation. Basically, it boils down to this: Every day we have strong ...