Episodes

In today's episode, I had the pleasure of hosting Michelle Zagardo, a member of the post-traumatic parenting community. Our discussion centered around post-traumatic parenting while in eating disorder recovery. We debunked the myth that only those who are severely ill require treatment for eating disorders. Additionally, we delved into the relationship between food and control, especially for individuals who grew up without much autonomy. We also explored how societal messages can impact our re...

In today's podcast episode, I delve deep into the world of parts work therapy with the incredible trauma therapist, author, and parts work expert - Ilyse Kennedy. Ilyse's area of expertise lies in working with complex trauma, and she has helped numerous parents unpack their trauma while parenting their children. In this interview, Ilyse sheds light on the concept of parts work therapy, which involves identifying and addressing different parts of yourself. She also talks about the importance of ...

In today’s episode of Post Traumatic Parenting, I delve further into the topic of entanglement, boundaries, and how to get out of entanglement. If you recall the previous episode, you remember Esme, a post-traumatic parent who is so tangled up in the dynamics of her family of origin that it interferes with her parenting style and hinders her ability to parent in accordance with her values. Esme has sought my guidance in analyzing her situation and finding a way out of this entanglement. While s...

Welcome to another episode of Post-Traumatic Parenting! I'm thrilled to share today's episode with you as I'm experimenting with a new format for solo episodes. After hearing from several post-traumatic parents who reached out to share their stories on the podcast but were concerned about protecting their identities, I wanted to find a way to help them and analyze their situations without revealing any sensitive information. By doing so, we can learn so much from one another's experiences and gr...

Columbine. Las Vegas Rt. 91. Sandy Hook. Robb Elementary School. These shootings (and sadly, so many more) are seared into our public consciousness. I can still remember where I was when the news about Columbine broke. For many Post-Traumatic Parents, the thought of mass violence or school shootings is terrifying, because who knows better than us just how unsafe the world is? Even if our trauma wasn't about mass violence, the unsafe feeling trauma leaves behind affects us. In this deeply moving...

The metaphor I like to use the most for trauma is it’s like a mobile app running in the background. It drains your battery and keeps giving itself permissions unless you actively limit them. You could think of it as well-intentioned malware that was baked into your phone. What’s the goal of the trauma app? Restore a sense of safety. But here is the thing. The trauma app can’t tell the difference between feeling safe and being safe. It overrides your true self and your ability to act in accordan...

When we as post-traumatic parents, come to the realization of how our traumas impact our parenting, we get anxious and try to get better quickly because we realize how much our children depend on us. Speeding out your trauma recovery is an often discussed topic in the Post Traumatic Parenting community. Members often ask me about self-healing approaches that could be used between therapy sessions to turbocharge their therapy. That's why for today's podcast episode, I invited Dr. Kate Truitt to ...

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Post-Traumatic Parenting podcast! In today’s podcast episode, I’m joined by Stephanie Chandler, the founder of the Nonfiction Authors Association. I recently attended her conference and when I heard her unique post-traumatic parenting story I knew I had to share it with you all because I love bringing post-traumatic parents on the podcast so that we can hear real-life Post-Traumatic stories. Stephanie is someone I admire a lot, she turned her trauma int...

Postpartum can be tough. Whether you are a new parent or you already have children, you have never done this pregnancy before, you have never adjusted from one baby to two and from two to three. That’s why postpartum recovery might look very different for every one of us. Postpartum shakes, not feeling the rush of maternal love, or feeling incompetent and unsupported, it’s all part of the postpartum journey. Your body goes through intense experience during childbirth, so it’s important to be ki...

Do you worry about how to protect your kids from online dangers, from predators to porn? As Post-Traumatic Parents, we are especially aware of how dangerous the world can be! In this episode, Kristen A Jenson, from Defend Young Minds, helps us explore how to protect our kids in the digital world. We talk about her books, like Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, her journey towards being a kid safety crusader, and why digital safety is particularly important for those of us who have been traumatized. Y...

Is shame the hardest part of Post-Traumatic Parenting? Shame and trauma go together, and shame and parenting do, too. Dr. Patti Ashley, author of Shame Informed Therapy, website https://pattiashley.com/ is the expert on this. We talked about how shame is a sense of not being enough, no matter how well we’re doing, and how trauma leads to shame. Most crucially, we talked about what to do about it. So many PTPs want to avoid shaming our own kids, but we don’t know exactly how. Dr. Ashley has some ...

Post-Traumatic Parents know what helpless feels like, and we don’t want to inflict that feeling on our kids. We don’t want to parent coercively. But the behavioral approach to parenting seems to be the only game in town! Is there a way to help our kids learn emotion regulation or coping without sticker charts? Dr. Mona Delahooke https://monadelahooke.com/ has a parenting plan that combines Polyvagal theory with child development research and neuroscience. Let’s apply her work to Post-Traumatic P...

Post-Traumatic due to divorce? You’ll want to hear what Dr. Ann Buscho has to say. She’s a psychologist and an expert in “Nesting,” a form of divorce where the kids stay home and parents rotate in and out. Her book, The Parent’s Guide to Birdnesting, is a roadmap to the only truly child-centered divorce possible. You can find her and her book at https://drannbuscho.com/ Here’s my review of her book: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/targeted-parenting/202012/book-review-the-parents-guide-b...

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Indistractable. Distraction is familiar to us Post-Traumatic Survivors and Thrivers, right? It’s part of our recovery. As PTPs, we struggle with time management and distraction. Reading Indistractable changed my life – and my conversation with Nir – even more so! His insights on attention and the post-traumatic brain are fascinating. He makes a crucial distinction that will blow your mind. You will never think about attention the same way again after hearing...

Part II of my interview with Dr. Kelly Odenweller, a professor of communication at Iowa State University. To read my Psychology Today blogpost about Dr. Odenweller’s research on Mommy Wars, click here:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/targeted-parenting/201910/have-we-weaponized-parenting Here’s what we talked about – as two working moms who research this: Helicopter parenting Mommy Wars and the time I almost joined them! Between-group communication My position on mother-in-law jokes….. A...

As long as we’ve been momming, we’ve been mom-shaming. The Internet just lets us do it on a grand scale. In this installment, I talk with Dr. Kelly Odenweller, a professor of communication at Iowa State University. Turns out, mom-shaming is predictable and quantifiable. Specific types of moms are shamed for specific types of behaviors, and some moms are more universally shamed than others. Post-Traumatic Parents are super-vulnerable to mom-shaming. Let’s discuss why we mom-shame, and what to do ...

Are you passionate about doing parenting right, and desperately afraid you’ll mess up? Parenting Perfectionism is common for us Post-Traumatic Parents. Problem is – the burning desire to parent perfectly can mean…. burning out. In this episode, we talk to groundbreaking researcher Dr. Moïra Mikolajczak, who discovered parental burnout is a thing. This episode explores the implications of her research for Post-Traumatic Parenting. Turns out – parental burnout is real, and it can be fixed. Let’s l...

Welcome to the Post-Traumatic Parenting podcast, where we explore the intersection between having a traumatic childhood and how that impacts our parenting today. In this episode, Dr. Koslowitz introduces herself and the backstory of the Post-Traumatic Parenting community. If you’ve ever had the thought: “How can I parent? My childhood was so messed up?” or “I don’t even know what’s normal to expect of myself as a parent, or my kids as kids,” then this podcast is for you. If you’ve ever been sure...