How to talk to kids about resourcefulness with Scott Sonenshein – ReRelease

Special Guest: Scott Sonenshein

This podcast provides:

Tips: How to help our kids do more with less and become more resourceful. How can we be more creative? Scott also talks about taking “field trips,” creative atypical birthday parties, reaffirming play, modeling, little seed creativity.

Scripts: Saying no to our children, what to say when your child wants a new toy

Steps: Taking a child through how to be resourceful when wanting a new toy. How can we look at what we have in unique ways?

Barriers to success: By saying yes to everything we create a dependence on “more stuff” and we rob our kids of the ability to get creative.

How to Help Parents & Kids Cope with Big Issues During Tough Times with Rosalind Wiseman

Rosalind Wiseman – We all need to hone the ability to regulate ourselves and teach and model for our children and students how to do the same. That means sharpening our social and emotional skills so that we can function and thrive in today’s society—creating healthy relationships and health and wellbeing for ourselves as well. What are the core social and emotional concepts that we need to understand? How does our understanding of how we deal with anger, frustration, shame, discomfort and anxiety play a role on how we relate to others and how we conduct ourselves with others? We all need support in these areas- now more than ever—for both ourselves and the young people we care for each day. To delve into these important topics, I will be interviewing the fabulous Rosalind Wiseman for the second time on How to Talk to Kids about Anything.

From where we learn to where we work, Rosalind Wiseman fosters civil dialogue and inspires communities to build strength, courage and purpose. She is the founder of Cultures of Dignity; an organization that shifts the way communities think about our physical and emotional wellbeing by working in close partnership with the experts of those communities–young people, educators, policy makers, and business and political leaders. A multiple New York Times best-selling author including Queen Bees and Wannabes that was made into the movie and musical Mean Girls, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post and other publications and international speaker, she lives in Boulder Colorado with her husband and two sons. She and her team created these very handy and helpful “tiny guides,”- a set of small books on everything from dignity to emotional granularity to anger and shame that provide tools and skills to manage ourselves and our relationships (and help the young people we love and guide to manage themselves and their relationships) under exceptional circumstances.

How to Talk to Kids about Healthy, Caring Romantic Relationships with Dr. Richard Weissbourd – ReRelease

This podcast will focus on how to talk to kids about healthy, caring, romantic relationships. When you were a teen, who taught you about how to have a mutually beneficial, successful romantic relationship? Who is teaching your teen? Dr. Weissbourd and his team released a report on May 17th called The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment. This report highlights what adults have NOT been doing to help prevent misogyny among teens and to prepare young people for caring, ethical romantic and sexual relationships. This podcast expands on what Dr. Weissbourd and his team found and how we can personally answer the question: What do we, as key adults in the lives of teens, really understand about healthy, caring romantic relationships and how can we convey this to our kids?

How to Talk About Racism, Adoption and Parenting a Black Boy in America with Nefertiti Austin

Nefertiti Austin – Each year, thousands of Americans choose to go through the adoption process to build their families. Those who know me, know that my 2 children were both adopted by my husband and myself and also happen to be full blood siblings. Just a little bit over 12 years ago, we began the adoption process and went through the many feelings that come with adoption, and for us, an open adoption, with our children’s birth family. We did it again just 16 months after my daughter was born with my son. Every adoption is deeply personal and different depending on who is involved and the decisions that the many people involve make or has to make in order to ensure that the process ends with a well-cared for, loved child. It’s not a cookie-cutter process. Adoption is just a piece of what we are going to discuss today- because there is a very important layer of discussion that my next guest brings to light as well and that is, race and gender as it relates to fostering, adopting and parenting in America. She puts high beams on the question; “what are the challenges that single black women must face when fostering, adopting and parenting in America? And a secondary question that we will also explore which is, how can we raise black boys in America understanding the racism and stereotypes that seem to be weaved into the fabric of American culture?

We remember the past stories of young black boys senselessly killed such as Trayvon Martin—but then hear recent accounts of young black men killed because they were jogging in a white neighborhood or a woman calling the cops on a black man watching birds in Central Park because he requested that she leash her dog. How does a mother parent a black boy in an America that assumes that black boys are doing the wrong thing even when they are doing the right thing? Or, where my next guest writes, “where a hoodie plus a black male is synonymous with danger?” This is an important topic for everyone. If changes are going to be made when it comes to racism, the foster-care system, hyper-masculinity, sexism and how black boys are raised and regarded in today’s culture, we have got to talk about it and set some intentions to make the changes in our ow lives- in the way we raise our children and the way we see other children in America. For this, I am excited to have a conversation with Nefertiti Austin.

How to Talk to Kids about Stress Management with Lori Lite – ReLaunch

Special Guest: Lori Lite

More and more, kids are feeling stressed out in today’s world. This is a topic that comes up often- and of course it does, between academics, sports, homework, performance, lack of free play, reduced recess, political unrest, overworked parents and more, kids are being pulled in many directions and so are parents. Stress is part of the landscape in many families. It’s a great privilege to be able to call on the parenting experts who study stress and stress management as a living to help us know what to do, how to stay calm and how to help our kids with stress management.

How to Prepare Kids to Thrive in a Rapidly Changing World with Madeline Levine, PhD

Madeline Levine, PhD – The pandemic is still going strong and the date to open many states is being pushed out further and further. A few states are starting to open here and there but many parents still feel a lot of anxiety around going back to “normal” even as COVID-19 has claimed over a quarter of a million lives across the world, nearly 100, 000 of them in the US. What’s going on is impacting young children, older children and yes, parents too. Of course, parents too! There are questions of financial issues, emotional issues, mental issues, loneliness, fear, frustration and how we are all going to cope with the day to day as the day to day morphs into months and months. It puts a lot on our shoulders. Let’s not bury it. Let’s discuss it. Time to shine a light on what’s really going on behind closed doors. For this discussion, I’m interviewing Graeme Seabrook.
Graeme Seabrook, The Mom for Moms, is a coach and writer who has been guiding and supporting mothers as they discover and reclaim themselves since 2014. She has worked with over 2500 moms since 2014 and in between clients she reads about moms, writes about moms, speaks about moms, learns from moms, and is a mom of two herself!  Her work springs from the truth that embracing your humanity is a mother’s deepest calling and the very best thing you can do for your family.Madeline Levine, Phd – We live in an uncertain world. Modern times from politics to illness to how the economy functions, racial and gender bias and even the opening and closings of schools and camps has taught us that. Nobody can perfectly predict what is to happen from year to year, month to month and even from day to day. The world we know can feel disturbing and unfamiliar, at times. In the wake of what feels increasingly threatening and unpredictable to parents, moms and dads are pushing their kids to excel, swooping in to rescue them from struggle if it gives them an extra edge, and leaving the kids unprepared, fragile and reliant on others when they are faced with challenges and adversity. And I can’t forget to mention, the stress and anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm and distress that come in heaping portions when kids wake up facing a future that they have not been prepared for or they feel ill-equipped to cope with, it not exactly a recipe for success. Of course, we too, as parents are stressed out as we compare ourselves incessantly with the Jones’s who are leading their perfect lives on Facebook and Instagram while we worry about what school our children will attend, which extra sport or activity they can take to round out their resume and when in the world they will learn another language to make themselves more marketable. But, my next guest tells us, there is hope. We are learning what skills our children really need in order to succeed- and they have to do less with learning to code and taking AP history and more to do with adaptability, mental agility, curiosity, collaboration, tolerance for failure, resilience, and optimism. Most important, my next guest provides the day-to-day solutions parents can use to raise kids who are prepared, enthusiastic, and ready to face an unknown future with confidence and optimism.

Madeline Levine, Ph.D. is a psychologist with over 35 years of experience as a clinician, consultant, educator and author. Her New York Times bestseller, The Price of Privilege, explores the reasons why teenagers from affluent families are experiencing epidemic rates of emotional problems.  Her follow up book, Teach Your Children Well, also a New York Times bestseller, tackles our current narrow definition of success – how it unnecessarily stresses academically talented kids and marginalizes many more whose talents and interests are less amenable to measurement.  Her current book, Ready or Not, focuses on how to best prepare our children and ourselves for an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Her books have been translated into multiple languages.

How to Talk to White Kids about Race & Racism with Dr. Margaret Hagerman – ReRelease

This podcast will focus on how white kids are being educated about race and racism in America. While we know from research that black families teach their children about social inequalities, race and racism from an early age, what are white families doing? Are families and communities a place where white kids learn to become racist or a space where they learn to be antiracist or race-conscious? Do white kids learn, within the family paradigm, to challenge racial inequalities? Dr. Margaret Hagerman talks about her research and her new book: White kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America. It’s an important topic that many people avoid out of discomfort or confusion with regard to how to discuss it. We get right into it on How to Talk to Kids about Anything.

How to Talk to Kids About Being Brave with Margie Warrell – ReLaunch

Special Guest: Margie Warrell

This podcast provides:

Tips: Specific tips on what to do to help our children take healthy risks and lead a brave life.

Scripts: What to say (and how to show and model) to our kids about getting out of their comfort zone as well as what kinds of risks are worth taking.
How to add bravery into everyday experiences

How to Help Parents Understand & Support their LGBTQ Kids with Kristin Russo

Kristin Russo – When a child or teen comes out to their parents as gay, parents are often left with many unanswered questions fueled by fear, lack of knowledge or concerns about the wellbeing of their child. The conversations that need to take place are not as much about you answering questions for your child but about your child answering questions for you. Your child has likely been navigating the coming-out process for quite some time, now, you will be faced with decisions about how you will react to the information. How will you share this information with others? How can you best support your child? What if you fear for their safety? What’s the deal with pronouns? You might also grapple with how your child’s sexuality fits in with your faith, your previous hopes and dreams for them and your relationship. Well, it doesn’t make sense to stick our heads in the sand. It’s time to learn the answers for everyday questions and concerns when you are a parent, aunt/uncle, teacher, grandparents of loved one of a kid who is gay. For guidance on this topic we have Kristin Russo on the show today.

Kristin Russo is a writer, speaker, educator and consultant with a focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) issues. She is also co-host & producer of Buffering the Vampire Slayer alongside musician Jenny Owen Youngs, which was named one of the top 30 podcasts of the decade by Paste Magazine. She has a great book with co-author Dan Owens called This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids. You can find her at kristinnoeline.com

How to Talk to Kids about being Mentally Strong with Amy Morin, LCSW – ReRelease

Special Guest: Amy Morin, LCSW

Ever wonder: What is the secret of success? Is it intelligence? Talent? Luck? Perhaps a bit. But more and more the research is telling us that the X-factor—the reason why some people fail and other succeed comes down to grit or what is sometimes referred to as mental toughness or mental strength. What is mental strength? How can we develop it? And How can parents, teachers and coaches help kids to develop mental strength? These are just some of the questions we are going to get answers to on today’s podcast with Amy Morin.