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

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.

How to Talk to Kids about Suicide, Sexual Assault & 13 Reasons Why with Dr. Dae Sheridan

Special Guest: Dr. Dae Sheridan

The topic of sexual assault, suicide and cyber-bullying are certainly topics that are well covered in the news but not topics that parents and educators often love to cover with kids. But today’s topic has, of late, been the recipient of a great deal of media coverage and concern among parents and educators. Why?

How to talk to kids about resourcefulness with Scott Sonenshein

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 Raise Joyful Kids In a Stressful World with Katie Hurley

Special Guest: Katie Hurley

This podcast provides:

Tips: Katie talks about watching for stress-signs, encouraging play, dealing with differences between parents and children, using empathic listening, using stress words and problem-solving, stop and label, self care, body mapping, deep breathing.

Scripts: Instead of problem solving, use some empathic listening and reflect back what your child is saying. Examples are given. Also how to talk to kids about pitching in when parents are stressed out (and ask for help when they are!).

Barriers to success: Differences between how parents and children cope with stress (coming from different worlds).

How to Talk to Kids About Divorce with Christina McGhee

Special Guest: Christina McGhee

This podcast provides:

Tips: How to prepare to tell the kids about divorce and what to know, when best to say it and what to do if you are going to do so. The dos and don’ts of talking to kids about divorce.

Scripts: What to say, step by step, when you need to tell your kids about a divorce in the family.

Steps: The steps to take before you talk to your kids about getting a divorce.

Barriers to success: Putting the kids in the middle, our own feelings about the experience, our assumption that our kids are “fine” and already know and understand.

How to Talk to Kids About Anger & Big Feelings with Wendy Young

Special Guest: Wendy Young

This podcast provides:

Tips:
How to co-regulate
How to get off the anger merry-go-round.
How to use “a bug and a wish.”
How to help kids realize the anger cues
How to construct a mad box and why
How to process the feelings and interactions after the incident is over.
Speaking out loud about our own anger and how we process it
N.O.W. Learn how to Normalize, Offer opportunities/strategies, Work with children on managing big feelings

Scripts:
What to say when your children have big feelings and are showing intensity.
How to help children describe how big their feelings are at that moment.
Helping kids know what to do when they want to engage in negative behaviors- what can we do instead?
How to give hope when helping kids managing big, intense feelings
How to process the feelings after the incident is over
Walking through the steps of calming down our anger out loud.
Exactly what to say when children are in the throws of messy feelings.

How to Talk to Kids About Being Brave with Margie Warrell

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 talk to Kids about Empathy and Entitlement with Dr. Michele Borba

Special Guest: Dr. Michele Borba

This podcast provides:

Tips:
How to build empathy in your child
Cultivate 9 habits of empathy such as perspective-taking & self-regulation
Use a baby in the family, a puppy, movies, Facetime to help understand and learn emotion literacy.
How to build the “kind mindset”
The 4 tips navy SEALS are using.
How service can help build altruistic children- match your child’s passion.
Look for moments to talk about feelings and empathy.
Modeling empathy for children.
Family meeting: How do we want to be remembered?
Developing a family motto that supports empathy
Empathy can be nurtured- weave it into daily moments.

Scripts:
What to say when a child is unkind to someone.
What to say when you see empathy in action.
Using the two-kind rule at your dinner table.

How to talk to Kids about the Death of a Pet with Wendy Van de Poll

Special Guest: Wendy Van de Poll

This podcast provides:

Tips:
Plan ahead.
Know the difference between normal and abnormal grief.
Let a child grieve and allow your child to have a full breadth of feelings.
Use real words.
Discuss the life cycle.
Read books to your children about loss
Create scrap books or allow your child to write a letter to your pet

Scripts:
Why not to say “your dog went to sleep” and what to say instead.
How to move towards positive memories.
How to honestly but gently talk to your child when your pet is very sick and death is going to occur soon.
What to say when you are angry and loss is sudden.

Steps
Know the stages of grief and don’t rush them.
Play a positive game.
What do you remember?

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

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?