Growing Up With Kids :: A Funny Parenting Podcast

Thank you so much for listening! We'd love it if you took a moment to subscribe and rate/review the podcast in whichever app you choose to listen. And, as always if you have a friend who may be encouraged by this conversation, don't hesitate to share the podcast with them.
Also, you can follow us on:

• Instagram: growingupwithkidspodcast
• Facebook: @growingupwithkidspodcast
• Twitter: @DavidGrowUp and @RachaelGrowUp

This Week's Episode:
"Forgiveness is not being weak—it takes strength and courage to forgive." - How To Teach Kids Forgiveness Skills
The benefits of practicing and giving forgiveness:

• "The forgiveness group showed improved psychological and behavioral adjustment. The forgiveness group showed improved academic performance. Participants in the forgiveness group reported significant decreases in anger, hostile attribution, aggression, and delinquency at post-test and follow-up; they also reported significant increases in empathy at post-test and follow-up and grades at post-test." - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
• Forgiveness As an Educational Goal With At-Risk Adolescents
• Forgiveness Education for Fourth Grade Students in Turkey

How do we teach forgiveness skills to our kids?

• Model it: We practice forgiving our spouses, our friends, and them.
• Ask for it: Teach how to ask for forgiveness.
• Have patience: Don’t rush your child to forgive.
• Seek justice: Forgiving someone is not the same as saying what happened was ok or didn’t matter or just forgetting abou it.
• Teach empathy: Seeing the other side and understanding another person. Recognizing everyone’s sense of worth and inherent value.
• Give freedom: Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. You can forgive, but also not want to be friends. There are natural consequences to hurting someone.
• Share examples: Call out examples of forgiveness in books and movies.
• Teach self-forgiveness: We need to help them avoid shame and blame and guilt.

The Stat of the Week covers the negative impact of the pandemic on people's sleep.

Sometimes it is too easy to look for (and find) the negative. This week we are working on being more positive in our parenting. One way is avoiding the temptation to give a knee-jerk "no" to our kids' questions and requests; instead looking for ways to say "yes." Another is to go out of our way to notice when our kids do the right thing.
Join us as we discuss our previous weeks in our new segment, "Word of the Week." One of us is "exhausted" and one of us is "bored." Well, those sound pretty negative, but we have a few laughs about it!
David and Rachael both reference something they learned in "How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk," but forget to mention the book's actual name. And, Rachael coins the term, "Sportscaster Parenting." Listen to find out what in the world that means!
The Stat of the Week is a little gross, so proceed with caution as we explore the Rat Kings in Estonia.
We truly appreciate you listening! If you are encouraged by this episode, be sure to share it with a friend who might benefit from this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.
You can join the Growing Up with Kids community on:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

Or connect with us on our website: www.GrowingUpWithKidsPodcast.com

The holidays mean family travel. Whether it is driving or flying, there are a myriad of challenges for parents: confined spaces, boredom, fighting, exhaustion...
Want to know about our best and worst travel experiences? Unfortunately for us, there is more vomit involved than you might expect.
We also provide some ideas for surviving the long trips with lots of breaks, reasonable screen time rules, books and different games. Don't miss Rachael's "review" of a portable female urination device (in pink). And, check out some of these other ideas to eat up time while traveling:

• Travel Topics
• Fun Riddles for Kids
• Zip It
• Spot It
• Uno Flip
• Rubberneckers

The Stat of the Week is a Thanksgiving travel forecast and comes from the AAA Newsroom.
Be sure to share this with a friend who might need a few travel tips or a good laugh at our expense. You can join the Growing Up with Kids community on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or connect with us on our website.

As always, thank you for listening! We hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And, share the podcast with a friend who might be encouraged by this conversation or who just needs a good laugh at our expense.
____________________________________________________________
Being curious is an important life skill. It can help our kids achieve more. It can make them happier. It is can be a gift they offer the people they care about in their lives.
A few practical ideas to help our kids be curious.

• Be humble.
• Model curiosity in life.
• Mode curiosity by asking our children lots of open-ended questions. For more on this listen to our episode #48: The Power of Curiosity.
• Follow their interests.
• Have your kids practice forming opinions and points of view.
• Ask them to teach us something because teaching helps them gain mastery.

The Stat of the Week is about the NASA Mars rover, Curiosity.

A few resources mentioned in the episode:

• Greater Good Magazine (UC Berkeley): Six Surprising Benefits of Curiosity
• How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims
• Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life by Diane Tavenner
  • "A good teacher inspires, captivates, and gets kids to think by sharing profound knowledge and perfectly crafted questions..."
• Harvard Business Review: The Business Case for Curiosity
  • “Tenelle Porter, a postdoctoral scholar in psychology at the University of California, Davis, describes intellectual humility as the ability to acknowledge that what we know is sharply limited. As her research demonstrates, higher levels of intellectual humility are associated with a greater willingness to consider views other than our own. People with more intellectual humility also do better in school and at work. Why? When we accept that our own knowledge is finite, we are more apt to see that the world is always changing and that the future will diverge from the present. By embracing this insight, leaders and employees can begin to recognize the power of exploration.”
• Turnaround for Kids: Building Blocks for Learning: Curiosity, Self-direction & Purpose

Thank you so much for listening! We'd love it if you took a moment to subscribe and rate/review the podcast in whichever app you choose to listen. And, as always if you have a friend who may be encouraged by this conversation, don't hesitate to share the podcast with them.
Also, you can follow us on:

• Instagram: growingupwithkidspodcast
• Facebook: @growingupwithkidspodcast
• Twitter: @DavidGrowUp and @RachaelGrowUp

This Week's Episode:
It has been an unusual (to say the least) year. It can help to take a step back and review with your spouse, partner or a friend where you are at, how your kids are doing, and what each of your kids need from you right now. It's like a performance review but with no judgement, tons of encouragement, and hopefully a little fun. (There might be "rewards"!!)
Why are we doing this? Three reasons to start:

• Slow Down & Remind Ourselves: We are busy. We feel overwhelmed. We can forget what we are really doing here.
• Go Team!: This is an opportunity to be seen by our partner and for us to see them, so we can connect and be on the same page.
• Encourage & Energize Ourselves: We remember the “losses” but not the “wins.” Leads to discouragement and despair. This is a chance to be reminded about what is going well and how we can courageously step into the challenges in front of us (and our kids).

This episode has some ideas on how to structure this time and how to make sure it is productive and life-giving.
The Stat of the Week is about one thing that can help kids deal with stress. You may already have one of these laying around your house (or running around it).