Parenting Forward

Today, I brought my friend Rebekah Gienapp on to talk about raising antiracist kids. A lot of you have been asking questions about how to talk to your kids about everything that has been going on and we wanted to answer them for you. Rebekah is a former community organizer from Memphis, Tennessee who wrote the guide Raising Antiracist Kids: An Age by Age Guide for Parents of White Children. She has so much wisdom to share on nurturing brave kids with a love for justice and in this episode, we discuss it all.

As you all know, I am constantly creating antiracist resources and have always been committed to dismantling white supremacy through this podcast and beyond. With the recent death of George Floyd, this is all the more urgent. So many of us are looking for resources to help us process this tragedy and teach us what steps we can take to combat racism. The process won’t be glamorous, but I plan to never stop educating myself. I hope you will persevere through it with me.

Show Highlights:

• Rebekah’s upbringing in a majority-black city and experience as a community organizer.
• How she got back into the world of social justice when she noticed her son’s mostly white world.
• Why we should push back against the belief that our children are too young or innocent to talk about racism and the death of George Floyd.
• How to move past our discomfort and overcome white fragility.
• What we can learn from Jilian Best’s conversation with her child about race and justice.
• How these conversations about race are dividing families and what to do about that.

Links (affiliates included):

Rebekah Gienapp’s website - https://www.rebekahgienapp.com

The video to Jilian Best’s conversation with her child about race - https://www.facebook.com/100012209014313/videos/978240022592956/

Parenting Forward Conference Sessions - https://gumroad.com/parentingforward?sort=page_layout

Join us at the Parenting Forward Patreon Team - https://www.patreon.com/cindywangbrandt

Parenting Forward, the Book - https://amzn.to/2GB6eDB3

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EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

By and large, evangelical culture defines Christianity by what we don’t do. This gets passed on to our kids until they begin to define themselves not by what they love, but by what they abstain from. In reality, it’s a beautiful thing when we raise our kids by teaching them what we do; what we love and fight for.

Kristen Howerton is a blogger, podcaster, and author who is on a mission to do just that. In her new book, Rage Against the Minivan, she tells her personal parenting story and helps parents understand that there is no “right” way to raise kids. Kristen is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and a mother to 4 children by birth and adoption.

In this episode, we talk about the unique difficulty of parenting teens, why women often bear the mental load in their families, and how moms can authentically pass on their faith.

Show Highlights:

• Kristen’s faith evolution experience and how she expressed that publicly.
• The lack of resources nowadays for parenting teenagers.
• How to love our teenage children as they journey towards adulthood.
• Responding to our children by empathizing with the feelings instead of the conviction.
• The mental load women take on and how to excavate and stop reinforcing that message.
• How Kristen’s spiritual baggage plays into her parenting.

Links (affiliates included):

Kristen Howerton’s website: https://www.kristenhowerton.com

Kristen Howerton’s book, Rage Against the Minivan: https://amzn.to/2ZzyIVY

Mental load: https://www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear

New York Times Interview with Jon Stewart - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-interview.html

Parenting Forward Conference Sessions - https://www.parentingforwardconference.com/2019-sessions

Join us at the Parenting Forward Patreon Team - https://www.patreon.com/cindywangbrandt

Parenting Forward, the Book - https://amzn.to/2GB6eDB3

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Today, I'd like to introduce you to the authors of the upcoming book, The ABC's of Diversity: Helping Kids (And Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences. Joining me to share some of the ABC's are Carolyn Helsel and Joy Harris-Smith.

As I was reading their book, I was struck by how compassionately Carolyn and Joy set the table to speak for these hard conversations. Their goal is to walk parents and kids through the learning process of living fully in the diversity of who we are as families and as a society. I am excited to share their work and message with you today.

Show Highlights:

• Conversations about identity, gender, race, or religion are not easy.
• Carolyn and Joy’s work is an attempt to put forth a balanced view about how we move forward in a world that is increasingly globalized and becoming more globalized every day.
• Some of the challenges parents and children face when embracing diversity.
• Conversations don't move toward action. They are the catalysts. But at some point, you have to move beyond the dinner-table conversation.
• How to practice moving from dialogue to informed action.
• Carolyn and Joy share some of the ABC's of Diversity from their book, including the unhelpful reactions we typically have talking about or being around people who are different.
• How to address white fragility - aka exerting control over the situation as a way of dealing with your anxiety, acknowledging those automatic ABCs, and moving into a more intentional response.
• "We don't want people to feel bad about being fragile. We want them to move through and past the fragility."
• Helping children educate themselves about social media sources and encouraging them to embrace diversity within social spaces.
• We explore the question, "Is it possible to have nuanced conversations that lead to real change?"

Links (affiliates included):

The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences - https://amzn.to/2XMifgh

Anti Racism resources for white people -

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR3JxqkXrlC15fZBsGddsO6feOsVv5WZUYUgYxLQlHZy_fWEVrVxgy_WXFg

Parenting Forward Conference Sessions - https://gumroad.com/parentingforward?sort=page_layout

Join us at the Parenting Forward Patreon Team - https://www.patreon.com/cindywangbrandt

Parenting Forward, the book - https://amzn.to/2GB6eDB3

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Shannon Brescher Shea is a mom who writes about parenting, social justice, and sustainability. This week she joins me on the podcast to talk about her new book, Growing Sustainable Together, and how we can guide our children to cultivate kindness, our bodies, our minds, and Earth together as a family. I hope that as we work to move through the current global pandemic, we will take the giant wake up call from Mother Earth and move into a more sustainable way of living.

Show Highlights:

• We discuss green guilt, the pressure to raise kids with self-awareness, and awareness about the world we live in.
• What it means to help our kids get closer to the food system.
• Introducing children to our food resources is not just about going and buying a tomato from the grocery store. It's about all the people and all of the environmental aspects that made that tomato.
• How a close connection to our food system helps our children grow up to be happy and healthy.
• Some of the ways families can stay in touch with their local community.
• How to listen and engage with children in environmental activism, including modeling social activism for younger children, and then inviting them in, if they're interested.
• A reminder to be engaged with your children, your community, and the food system in a sustainable way.

Links (affiliates included):

Barbara Brown Taylor’s session: https://www.parentingforwardconference.com/2020-sessions

Shannon’s website: https://welleatyouupweloveyouso.com

Growing Sustainable Together: https://amzn.to/2zu6FOF

Join us at the Parenting Forward Patreon Team - https://www.patreon.com/cindywangbrandt

Parenting Forward, the Book - https://amzn.to/2GB6eDB3

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Love and justice will only arise when we unite with those who are different from us. People with diverse backgrounds, faiths, and even beliefs have the power to come together and create something beautiful. However, if we surround ourselves only with those who are identical to us, we will never reach the same heights.

Daneen Akers is a visionary who understands this well. She invited me to be a part of a project that has become one of the things I feel most honored. For this project, she wrote a book for middle schoolers titled Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints. It is a children’s storybook about people from different faiths coming together to work for love and justice in their corners of the world. In this episode, she shares where her idea for this book came from and how she put it all together.

Show Highlights:

• Daneen’s process for deciding who to feature in her book.
• The profiles that especially resonated with her.
• Why it was important to her to use different styles of artists.
• The definition of troublemaking that was at the forefront of her mind.
• Advice for parents who are raising strong-willed children.

Links (affiliates included):

Find my Holy Troublemaker profile here:

https://www.holytroublemakers.com/cindy

Casper Ter Kuile’s session about rituals can be found here:

https://www.parentingforwardconference.com/2020-sessions

Join us at the Parenting Forward Patreon Team - https://www.patreon.com/cindywangbrandt

Parenting Forward, the Book - https://amzn.to/2GB6eDB3

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com