Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

When you’re learning a new skill, information is critical. Without that, it’s very difficult to make any kind of meaningful change. But I see a parallel between learning new skills and respectful parenting: I like to say that love between parent and child is necessary but not sufficient - and that respect is the missing ingredient. With learning a new skill, knowledge is necessary - but not sufficient. And support is the missing ingredient. You might remember from our conversation with Dr. Chris Niebauer a while ago that our overactive left brains tend to make up stories about our experiences to integrate these experiences into the narratives we tell about ourselves. If we’re “the kind of person who triumphs through adversity,” a setback will be taken in stride. If we’re “the kind of person who has been hurt,” each new individual hurt makes much more of a mark. The new experiences have to be made to fit with the framework that’s already in place. Especially when you’re learning a skill related to difficult experiences you’ve had, your left brain wants to keep itself safe. It might tell you: “I don’t need to do this. Things aren’t that bad. I’ll just wait until later / tomorrow / next week.” And when that happens, you need support. That support can be from a great friend, although sometimes you don’t want even your closest friends to know that you shout at or smack your child. Therapy can be really helpful - but it’s also really expensive. Sometimes the thing that’s most helpful is someone who’s learning the tools alongside you (so they aren’t trying to look back and remember what it was like to be in your situation; theirs is different, but they are struggling too...) who isn’t a regular presence in your life. There’s no danger you’re going to run into them at the supermarket, or a kid’s birthday party. You can actually be really honest with them and know it won’t come and bite you in the butt. That’s what today’s guests, Marci and Elizabeth, discovered when they started working together. Separated by cultural differences, fourteen(!) time zones, and very different lives, they found common ground in their struggles and have developed a deep and lasting friendship. If you’d like to work on taming your triggered feelings - and get help from your own Accountabuddy in the process - the Taming Your Triggers workshop is for you. Sign up for the waitlist now. Click the banner to learn more!

In this episode we hear from parent Amy, who is a White parent married to a Black man raising four biracial children in Colorado. Amy has been on quite a journey to explore her role as a descendant of Puritans who came to the United States looking for religious freedom on her father’s side, and of Irish Catholics on her mother’s side. She sees how her parents were able to get advanced education and a loan to buy a house and start a business, and that from the outside they looked like a pretty happy family. But behind closed doors, things were not so pretty - they were actually chaotic and volatile. Amy was an intense, spirited child and her parents didn’t have the tools they needed to meet her needs. She learned to use her intellect to protect herself, and projected an image of having her stuff together - a habit that she then continued as a parent, as she projected a Supermom-type image. Our culture rewards us for looking like we’re keeping it together, even when everything’s falling apart inside. So Amy is a deep believer in dismantling patriarchy (she actually wanted to do this on Wall Street!) and in treating people with respect, but in a sleep-deprived moment after her fourth baby was born she broke up a squabble between two of her older children by pulling them roughly apart and yelled at the older one: “Why did you do that?” (a question for which of course there’s no answer). She saw the terrified look on her daughter’s face which brought back the visceral fear she felt at her own parents’ explosive feelings and felt so much pain that she, Amy - the believer in breaking down traditional power structures and treating people with respect - had caused this kind of fear in her own child. And of course it seemed like the things that really needed to change were her partner, who should stop doing obnoxious things, and her children, who were pushing each other’s buttons and fighting and leaving disgusting blobs of oatmeal on the floor for her to step in with bare feet when she came downstairs in the morning with a baby in her arms that would make her lose her shit before the day even got started. Over the last few months Amy and her children have been learning new tools to be in right relationship with each other. It started with learning that Amy did herself, but she shared each idea with her children so they could practice them together. Amy is now reparenting herself, in a way, so she can be a different sort of parent to her own children - who now empathize with each other’s struggles, and actively try to support each other in difficult moments rather than throwing more fuel on the fire. Of course all of this is intimately linked to the reconciliation and healing that Amy wants to see in her relationships with Black and Indigenous people in her life and on the land where she lives. Taming Your Triggers If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, Taming Your Triggers will be open soon. We’ll help you to:

• Understand the real causes of your triggered feelings, and begin to heal the hurts that cause them
• Use new tools like the ones Katie describes to find ways to meet both her and her children’s needs
• Effectively repair with your children on the fewer instances when you are still triggered

It’s a 10-week workshop with one module delivered every week, an amazing community of like-minded parents, a match with an AccountaBuddy to help you complete the workshop, and mini-mindfulness practices to re-ground yourself repeatedly during your days, so you’re less reactive and more able to collaborate with your children. Join the waitlist now. Click the banner to learn more.

I’ve been thinking about producing this episode for several years now, and I always wished I wouldn’t need to do it. Then every few months I’d see a post in an online community saying something like “Is spanking really that bad? I was spanked and I turned out fine” and I knew that one day I’d have to do an episode on it - so here it is. My guest, Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, has studied and written extensively about physical punishment of children, and believes spanking should be considered an Adverse Childhood Experience (which is a marker of severe trauma). I mean, if you think about it, we are actually talking about physical abuse here: hitting another human being. We only call it spanking because it’s supposed to be controlled and as punishment for an infraction. But if my husband were to hit me in a controlled way as punishment for something I’d done wrong, would we still call it spanking? (And as Dr. Grogan-Kaylor notes, if we’re spanking our child we’re almost by definition not doing it in a completely controlled way, since we’re doing it because we’re frustrated and/or angry.) In the episode we also discuss how, due to the way that a quirk in one researcher’s agenda aligned with changes in ethical rules governing experiments, that there’s actually scientific evidence from randomized controlled trials to support the efficacy of spanking at changing children’s behavior to make it acceptable to their parents! Now the rules have changed and wouldn’t permit spanking during an experiment, it isn’t possible to generate evidence against spanking. So advocates of spanking (and yes, there are some!) can honestly say that there is evidence of the highest quality in favor of spanking, and no evidence of that quality against it. And of course we have to ask ourselves: is compliance what we really want? Our instinctive response to that question might be “Yes! I do want flipping compliance - and I want it now!” But I know many parents listening to the show have a goal to raise children who speak up when they see injustice, and who are internally motivated to do the right thing...and unfortunately focusing on making children’s behavior comply with our wishes works against that. But that doesn’t mean the alternative is letting our child rule the roost. There are ways to get your needs met and also meet your child’s needs, without spanking, threatening to spank, punishing, giving Time Outs, withholding privileges, or any other tools like this. If you’re reacting in big ways (spanking, yelling, frustration, etc....) to your child’s difficult behavior right now, I invite you to join my Taming Your Triggers workshop. We’ll help you learn the real reasons why you’re feeling triggered (which aren’t really about your child’s behavior!), and what you can do to meet your needs - and your child’s needs as well. Sign up for the waitlist now. Click the banner to learn more.

Jump to Highlights

01:33 Introducing today’s episode and featured guest 05:25 The definition of spanking 07:38 The age range advocated by some for spanking, ranging from two to 12 years old 09:20 The effectiveness of spanking 16:16 The critique of positive parenting research, particularly focusing on methodological fallacies outlined by Dr. Lazarle 22:24 The question of whether there might be an optimal level of spanking that leads to maximum compliance in children 24:40 How to handle defiant children who are not complying with milder disciplinary tactics 26:21 How to comprehend the overall impact of spanking on children 32:03 Dr. Diana Baumrind's surprising involvement in studies on spanking suggesting that authoritative parents, considered successful, spank their children 35:56 The legality of spanking and the absence of legal protection for children against physical punishment 38:11 Arguments against banning spanking, citing studies that suggest little evidence of parents adopting more effective disciplinary tactics after a ban 42:10 Potential cultural and racial differences in the use of spanking 44:09 Wrapping up the discussion [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan 00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so Jessica 00:11 Do you get tired of hearing the same old intros to podcast episodes? Me too. Hi, I'm not Jen. I'm Jessica, and I'm in Burlesque Panama. Jen has just created a new way for listeners to record the introductions to podcast episodes, and I got to test it out. There's no other resource out there quite like Your Parenting Mojo, which doesn't just tell you about the latest scientific research on p...

We’ve covered the topic of boundaries before, in our conversation with Xavier Dagba. In my work with parents, I see that an inability to set boundaries is a MAJOR cause of feeling triggered by our child’s behavior. When we snap at our child’s behavior, it often (not always, but often) comes somewhat later in the day. There’s a reason for that: it’s because we haven’t been able to set boundaries early in the day, so each time our child crosses where a boundary should have been, we get more and more irritated. Then finally we can’t take it any more - and after one last not-boundary crossing, we snap. (If you snap early in the day, I’d ask you to consider what boundaries were crossed for you the day (or many days) before, and whether you’re still feeling the effects of that?) So we’ve discussed this before, and yet...boundaries continue to be a struggle for almost all of the parents I meet. Why is this? We’ll get into that in this episode, which draws on Nedra Tawwab’s book Set Boundaries, Find Peace, and goes beyond it too. Nedra outlines nine reasons why we find setting boundaries so difficult, and I argue that’s because all nine are rooted in patriarchal ways of being in relationships. When we’ve been conditioned for decades that our role as women is not to seem rude or mean, to keep the peace at all costs, to make sure everyone else’s needs are taken care of before our own, and to have our power in a relationship come from taking care of others, is it any wonder that we go out into the world and have no idea how to even know we need a boundary, never mind how to set one? And secondly I argue that while we might need more boundaries between us and the people we love, that we have WAY TOO MANY boundaries between us and the people in our broader communities. That’s one big reason why we feel so stressed out all the time - because it seems like we are the only person that can meet our child’s every need, and that we have to do it all alone. I believe that by breaking these boundaries down we can make life a whole lot easier for ourselves by reducing the number of things we need to do (meal swap, anyone?), and by creating connection that helps us to feel nourished and whole. If you’re struggling with knowing how to identify and set boundaries, I’d like to invite you to join my Taming Your Triggers workshop. We’ll help you to identify your needs so you can work with your child to get these met and meet your child’s needs as well (and even though this might seem impossible right now, it actually is possible to meet both of your needs the vast majority of the time!). And on the relatively few times when it isn’t possible to meet both of your needs, you can set a boundary instead (which is different from a limit!). When you do this consistently, you can be more regulated more of the time, which means you won’t snap at your child as often as you do now. Sign up for the waitlist now. Click the banner to learn more.

Jump to Highlights

01:32 Introducing today’s episode 05:15 Invitation to Taming Your Triggers workshop 09:29 The distinction between ‘boundaries’ and ‘limits’ in the context of parenting 15:35 The challenges adults face in setting boundaries, attributing difficulty to childhood experiences 23:40 Nine common reasons that may hinder individuals from setting effective boundaries 26:28 The challenges of setting boundaries, particularly for female-identifying parents, attributing the difficulty to societal expectations rooted in gender roles 36:04 The impact of societal forces, such as capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, on parenting and the tendency to resort to consumerism as a coping mechanism 42:01 The emphasis on the importance of listening to one's body as a starting point for setting boundaries

Episodes referenced

094: Using nonviolent communication to parent more peacefully SYPM 009: How to Set Boundaries in Parenting

124: The Art of Holding Space

References Birdsong, M. (2020). How we show up: Reclaiming family, friendship and community. New York: Hachette.

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hooks, b. (2014). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Abingdon: Routledge.

This episode began out of a query that I see repeated endlessly in online parenting groups: “My child has a really strong preference for me. They get on great with the other parent (usually the father, in a heterosexual relationship) when I’m not around, but when I’m there it’s all “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” This is destroying my partner; how can we get through this stage?” So that’s where I began the research on this question, and it led me down quite a rabbit hole – I’d never thought too much about whether mothers and fathers fulfill unique roles in a child’s development and while it isn’t necessarily as prescriptive as “the mother provides... and the father provides... ,” in many families these roles do occur and this helps to explain why children prefer one parent over another. (we also touch on how this plays out in families where both parents are of the same gender). My guest for this episode is Dr. Diana Coyl-Shepheard, Professor at California State University Chico, whose research focuses on children’s social and emotional development and relationships with their fathers.

Parenting Membership

If parenting feels really hard, and it seems like you’ve read all the books and you’ve asked for advice in free communities and you’re tired of having to weed through all the stuff that isn’t aligned with your values to get to the few good nuggets, then the Parenting Membership will help you out. Click the banner to learn more and join the waitlist! Click the “Send Voicemail” button on the right >>> to record your message for the 100th episode: it can be a question, a comment, or anything else you like! Read Full Transcript (Introduction added after the episode was recorded and transcribed): Before we get started with today’s episode on the unique role of fathers in children’s development, as well as why children prefer one parent over another, I wanted to let you know about three super cool things that I’m working on you. The first is about my membership group, which is called Finding Your Parenting Mojo. I don’t mention the group a lot on the show because I don’t like over-selling, but a listener who was in the group the last time I opened it to new members told me she actually didn’t know I had a membership group, so I’m going to tell you a bit more about it this time around! The group is for parents who are on board with the ideas you hear about on the podcast based in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting, but struggle to put them into practice in real life. So if you find yourself nodding along and saying yep; I agree with the whole ‘no rewards and punishments’ thing and I’m on board with working with my child to solve the problems we have, and I really want to relax a bit around my child’s eating, but on the other hand you’re thinking: but rewarding with story time is the only way I can get my child to brush their flipping teeth, and how do I even get started with working with my child to solve problems? And if I ever did relax around my child’s eating then all they would eat is goldfish and gummy bears, then the group is for you. We spend a month digging into each issue that parents face – from tantrums to figuring out your goals as a parent and for your child to getting on the same page as your partner (and knowing when it’s OK to have different approaches!)...raising healthy eaters to navigating screen time and supporting sibling relationships; we cover it all. I’ll open the group to new members in July, and it closes at the end of July and on August 1st we start digging into our first topic, which is reducing the number of tantrums you’re experiencing. The cost for the group is $39/month this time around which is locked in for as long as you’re a member - I increased the price from last time, and I may increase it again next time the group reopens. Or if you sign up before July 18th, you can pay for 10 months and get the last two months of the year free. If you’d like to learn more about joining the membership group you can do that at yourparentingmojo.com/membership – the doors will open on July 1st. So that’s the deal with the group. The second cool thing I’m working on is something to give you a taste of what it will be like to be in the group. I’ve heard a lot of parents talking about how their children’s behavior really “triggers” them, and I was going to do a podcast episode on this and then I realized that this is especially one of those topics that you can’t just listen to and expect a change to happen; but if you’re willing to do a bit of work, that you can see enormous payoffs. So I thought OK; how can I really make the greatest impact possible with this work? And I decided to put together a nine-day online workshop to walk you through it. So if you go to yourparentingmojo.com/tameyourtriggers and sign up, staring on July 8th you’ll receive an email fr...