Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive – Details, episodes & analysis

What to Do When Parenting Tools Don’t Work? I know that when you start using new parenting tools, things don't always go according to plan. Your kids don't say what you think they will, or maybe you perceive that their behavior is just kind of crappy, or maybe your partner isn't on board with your ideas. In this episode I address what to do about all of these challenges, as well as how to use the tools I work with to address difficult topics like children wanting ever more snack foods, ever more screen time, and refusing to go to school. We hear from parents who have managed to address tricky challenges - including a child with a skin condition who must take a bath daily and who was successfully extending the dinner/running around/reading books process until bedtime was delayed as well. Once the child's parents came to see what needs the child was trying to meet, bath time suddenly wasn't a problem anymore. I share some realizations that parents have had about their place in the world as they've engaged with my work and how I plan to shift the ways I talk about these issues moving forward. I also invite you to celebrate with my book Parenting Beyond Power's first birthday by baking (or buying) some cupcakes! One of many parents' favorite ideas in the book was the feelings and needs cupcakes, which makes it easy to visualize your most common feelings and needs. We've made some flags you can print and use with your children to identify your (and their) feelings and needs. Share them on social media and be invited to a group coaching call with me later in September, and stick them to the fridge as a reminder of how to connect with your kids - and yourself! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nTLKzk1pdy9cwJQd2iMJolZNsz0gJL25 Finally, a couple of invitations. The Right From The Start course, which I run with Hannah and Kelty of Upbringing, is now available whenever you need it (rather than waiting for the next cohort to begin. If you're expecting a baby or have a child under the age of one, Right From The Start will help you to get clear on your values and goals around raising your child so you can put the systems you need in place before you get to the really tough toddler years. Parent Annie said: "I am so jealous (but excited for others)... that there is something like this for first time mothers. I wish I had it with my first born as it would have been so helpful for my nerves and anxiety surrounding my new profession of 'child raiser!" Learn more and sign up - you can also gift the course to to a friend or relative who is expecting or has a baby under the age of one. We have sliding scale pricing and a 100% money back guarantee! https://yourparentingmojo.com/rightfromthestart/ And if you're interested in doing explicitly anti-racist, patriarchy-healing, capitalism-busting work with me (which I know isn't for everyone!), I'd love to invite you to join me for the Parenting Beyond Power book club hosted by Moms Against Racism Canada. It's a 'book club' in that we'll be working with the ideas in Parenting Beyond Power (we couldn't think of what else to call it...which is also how I ended up with Your Parenting Mojo!), but it's really a set of six 90-minute group coaching calls on Friday evenings where we'll explore how we've been harmed by systems of power, and how we can be in relationship with our children in a way that's aligned with our values. If you (and maybe the folks in your community as well?) have been wanting to know more about how to take anti-racist action with your kids but weren't sure how to do it, the book club will help you to do it. If you'd like to invite your crew, we can give you a special link and when five people use it to sign up, your own spot will be free. https://yourparentingmojo.com/MARBookclub/?oprid=3464&ref=21952

Other episodes mentioned:

• 179: I Never Thought of It That Way with Mónica Guzmán and Lulu
• 207: How to not be a permissive parent
• 209: How to get on the same page as your parenting partner
• 217: How to end the video game struggles with Ash Brandin

 

Understanding Menstrual Cycle Awareness This episode was...unplanned. :-) A couple of months ago I interviewed Dr. Louise Newson on the topic of menopause. Dr. Newson is a medical doctor and focused very heavily on Hormone Replacement Therapy as a treatment that everyone who menstruates should at least consider, and I knew I wanted to do an episode with someone who doesn't hold that belief as well.   I found Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer of The Red School, and really appreciated their book Wise Power. As I usually do before recording an interview I read their other co-authored book Wild Power, and I realized there was a 'missing' episode on the topic of Menstrual Cycle Awareness. We can't really talk about being aware of the changes that are happening to our bodies during menopause if we don't know what has happened to our bodies throughout our menstruating years.   When I read Wild Power I felt a deep sense of sadness that I was just discovering this now, as my own years of menstruation wind down - but also a deep sense of hope that I can help Carys develop a much closer relationship with her own body than I had with mine.   We'll answer questions like:

• What phases does my body go through each month?
• How can I start becoming more aware of these phases through Menstrual Cycle Awareness?
• How can I align my activities with my energy levels, creativity, and arousal - even in the real world, which wants me to go-go-go all the time?
• How is my inner critic aligned with my cycle, and how can I use its knowledge to help me?
• How can I navigate Menstrual Cycle Awareness if I've had a difficult relationship with my periods and with fertility?

  I'd encourage you to listen to this episode if:

• You menstruate and want to better understand how menstruation affects your life
• You're raising a child who will menstruate and want to prepare them to feel 'at home' in their bodies
• You love someone who menstruates and want to be better attuned to them
• You're raising a child who will never menstruate, but you want them to appreciate menstruation and know how to effectively support people who menstruate.

In other words, everyone will get something out of this episode!   Learning Membership The Learning Membership will open again soon!  The membership helps you to support your child’s intrinsic love of learning, while also equipping them with the skills they’ll need to succeed in the age of AI. You’ll learn how to see and follow your child’s interests so you can support them in deep inquiries.  You won’t have to drag them through it like you would a workbook or a curriculum (so no need to reward them with screen time!) because they will WANT to learn.  They’ll be excited to do it, and they’ll bring you along for the ride. If you already know you’re in, you can sign up for the Learning Membership. Click the banner to learn more! https://yourparentingmojo.com/learningmembership/   Alexandra and Sjanie’s books (Affiliate Links):

• Wild power: Discover the magic of your menstrual cycle and awaken the feminine path to power
• Wise power: Discover the liberating power of menopause to awaken authority, purpose and belonging

  Jump to highlights 00:46 Introducing today’s topic and featured guests 03:39 Menstruation is the monthly process where the body sheds the lining of the uterus, and it also brings emotional, psychological, and even spiritual changes. 17:18 Menstrual cycle awareness is about understanding and respecting our natural rhythms, which can improve our well-being and productivity by honoring the need for rest and reflection in our lives. 31:20 Recognizing and respecting your menstrual cycle can improve your well-being by allowing you to adjust your activities and manage your energy more effectively. 40:10 The inner critic gets stronger during the pre-menstrual phase of the menstrual cycle. Knowing this can help you take better care of yourself and manage parenting challenges. 53:09 Menstrual cycle awareness can help with personal healing and self-care, even for those who face challenges like heavy periods or grief, by fostering connection with one's own body and experiences. 58:52 Wrapping up the discussion   References Alfonseca, K., & Guilfoil, K. (2022, July 19). Should people of all genders be taught sex education together? Educators weigh in. ABC News. Retrieved from: https://abcnews.go.com/US/people-genders-taught-sex-education-educators-weigh/story?id=87021246 Andrews, S. (n.d.). Should schools separate sex ed classes by gender? NextGenMen. Retrieved from: https://www.nextgenmen.ca/blog/should-schools-separate-sex-ed-classes-by-gender

Exploring Marriage, Autism, Race, and Parenting Together Want to know how my autism self-diagnosis has affected my relationship with my husband? (I will apologize to autistic listeners here as an ableist perspective is still something we're working on, and he also uses some outdated terminology probably from an old book he's started twice - but not yet finished - on supporting partners with Asperger's Syndrome.)   Curious about whether he identifies as Filipino-American... or not? And how his perspective on race differs from mine?   Want to hear how he sent a chicken up into space...and then found out what the two pink lines of a pregnancy test mean?   Last year, when we were coming up on our 200th podcast episode, I asked my husband, Alvin, if he would be willing to record a podcast episode. I had envisioned listeners asking the questions and him answering - but he wanted me to join as well!   One of the first things we learned was that Alvin cannot be succinct. (Well, technically speaking, this was not a new lesson for me - and interviewer Iris had tried really hard to prepare him for succinctness by asking for his 'elevator pitch' - but he just couldn't do it!)   So we ended up cutting the episode when it was already over an hour, and we hadn't covered half of the questions listeners had submitted...and interviewers Iris and Corrine graciously agreed to return for a Part 2. So here it is!   Other episodes mentioned

• 175: I’ll be me; can you be you?
• 200: Ask Alvin Anything (Part 1!)

  Jump to highlights 01:22 Introducing this episode 04:28 Alvin talks about how Jen's autism diagnosis helps their relationship, while Jen shares how it helps in their daily life and parenting. 12:47 Alvin and Jen talk about how they decided to become parents. 25:10 Alvin discusses his upbringing in a predominantly White area, his evolving awareness of his Filipino heritage, and how his wife Jen's advocacy work has shaped his understanding of race and culture. 38:13 Alvin talks about his journey from wanting to be seen as White to embracing his Filipino heritage and identifying as a Brown person. 46:32 Alvin encourages dads to be actively involved in parenting, prioritize their partners, and be present in family life. 57:15 Alvin and the hosts engage in a quickfire round of questions, discussing topics from parenting to personal preferences. 01:00:50 Wrapping up

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.  

Click the banner to learn more!

https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/  

How does trauma affect us?   Yes, we feel it in our brains - we get scared, frustrated, and angry - often for reasons we don’t fully understand.   But even if our brains have managed to cover up the trauma; to paper a veneer over it so everything seems fine, that doesn’t mean everything actually is fine - because as our guest in this episode, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says: The Body Keeps The Score.   What he means is that the effects of the trauma you’ve experienced don’t just go away, and can’t just be papered over.  Your body will still hold the evidence in tension, headaches, irritability (of minds and bowels), insomnia...and all of this may come out when your child does something you wish they wouldn’t.   Perhaps it’s something your parent always used to resent doing, and made it super clear to you every time they did it for you.   Perhaps it was something you did as a child and were punished for doing (maybe you were even hit for it...your body is literally remembering this trauma when your child reproduces the behavior).   Lack of manners, talking back, making a mess, not doing as you were told, being silly...even if logically you now know that these are relatively small things, when your child does them it brings back your body’s memories of what happened to you.   Dr. van der Kolk helps us to understand more about how this shows up for us.  Sometimes understanding can be really helpful.  But sometimes you also need new tools, and support as you learn them, and accountability.   If you’re struggling with your reactions to your child’s difficult behavior - whether you’re going into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, the Taming Your Triggers wokrshop can help.  

Click the banner to learn more!

  https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/   Dr. Van der Kolk's Book:

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Affiliate link).

  Jump to highlights: 01:00 Introducing Dr. van der Kolk 01:58 Invitation to the Taming Your Triggers Workshop 02:56 A note on some technical difficulties we had while recording this episode 03:14 People often want easy answers: Talking about why we feel like we need pills and alcohol to deal with trauma and not make use of other methods which seem more beneficial 08:16 "We become who we are based on the experiences we had and these early experiences really set your expectations" 11:53 Dr. van der Kolk’s ongoing research on touch and trauma that looks into the virtually unstudied field of touch 14:42 To effectively deal with trauma, people need to discover who they are and find the words for their internal experiences 16:10 On mindfulness and yoga: the physical focus on movement in yoga may open up some space for mindfulness 20:45 Rolfing : opening up the body so that it is released from the configuration it adopted to deal with trauma 23:07 The importance of words and finding somebody who can helps you to find words as cautiously as they can, without inflicting too much of their own value system on you 25:31 Dr. van der Kolk’s current agenda for kids to be taught to have a language for their internal experience 28:27 Two of the most important scientifically proven predictors of adult function 31:26 Dr. van der Kolk talks about Developmental Trauma Disorder 38:31 The power of peer and community support in healing trauma 41:32 Wrapping up   Links:

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
• My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
• No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism
• Taming Your Triggers Workshop

  References D’Andrea, W., Ford, J., Stolbach, B., Spinazzola, J., & van der Kolk, B. (2012). Understanding interperonsal trauma in children: Why we need a developmentally appropriate trauma diagnosis. American Journal of Orthopsyhchiatry 82(2), 187-200. Goessl, V.C., Curtiss, J.E., & Hofman, S.G. (2017). The effect of heart rate variability biofeedback training on stress and anxiety: A meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine 47, 2578-2586. Haines, S.K. (2019).The politics of trauma: Somatics, healing, and social justice. Berkeley: North Atlantic. Menachem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hand: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press. Miller, A. (2006). The body never lies: The lingering effects of hurtful parenting. New York: Norton. National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (n.d.). Frontiers in the treatment of trauma: how to target treatment to help patients reclaim their lives after trauma. The Main Session with Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Ruth Buczynski, PhD. NICABM. Tippet, K. (2019, December 26). Bessel van der Kolk: How trauma lodges in the body. On Being. Retrieved from: https://onbeing.org/programs/bessel-van-der-kolk-how-trauma-lodges-in-the-body/ van der Kolk, B. (2017). Developmental trauma disorder: Toward a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals 35(5), 401-408. van der Kolk, B. (2016). The devastating effects of ignoring child maltreatment in psychiatry: Commentary on “The enduring neurobiological effects of abuse and neglect.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 57(3), 267-270. van der Kolk, B.A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 75(6), e559-e565. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin. van der Kolk, B., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 75(6), e559-e565. van der Kolk, B. (2006). Clinical implications of neuroscience research in PTSD. Annals – New York Academy of Sciences 1071(1), 277. van der Kolk, B., & van der Hart, O. (1989). Pierre Janet & the breakdown of adaptation in psychological trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 146(12), 1530-1540.

When we're having a hard time interacting with our family members, it's pretty common for our first reaction to be: "I need this person (or these people!) to change their behavior" - especially when this person (or these people!) are children.  After all, we've been around for longer and we know what we're doing and we were fine before our children started misbehaving, right?   My guest today, parent-of-three Chrystal, had encountered this mentality not just about her children, but also about her husband.  In fact, when she went to couple's therapy with her husband it was with a sense of relief: "Finally, I'm going to find out what's wrong with him, because there's nothing wrong with me!"   She always figured: "If that person didn't act like that then I wouldn't need to react the way I'm reacting...and I legitimately thought that everyone else was responsible for my behavior."   Then she realized that her husband wasn't responsible for how she was feeling...she was.   Now she was ready to make the same leap related to her relationship with her spirited children, but needed new tools.  They would melt down over every tiny issue (not enough honey on the oatmeal!  Now not enough cream!  I don't WANT to get dressed!), and Chrystal found herself constantly scrambling to placate them.   Join us for a conversation about the new ideas she's learned, and how her children now don't cooperate blindly because she's forcing them, but express their agency while finding ways to collaborate that also meet their needs.  They have real agency in her family (they know she'll hear them and respect their ideas) and because of this, the little issues that used to provoke regular meltdowns are easily solved.  And Chrystal is learning how to set boundaries so she doesn't get walked all over - by her children, or by other members of her family.   Want to make a similar shift in your own interactions with your children?  The Taming Your Triggers workshop will help.   Click the banner to learn more!   https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/ Jump to highlights: 01:00 Inviting listeners to join the Taming Your Triggers workshop 04:43 A little bit about Chrystal 11:06 Chrystal’s journey as a parent 13:58 How Chrystal found it difficult to build lasting relationships with parents who were raising their children the same way they were raised and how she found her people in the Taming Your Triggers community. 16:32 The fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses and how Chrystal resonated to the fawn response. 18:22 The first time Chrystal was able to connect what she’s feeling in her body with her belief systems 20:36 As the eldest of eight children, Chrystal felt that it was her responsibility to make sure everyone is happy when her mother couldn’t cope due to severe postnatal depression, and this has continued on with her character now that they’ve grown up 24:51  When Chrystal decided to set boundaries and have it respected, she found out that her family’s issues can resolve themselves without her getting involved 28:14 The profound shift with for Chrystal in terms of what changed in her family after going through the Taming Your Triggers workshop is that she is now able to see situations as more than a win-lose situation 32:20 With two strong-willed daughters and a son who is also energetic, breakfast has been a challenge in Chrystal’s home. She’s learned to apply problem solving to find solutions, but the biggest revelation for her has been that it is okay for her children to have these big feelings 38:15 Chrystal explores the question, “Why should our children listen to us?” as she discovers extrinsic and intrinsic motivation 38:55 A beautiful moment when Chrystal was having a hard time getting her daughter ready for school, and another instance when she was having some friend over their house 47:08 Having the tools is great but it is just better to have a framework to implement it and really being intentional 51:20 Wrapping up with a sense of compassion.   Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Taming Your Triggers workshop
• Upbringingwith Hannah & Kelty
• Nonviolent Communication Podcast Episode
• The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, by Daniel Siegel

This episode kicks off a series on the intersection of parenting and food.   We begin today with a conversation with Dr. Lindo Bacon, where we bust a LOT of myths about the obesity epidemic that is said to be plaguing people in the United States and other countries that follow a similar diet.   The messaging we get from government entities seems pretty simple: being fat is bad for you. It causes increased risk for a host of diseases as well as early death. If you're fat, you should lose weight because then your risk of getting these diseases and dying early will be reduced.   But what if this wasn't true?   What if this messaging had been established by people who own companies that manufacture weight loss products who sit on panels that advise international governmental entities like the World Health Organization?   What if body fat was actually protective for your health?   We dig into all these questions and more in this provocative interview.   We'll continue this series with episodes looking specifically at sugar, as well as supporting parents who have or continue to struggle with disordered eating, and how to support children in developing eating habits that will serve them for a lifetime, not just get the vegetables into them today.   Jump to highlights:

• (01:00) Introducing Dr. Lindo Bacon and starting our series of episodes on the intersection of parenting and food
• (02:22) Stripping the word ‘fat’ of it’s pejorative meaning and reclaiming the term while acknowledging that it may be jarring for some people
• (03:09) Kicking off the conversation with how we measure health using BMI and how it might not be accurate
• (05:03) The resistance to Katherine Flegal’s seminal research in weight and longevity
• (05:49) The development of the Body Mass Index was with scientific bias to fit the bell curve
• (07:30) Higher body weight does not necessarily mean a person has greater risk of poor health
• (10:59) We actually know that the research is highly exaggerated in terms on the role that it plays on health
• (13:16) Dr. Bacon’s turning point: When they found out that BMI recommendations were created by an organization funded by pharmaceutical companies who produce weight loss drugs and products
• (17:35) Taking the issue one step further with the American Medical Association’s recommendation whether to categorize obesity as a disease or not
• (19:19) The Obesity Paradox is an observation in the research that people who are obese who get the same diseases as those with ‘normal’ weight are living longer
• (21:15) The concept of dieting just doesn’t work according to the data
• (30:33) A story of Dr. Bacon’s and their father’s knee problems
• (34:40) Individual factors only accounts to 25% to somebody’s total health outcomes and social determinants account to about 60%
• (42:05) It is cool right now to be your authentic self but not everyone can so easily be their authentic self when their authentic selves are not valued by society at large
• (45:48) Improving the health of individuals is more communal than individual

  Resource Links:

• Health at Every Size, by Lindo Bacon
• Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight, by Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor
• Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better), by Lindo Bacon
• Association For Size Diversity and Health

  [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 her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting.   Jen Lumanlan  00:29 If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen To You and What to Do About Each One, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. I'm very excited about our episode today because we're at the very beginning of what I hope is going to be quite an extended series of episodes at the intersection of parenting and food. And I'm hoping to look at ideas like eating disorders and intuitive eating and how sugar impacts our children and what we should do about that, if anything, how we should approach eating issues with our children more broadly and how we can all be a little bit happier in our bodies. And today we're kicking off this series with Dr. Lindo Bacon whose seminal book Health at Every Size was written over a decade ago now and which exposes how the ideas that most of us believe about body fat and weight are actually not grounded in scientific research. She followed that by co-authoring a book called Body Respect, and her most recent book is called Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). Dr. Bacon earned their PhD in physiology from the University of California Davis, where they currently serve as an Associate Nutritionist. They also hold graduate degrees in Psychology and Exercise Metabolism. Dr. Bacon is industry independent, which means they have pledged not to accept money from the weight loss, pharmaceutical or food industries, which makes them almost unique among non governmental researchers on issues related to weight and food. Welcome, Dr. Bacon. I'm so glad you're here.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  02:20 Thanks, Jen. I'm looking forward to talking to you.   Jen Lumanlan  02:22 And before we get started, I just want to acknowledge that I'm going to follow your lead in your books by using the word fat in this interview and using that in a way that's really been stripped of its pejorative connotations. And many people it seems who are fat, who are now reclaiming the term in this way. But I do acknowledge that it may be jarring to some listeners to hear if they aren't accustomed to hearing it like that.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  02:45 Yeah, I think it's important to name all of that. So thank you, Jen. And I also just want to note for the listeners that if you do feel uncomfortable when you hear the word, then that's something helpful to look at, because that really shows that you've absorbed the cultural ideas about that. And hopefully, we can start to normalize it so that you could feel better about it.   Jen Lumanlan  03:09 Yeah, and hopefully this conversation is going to be a big part of that as well. So I wonder if we can start at the beginning with what I know is a big topic as it were, which is how we measure health. And so this body mass index, or BMI for short, has become the standard measure of how much weight a person is carrying compared to their height. And it's best considered an indicator of how healthy they are in some way. And it's used by everybody from the Centers for Disease Control in the US to the World Health Organization. Is the BMI actually a good measure - I guess I should start by saying of anything at all and then we can go from there and to health.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  03:47 You right. I think that your question already answered itself, but it really does not play much of a role in health at all. And I think that its use has been quite damaging to people. So I wish that the medical industry would throw it out.   Jen Lumanlan  04:03 Yeah. So where did it come from? How did we end up here?   Dr. Lindo Bacon  04:07 Well, it actually was written by or devised by someone who was a statistician looking at insurance, and that it wasn't meant or designed for health. And it was meant to look at what's going on in a population, not what's going on in an individual. And it's amazing when you start to look at the research of how it corresponds to health and you find some really surprising things. For example, it's pretty clear from the...

Many of us haven't been in each other's homes for a while now, but pretty soon we'll be getting together inside again.  And our children will be heading inside, in their friends' houses.   People store guns inside.   Are you certain that nobody owns a gun in any of the places your child plays?   If they do own a gun, are you certain they store it safely?   If not, you need to ask.   That's one issue we discuss in this interview with Dr. Nina Agrawal, a board-certified pediatrician who has expertise in violence against children.  She co-founded the Gun Safety Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics in New York State, and is leading the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for the American Medical Women’s Association.   Another issue is the gun violence that is primarily faced by children of color, which turns out to affect a far greater number of children.   And how is this all linked to the Peloton recall?  You'll have to listen in to find out...   Jump to highlights here:

• (01:00) Indoor playdates are ramping up...will your child be safe?
• (02:29) Introducing Dr. Nina Agrawal, pediatrician and co-founder of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Gun Safety Committee in New York State
• (02:58) Understanding how big is the scope of gun violence against children
• (06:15) The Dickey Amendment: Explaining the massive lack of data and research on gun violence and safety
• (11:24) The ways that gun violence affects children that we might not expect
• (12:32) “I get woken up at night to the sound of gunshots.”
• (17:09) The racial disparity in how children are affected by gun violence
• (20:46) More people purchased guns in 2020, and there are more first-time owners too
• (23:39) The statistical likelihood of children coming to harm if they live with a firearm in their household
• (27:00) Just telling kids not to touch guns doesn't work (even if you think of your child as one who is 'sensible,' and you've talked with them about gun safety)
• (30:45) The Asking Saves Kids Campaign helps to keep kids safer
• (33:06) The surprising link between children involved in gun violence and the Peloton treadmill recall
• (36:07) In American culture, banning all guns can't be the answer
• (40:52) Effective Child Access Laws
• (41:45) How to create safer environments for children through building communities

[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.   Jen Lumanlan  00:06 We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen To You & What To Do About Each One, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. And today we're going to discuss a topic that I think is about to come into parents' consciousness in a way that it really hasn't as much over the last year. And for some of us, that's a result of our privilege. And I was reflecting that as vaccinations for children become more available, we're probably going to start moving towards indoor play dates without parents being around because when my daughter went into when we went into sort of lockdown, she was young enough that she wasn't really doing playdates indoors with other people in anyone else's houses. And so I never really felt as though I needed to ask, "Are there guns in your house?" because I was always there to supervise. And so of course, over the last year, she's played with a lot of kids on our street, and they're always outside and I can always hear them. And so the danger doesn't seem to be there in the same way for me in those outdoor playdates scenarios. But of course, as vaccinations become available, and these things start to move inside, I don't know which of my friends has guns in their houses. And if I'm kind of uncomfortable asking about this, I'm guessing that a lot of parents haven't even thought about it and don't have it on their collective radar yet. So I wanted to bring that up into our consciousness before we actually need it. And then, of course, there's another issue here as well, that we're going to delve into fairly deeply today, which is that gun violence is becoming increasingly common in a wide variety of settings that children live in and are exposed to, and that this can have really big impacts on them. And that that isn't necessarily talked about or studied nearly as much.   Jen Lumanlan  02:29 And we have a very special guest here with us today to talk about these issues. Dr. Nina Agrawal. She's a pediatrician who is board certified in Child Abuse Pediatrics, and she has expertise in Violence Against Children. She was on the faculty at Columbia University in Child and Adolescent Health. She co-founded the Gun Safety Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics in New York State, and she's leading the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for the American Women's Association. Welcome Dr. Agrawal.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  02:56 Thank you so much for having me, Jen.   Jen Lumanlan  02:58 All right. So I wonder if we can maybe start by just understanding how big is the scope of this problem, and piggybacking on that, how much do we know about how big is the scope of this problem, and why don't we know as much as we might want to know?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:12 Right, great question. Right now, guns are the leading cause of death in children 1 to 19 years of age. Before it was motor vehicle accidents.   Jen Lumanlan  03:22 Yeah.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:23 Now it's firearm. So it's something that's a health issue. It's a public health issue. It's a safety issue affecting all children.   Jen Lumanlan  03:34 Okay. And yeah, I actually hadn't seen those latest statistics, the peer reviewed papers I was looking at from 2018 still showed it in that number two position, so. So that's an unfortunate development over the last couple of years that that position has switched then. And it doesn't affect everybody equally, right? It affects some children more than others.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:53 Yes, definitely. Racially, it affects Black children disproportionately. Blacks, and then Hispanics, and then White children.   Jen Lumanlan  04:00 Okay. And I noticed that actually, the way that this data is collected, we might think, Oh, it's fairly easy to understand how prevalent this kind of thing is, how prevalent injuries are. And actually, there's a couple of different ways of estimating it. But the most common way is using data from the Centers for Disease Control, which is sampled from 100 hospitals. And I'm just thinking, Okay, there are 1000s of trauma centers that are dealing with this kind of thing. Can a sample of 100 hospitals give us a complete picture of what the actual prevalence rates for this are?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  04:34 Right? Yeah, as with a lot of injuries in children, it's a combination of hospital data and mass data and media. We're increasingly using media data. There's a gun violence archive that looks at shootings in communities, and then the CDC data. I think one of the problems with the CDC data is that it doesn't include non fatal injuries and only includes fatal injuries. So we're missing a lot of children who suffered non fatal injuries and understanding those so that we can prevent them.   Jen Lumanlan  05:09 Yeah. Okay. And I think when a lot of parents think about guns, one thing that they may be most kind of afraid of the immediate fear is of a mass shooting. Because there's get so much publicity, right? Is that the thing that we should be the most afraid of statistically speaking?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  05:25 Statistically, definitely not. It's 1% of shootings. So much more common is homicide, and suicide, and unintentional injuries. And then mass shootings are a small percentage, but they gain the most immediate attention. And because again, the most immediate attention, they gain the most resources - prevention resources. And so we have children dying every day from homicide and suicide and yet, we're really not devoting the investing in prevention of deaths in those children due to firearms.   Jen Lumanlan  06:00 Yeah, okay. And I think a big reason why we're not investing as much in the pieces of this that really matter are that we don't understand it well enough. And there's a reason we don't understand much about gun violence, right? Can you tell us about that reason.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  06:15 I love telling the story. It's a story that's not known and once people...

New parents often worry about attachment to their baby - will I be able to build it? My baby cries a lot - does that mean that we aren't attached? If I put my baby in daycare, will they get attached to the daycare staff rather than to me?   Based on the ideas about attachment that have been circulated over the years, these are entirely valid concerns. But it turns out that not only should we not worry about these things, but the the research that these ideas were based in was highly flawed.   It's often forgotten that attachment theory was developed in the period after World War II, when policymakers were trying to get women out of the jobs they had held during the war, and back into their 'natural' place in the home.   In one of his earliest papers Dr. John Bowlby - the so-called Father of Attachment Theory - described 44 children who had been referred to his clinic for stealing, and compared these with children who had not stolen anything. He reported that the thieves had been separated from their parents during childhood, which led them to have a low sense of self-worth and capacity for empathy. He went on to say that “to deprive a small child of his mother’s companionship is as bad as depriving him of vitamins.”   But much later in his life, Bowlby revealed that he had conflated a whole lot of kinds of separation into that one category – everything between sleeping in a different room to being abandoned in an orphanage. And in addition to being separated, many of the thieves had also experienced physical or sexual abuse. The fear that spending time apart from your baby will damage them in some way is just not supported by the evidence.   What other common beliefs do we hold about attachment relationships that aren't supported by evidence? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out! Listen in for more.   Link to the book mentioned:

Cornerstones of Attachment Research (Affiliate link).

  Jump to highlights: 03:30 Download the free Right From The Start Roadmap 06:11 Dr. John Bowlby, who is known as the founder of attachment theory 06:40 A brief overview of attachment theory 08:06 What is attachment theory 09:44 A closer look at the word attachment 12:55 Five aspects out of Freud's psychoanalytic theory 14:32 44 Juvenile Thieves - One of the major ideas about separation from parents 17:50 What is the word monotrophy 18:49 The four dimensions that distinguish African-American views of motherhood from American views by Dr. Patricia Hill Collins 20:49 Aka Pygmy tribe in Africa 21:37 What is PIC or Parental Investment in the child Questionnaire by Dr. Robert Bradley 24:19 The Strange Situation Procedure developed by Dr. Mary Ainsworth 30:30 White middle class mothers in Baltimore stand for what attachment should look like in families of all types around the world 33:36 Two main cross cultural studies 40:13 The cognitive thinking component of the attachment relationship 47:29 What is Outcomes 01:01:25 Summary   References Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1985). Patterns of infant-mother attachments: Antecedents and effects on development. Bulletin of The New York Academy of Medicine 61(9), 771-791. Attached at the Heart (n.d.). Talking points/frequently asked questions. Author. Retrieved from http:// attachedattheheart.attachmentparenting.org/faq/ Birns, B. (1999). I. Attachment Theory revisited: Challenging conceptual and methodological sacred cows. Feminism & Psychology 9(1), 10-21. Bliwise, N.G. (1999). Securing Attachment Theory’s potential. Feminism & Psychology 9(1), 43-52. Bradley, R.H. (1998). In defense of parental investment. Journal of Marriage and Family 60(3), 791-795. Bradley, R.H., Whiteside-Mansell, L., Brisby, J.A., & Caldwell, B.M. Parents’ socioemotional investment in children. Journal of Marriage and Family 59(1), 77-90. Buchanan, F. (2013). A critical analysis of the use of attachment theory in cases of domestic violence. Critical Social Work 14(2), 19-31 Callaghan, J., Andenaes, A., & Macleod, C. (2015). Deconstructing Developmental Psychology 20 years on: Reflections, implications, and empirical work. Feminism & Psychology 25(3), 255-265. Cleary, R.J. (1999). III. Bowlby’s theory of attachment and loss: A feminist reconsideration. Feminism & Psychology 9(1), 32-42. Duschinsky, R. (2020). Cornerstones of attachment research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duschinsky, R., Greco, M., & Solomon, J. (2015). The politics of attachment: Lines of flight with Bowlby, Deleuze and Guattari. Theory, Culture & Society 32(7-8), 173-195. Duchinsky, R., Greco, M., & Solomon, J. (2015). Wait up!: Attachment and sovereign power. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 28, 223-242. Franzblau, S.H. (1999). II. Historicizing Attachment Theory: Binding the ties that bind. Feminism & Psychology 9(1), 22-31. Gov.uk (2019). Elitism in Britain, 2019. Author. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/elitism-in-britain-2019#:~:text=Overall%2029%25%20of%20current%20Members,Senior%20judges%20%2D%2065%25 Hays, S., (1998). The fallacious assumptions and unrealistic prescriptions of Attachment Theory: A comment on “Parents’ socioemotional investment in children.” Journal of Marriage and Family 60(3), 782-790. Leinonen, J. A., Solantaus, T. S., & Punamäki, R. L. (2003). Social support and the quality of parenting under economic pressure and workload in Finland: The role of family structure and parental gender. Journal of Family Psychology, 17(3), 409. Mesman, J., Minter, T., Angnged, A., Cissé, I. A., Salali, G. D., & Migliano, A. B. (2018). Universality without uniformity: A culturally inclusive approach to sensitive responsiveness in infant caregiving. Child Development, 89(3), 837-850. Schaverein, J. (2011). Boarding school syndrome: Broken attachments a hidden trauma. British Journal of Psychotherapy 27(2), 138-155. Schaverein, J. (2004). Boarding school: the trauma of the ‘privileged’ child. Journal of Analytical Psychology 49, 683-705. Silverstein, L.B. (2996). Fathering is a feminist issue. Psychology of Women Quarterly 20, 3-37. Simonardottir, S. (2016). Constructing the attached mother in the “world’s most feminist country.” Women’s Studies International Forum 56, 103-112. Umemura, T., Jacobvitz, D., Messina, S., & Hazen, N. (2013). Do toddlers prefer the primary caregiver or the parent with whom they feel more secure? The role of toddler emotion. Infant Behavior and Development 36, 102-114. Van der Kolk, B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin. Van Dijken, S. (1998). John Bowlby: His Early Life: A Biographical Journey into the Roots of Attachment Theory. London: Free Association Books Vicedo, M. (2017). Putting attachment in its place: Disciplinary and cultural contexts. European Journal of Developmental Psychology 14(6), 684-699. Ziv, Y., & Hotam, Y. (2015). Theory and measure in the psychological field: The case of attachment theory and the strange situation procedure. Theory & Psychology 25(3), 274-291.  

"Psychological Flexibility" sounds amazing.  Shouldn't we all want that?  After all, psychological flexibility has been significantly positively associated with wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and COVID-29-related distress and worry. (But what is it, anyway?!) Psychological Flexibility is about being fully in touch with the present moment and, based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior to live in better alignment with your values. Let's break that down a bit: Being fully in touch with the present moment: We spend a good chunk of our lives not fully present.  And there are times when it makes sense - we don't necessarily need to be fully present for every moment of a long drive.  As long as we're present enough to drive safely, we don't need to observe the exact quality of red in the tail light of the driver in front of you. But when we spend most of our lives zoned out on our phones, or rushing from one activity to the next (probably partly so we don't have to sit down and just be), we aren't truly present. Better alignment with your values: We all have values, although perhaps some of us haven't fully articulated them.  We might value raising an independent child, but then step in every time they struggle.  We might value emotional closeness but struggle to actually do it because our parents didn't model it for us.  When we articulate our values, we define what we're working toward. Based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior: One of my favorite parts of ACT is the Choice Point: the point at which something doesn't feel right to you.  At this point you get to decide: Am I going to keep doing the same thing I've always done?  Or am I going to do something that brings me into better alignment with my values?   Want to know more?  Dr. Diana Hill, co-author with Dr. Debbie Sorensen, joins me on this episode to discuss their new book ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (this is an affiliate link, so I will earn a small commission through your purchase which does not affect the price you pay).  The book walks readers through a series of exercises to help them become more psychologically flexible, through the practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  The concepts in ACT are ones that I've found to be enormously useful both personally and in working with clients, so I'm excited to tell you about them here!   Dr. Diana Hill's Book:

ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Affiliate link).

  Jump to highlights:

• (01:26) What is ACT or acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• (02:07) What is this thing psychological flexibility?
• (03:48) What are the components of psychological flexibility?
• (08:07) Cognitive diffusion
• (11:38) The idea that we could believe that our thoughts are not true is mind boggling to a lot of people
• (16:36) Values and parenting in particular is such a good one to discuss
• (18:20) Values are something that are deep within you, that you can pull upon, when you've got nothing left
• (19:10:) The idea of the choice point
• (23:36) Perspective taking is probably one of the most important skills we can do for ourselves
• (27:01) How do we live out committed action
• (33:55) Our children are naturally beginner's mind
• (35:18:) One of the things that actually sets humans apart from robots, is our ability to think outside the box
• (39:58) We can start to teach our children, that it's not about the answer. That there's many ways to solve problems
• (41:51) The IKEA effect
• (45:33) Another thing that's really important with embodiment is modeling

  [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:03 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 hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a FREE Guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't listen To You and What To Do About Each One, just head on over to your YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us   Jen Lumanlan  00:48 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a guest here today to talk with us about a tool that I actually discovered through her show and I found it to be incredibly helpful both personally and professionally. So our guest is Dr. Diana Hill, and she's co host with three of her colleagues of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast, and one of her co hosts is Dr. Yael Schonbrun, who we had on the show to discuss work life balance. And then Dr. Hill actually hosted me on Psychologists Off the Clock and we talked about homeschooling and social justice and parenting and stuff like that. And now she's here with us today to discuss one of her favorite topics, which is acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is shortened to act. So Dr. Hill has just published a book with her colleague and Psychologists Off the Clock at co-host Debbie Sorensen, called Acts Daily Journal: Get unstuck and live fully with acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which isn't geared specifically toward parents, but there's so much in it that's going to help parents. So welcome Dr. Hill. It's great to have you here.   Diana Hill  01:45 Thank you, Jen, it's so good to be here with you and my interview with you is one of my favorites. So it's time to have the table's turned here and talk about ACT and and specifically around parenting because it turns out if you're more psychologically flexible as a person, it rubs off on to your parenting, and then that rubs off on to your kids too. So I love to talk more about it.   Jen Lumanlan  02:05 Yeah, awesome. So maybe we can start there with Firstly, what is this thing psychological flexibility? And why does it matter? Why does it make a difference? How does it make a difference in our lives?   Diana Hill  02:14 Well, a psychological flexibility is a construct that's been researched for decades now. And some of the research is actually starting to get into the general public. And what it is, is, it's your ability to stay present, open up to your full life experience, not get hooked by your thoughts, and orient your actions towards your values towards what really matters to you, even when life gets difficult. So you can see how even just that term could be helpful as a parent, right? And   Jen Lumanlan  02:43 keep going. I'm not saying it.   Diana Hill  02:47 And what the research has shown is that there's really these Six Core Processes, ways in which you engage with the world that help you become more psychologically flexible. And when you're psychologically flexible. Not only do you have less chances of developing things like anxiety and depression, but specifically with parenting, some of the meta analyses that are showing up with parenting is that psychologically flexible parents engage in more positive parenting practices, they're less harsh, as well as not super overly permissive, you see less spillover effects of stress onto kids. So they did some studies looking at psychological flexibility during COVID with parents and parents that were more psychologically flexible during COVID. Not only did they have less conflict in their relationship with their partners, there was less impact of the stress of COVID on their kids. This set of processes is turning out to be in the research one of the key factors in human flourishing and functioning in lots of different domains of our lives.   Jen Lumanlan  03:47 Okay, I'm convinced. So what are the components of psychological flexibility?   Diana Hill  03:52 Well, there's six of them and you can kind of think of them Steven Hayes, who's one of the cofounders of ACT or Acceptance  a Commitment Therapy talks about like sides of a box. So six sides of the box, that together build your psychological flexibility. And some of them are fairly familiar to folks we've all heard about being present. That's one of them, being able to stay present in the moment sort of mindfulness, but it's a little different in ACT being present has more to do with being present where it matters, because you can't be mindful all of the time. But in that moment, when your kid is showing, like pulling out stuff from the backpack, and they're showing you a piece of artwork and you're on your phone, this is a time to be present because they're bidding for attention. They're bidding for connection, right? So being present when it matters to you as a parent. A second process is about acceptance. And in Act, acceptance isn't...