Evolutionary Parenting Podcast

One of the more difficult topics for many families these days has to do with media use. We are a tech-heavy society and that extends downwards to our kids. It's not uncommon to go out and see parents handing over screens to their kids to get through a dinner, a car ride, a boring appointment, and so on. At home kids spend hours in front of screens for school, to be social, to play games, and more. When parents try to understand the effects of this screen time, they are often met with tons of different information. Some makes it out that we are damaging our children for life. Others say it's just the way of the future. So which is it? Joining me this week is Dr. Meghan Owenz, researcher and founder of Screen-Free Parenting. She sifts through the research so you can get a better idea of the nuances in the findings, but also helps highlight ways families can move away from the dependence so many of us - myself included - have on our technology. As is so often the case, the reality is far more interesting that what we have been fed in the mainstream.

Dr. Meghan Owenz: https://berks.psu.edu/person/owenz-meghan

Screen-Free Parenting: https://www.screenfreeparenting.com/

Spoiled Right: https://stores.praeclaruspress.com/spoiled-right-delaying-screens-and-giving-children-what-they-really-need-by-meghan-owenz-1/

When you think about your child's sleep, what are the words that often come to mind? I know in Western cultures, we often hear "independence", "self-soothing", "needy", "manipulative" and so on. The way in which we speak about something has a profound impact on how we conceptualize and approach it. In the realm of sleep, the language of independence and manipulation has led to the flourishing of sleep training and perceived sleep problems for many families. But what if we had culturally-approved and accepted language that focused on supporting our children during sleep? What difference could that make? The word Uspavani embraces just that. Unlike in our Western world, in the Czech Republic, they do have language that focuses on embracing the support our kids need. Joining me today is Mrs. Lenka Tinkova, a Czech sleep expert and graduate student who is exploring the very issue of how language and concepts like Uspavani support families in helping their children. If you've ever felt alone in your sleep journey or like you're doing something wrong by helping your child, it may be time to learn about and embrace Uspavani in your family.

Mrs. Lenka Tinkova: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/lenka-m-tinkova/

Prosim Spinkej (Czech sleep site): https://ProsimSpinkej.cz

Mrs. Tinkova's books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/18740980.Lenka_Medvecov_Tinkov_

Article on Language and Sleep: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352721821002254

In the realm of parenting - especially attachment parenting - the focus has been on mothers. In fact, if you go to any attachment parenting group - online or not - you are far more likely to come across a group of moms talking about their beliefs, experiences, struggles, and so forth. But it's not just mothers who experience and parent with an attachment-related set of beliefs. Fathers and partners also experience attachment parenting and can have a profound impact on their child's development and their own relationship with their child, but we know incredibly little about this. Today I am thrilled to have Dr. Levita D'Souza join me to discuss her research looking at the experiences of fathers who are attachment parents themselves. How do they experience it? What are their struggles in an unsupportive society? What led them to this way of parenting? These are the kinds of questions she is exploring in this new and much-needed research. For all the dads out there and those who are hoping their partners might get on board, this research is for you.

Dr. Levita D'Souza: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/levita-dsouza

Interesting Personal Story from an Attachment Father: https://attachmentparenting.co.uk/manifesto-its-different-for-dads/

As we kick off Season 2 of the podcast, we're going to dive into the research on an area that often brings fear to new parents - rightfully - that of SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Most people will be aware of best sleep practices promoted by professionals - put your baby to sleep on their back, no extra items in the sleeping area, and no matter what you do, never sleep with your baby. But how well do these recommendations stand up to the actual research? What do we really know versus what we're being told? Joining me (again) is one of my favourite people and one who is out there changing the way we think about our advice for SIDS through research and advocacy - Dr. Helen Ball. Through her work at Durham University's Parent-Infant Sleep Centre, she has been helping professionals and families better understand the risks around SIDS and how we can best support families with evidence-based information. If you think you know the evidence behind sleep recommendations, you may need to think again.

Dr. Helen Ball: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/h-l-ball/

Parent-Infant Sleep Centre: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/durham-infancy-sleep-centre/

BASIS: https://www.basisonline.org.uk/

SIDS and Infant Sleep Webinars for Professionals (or Parents): https://www.basisonline.org.uk/hcp-infant-sleep-webinars/

**March 28 is a virtual (or in-person) conference through the Parent-Infant Sleep Centre. Speakers include Dr. James McKenna and Kristin Tully!!!

Get more information and register (I have!) here: https://www.dur.ac.uk/conference.booking/details/?id=1736

I would first like to welcome you to the final episode of this season. I am thankful to all of you who listen and give me hope that there are still those people out there who respect and love science as much as I do and who find the work of researchers who rarely get to be in the spotlight as fascinating as I do. This final episode – also the last in the fathering series, but I promise there will be more focus on fathers going forward – tackles the issues of co-parenting, the role of biological paternity, dads as “babysitters”, and more through research on a very unique population - Mountain Gorillas. I am joined by Dr. Stacy Rosenbaum, whose name you may remember if you listened to my interview with Dr. Lee Gettler, as she discusses her work and how we can think about this work as we tackle the human questions and issues surrounding fathering and parenting in general. Plus, there’s a whole story on sharks too! Thank you all again for listening and enjoy your final episode of the season.

Dr. Stacy Rosenbaum: https://lsa.umich.edu/anthro/people/faculty/biological-faculty/rosenbas.html

Shark Story: https://people.com/celebrity/video-great-white-shark-rescue-cape-cod/

Relevant articles:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513821000465

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33380-4

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011216

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=4497059527531484752&hl=en&oi=scholarr

When we look at research, especially in the realm of development, we tend to focus on things like resilience, struggles families face, and so on. This is particularly true when we look at the research on parenting in families of colour - the focus starts with what's wrong and how we can fix it. It was under this guise that I approached Dr. Erika Bocknek as she had done research on resilience in Black Fathers that was - I thought - interesting. What we talked about ended up being quite different with a much larger focus on the inherent racism that exists in the research questions and assumptions themselves, especially when we look at Black Fathers. I hope that you will all find this as eye-opening and important a conversation as I did because we need to recognize these problems before we can start to fix them.

Dr. Erika Bocknek: https://wayne.edu/people/an5012

Research:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/imhj.21950

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/dev.22168

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51027-5_7

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/dev.21836

This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Lee Gettler, discussing his research which has advanced our knowledge on fathering across cultures and from different lenses. Here is for all the fathers out there.

Dr. Lee Gettler: https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/lee-gettler/

Relevant Research (just skimming the surface):

https://www.pnas.org/content/108/39/16194.short

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/dev.22121

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70958-3

https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_3281046

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajhb.23342

Let's be honest - when we talk about parenting, we're often talking about mothering. Most of the research on raising kids is based on mothers. Mothers in WEIRD cultures (and by weird, I mean the acronym - Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic countries). But of course, humans are in a small group of animals where the fathers play a large role in how children are raised. This means we need to broaden our work, our discussions, and our mindsets around parenting if we're going to truly understand parenting. As such, this is the beginning of my Fatherhood series where I will be welcoming researchers who have focused on fathers in their work. There are more than you'd think and this is just the beginning of what I hope to cover. And starting us off is the researcher who comes to most minds when we think of research on fathering - Dr. Lee Gettler. This is the beginning of a two-part interview covering just a small part of his research which has advanced our knowledge on fathering across cultures and from different lenses. Here is for all the fathers out there.

Dr. Lee Gettler: https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/lee-gettler/

Relevant Research (just skimming the surface):

https://www.pnas.org/content/108/39/16194.short

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/dev.22121

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70958-3

https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_3281046

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajhb.23342

We are almost two years into a global pandemic and many families have struggled to find a new normal. Some people seem to have found a new normal that exceeds life pre-pandemic, but many face ongoing difficulties. Parents are in a unique position because they are not only facing this pandemic from a personal perspective, but also as those trying to navigate their children's social and emotional well-being. How people are faring is a topic of great interest for researchers and joining me today to talk about how these changes are affecting parents is the head of the Lancet's Covid Mental Health and Well-Being Task Force, Dr. Lara Aknin. As a researcher who primarily studies what makes us happy, she's in a unique position to help us better understand what's going on and how we can all feel better.

Dr. Lara Aknin: https://www.sfu.ca/psychology/about/people/profiles/laknin.html

Lancet's Covid-19 Commission: https://covid19commission.org/

Relevant Articles:

https://psyarxiv.com/zw93g/

https://psyarxiv.com/vdw2e/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w29092

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)31927-9/fulltext

Stress is a hot topic today with many people worrying about the degree of stress they face daily. We know stress in our adult lives is a problem, but I often hear people speak about stress as if it's only an adult problem. Sadly children can face many stressors - some of them quite large - early in life and this can have profound and nuanced impacts on their development, especially how they respond to stress in the future. Joining me today is Dr. Brie Reid, a researcher focusing on the effects of exposure to early life stressors - and the removal of these stressors - and that impacts the development of our stress and other physiological outcomes, including new findings that might bring hope to many.

Dr. Brie Reid: https://www.briemreid.com/about

Dr. Reid on Twitter: https://twitter.com/briemreid?lang=en

Articles of Interest:

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/48/23984.short

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/development-and-psychopathology/article/abs/challenges-in-researching-the-immune-pathways-between-early-life-adversity-and-psychopathology/1E51BFF08BB16A4786661B4214DA7C86

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-085013